Wednesday, August 9, 2017

The Icing on the Icing on the Cake (or suitable equivalent)!

Like all cyclists, I have a deep love of fresh, smooth asphalt. In terms of public investment, I personally value it above all the bike infra in the world. I am in a minority on that one, but that's OK. I like bike infra too. This post is about both.

I have not been riding as much as I would like, being limited by several factors. As such I had not ridden as far as I could go on the Thames Valley Parkway (an extensive and wonderful London Ontario Multi Use Pathway) in quite some time. I knew they City was working on the South branch, but wow, is it ever nice now!

There is beautiful smooth path all the way from Adelaide St to Meadowlily bridge, a ten minute ride for a slowpoke like me. This smoothness replaces all kinds of bumps and problems with many joyjoys. This, my friends, represents the Cake referred to in my title.



If you take the paved surface of the South branch of the TVP as far as you can, you come to a dead end. This dead end has had a sign in place for YEARS promising an extension that would overcome the obstacle of a rail line and connect it to the paths of Kiwanis Park in the east end of the city. It was beginning to look like it would never happen, but now there are new signs and honest to god shovels in the ground! Icing.



When I leave the dead end path and make my way to work on the streets, there was one bit of Hale Street that was in terrible repair. Again, it was that way for years. Now it has been repaired; nothing but sweet smooth asphalt in place of that ugliness. Icing on my Icing! Or, since I have no picture, let's revise that to Breadcrumbs on Juice! 



You may recall that this is not the first time I have reported

Thank you, oh multiple layers of government that contributed to the best ride to work in a long while! Thank you, London planners who sometimes come through big time! Cake! Icing! Icing! (Or, if you like, Cake! Breadcrumbs! Juice! Hurrah!)


Yer Pal,
R A N T W I C K

2 comments:

John said...

I used to like icing as a kid and when my wife told me the ingredients as we were making my sons birthday cake one year many moons ago, my mind was blown. So believe it or not bread crumbs and juice sounds great to me. =)

Steve A said...

Fresh asphalt is much less nice on a hot, summer Texas day than it is in cooler places such as Ocean Shores or London. BTW, on your Google video, technically you WEREN'T doing very good riding. You WERE, however, doing a masterful stop, combined with a bit of waddling that the camera wasn't in a position to catch. The motorist would have been a "better stopper" himself had he not been glommed on to the right lane instead of looking ahead. Should you ever encounter him again, in a quiet bar, let him know that John Forester teaches "the danger is ahead." The cyclist in the next lane over isn't "ahead."

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