It was a glorious day for any bike ride, but particularly for this ride. On Jack's recommendation, we started at the Stickleback and headed east to Mechosin claiming that it was downhill. Jack's judgement was called into question over the first few kilometres, only to be vindicated as we enjoyed the downhill run to Mechosin.

Because of strata council commitments, Norm did not stop for coffee, instead turned around in Mechosin and rode back to the starting point, but not without taking this photograph.

Coffee chat went around the tremendous development that has taken place over the last 100 years (Doug mentioned that this is the 100th ann. of the relativity theory). Jack reminisced about doing physics on the old UBC 2 story high Van de Graff machine in the days before transistors and the transition to the amazing 4096 bite PDP computer and the state of the art “kicksorter”. This of course led to the discussion of present day computers, phones, watches etc.

Jim rode back with us to km 28 then headed back to Vic to put on his target number of kilometers - his age. Doug and Jack cruised back to the cars easily doing 24 – 30 km/hr (except for the two “dips”. Ended with a discussion on the latest republican presidential candidate and how the world might evolve if he wins (followed by another Harper majority). A depressing note on such an uplifting day!

And now for a couple of bonus items:

This day in history - on March 24, 1603 the Scottish King became King of Scotland, England and Wales - a take-over of major proportions.

For a cycling story with a difference - there was an interesting story in the Globe about the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair being held in Pittsburgh. One of the members of Team Canada is one Duncan Stothers, from Vancouver, who made the team based on his invention - a modified bike frame that's up to 90% safer in a front on collision. And in today's world, he has his own website where there are interesting videos of his testing of his project.