Category: Uncategorized
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Wasaga Won Hundred :: 2026
a lo-ong winter. pent up demand. Sunshine and calm air. strong riders and good friends. “No Crashies! No Flatties! No Whammies!”, as Ryan Van Duzer would say. maximum cycling for the sake of it. so begins the new Season
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digital wizardry
it’s easy to take for granted the marvelous technology that gets you reliably to the nearest Starbucks drive thru on a misty Monday morning for a venti cafÃĐ mocha.and most of us are clueless of what techno-magic is even going on inside our shiny devices https://perthirtysix.com/how-the-heck-does-gps-work?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9B1WZXDv8BL9XpDs0O24L1d0HjU3C8lTkiwDf8c42Puu3YoOajnfiCr2q-_pFcPsMRIMv7Ye-SjrB7vsa5qsEhXWFzeA&_hsmi=414775194
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TWTN Roadside Spring Clean-up
with the help of Nigel, Dave, Leif and the Tyler, we were able to fulfil my obligation to Simcoe County to keep this first stretch of Ridge Road looking beautiful. we gathered four big bags of trash that drivers had left for us on the roadside and in ditches that are otherwise relatively nice looking…
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ice hole
so, I was on my way to work on a Sunny, -11c (-17c windchill) Spring morning, cursing the blistering cold as I rolled out of my neighbourhood on two wheels. as I rode by Centennial Beach, I spotted a lone man out on the still frozen Bay, swinging an axe into the ice surface, as…
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use it or lose it
AI development will, no doubt, continue to deploy new capabilities at breakneck speeds for the foreseeable future… it’s ability to replace human cognition, critical thinking and memory makes me wonder if those human abilities will atrophy inversely at the same rate that AI employment grows. kind of like our muscles shrinking when we use snowblowers…
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cousins ride
Astrid vW led us out of Utrecht on our two wheelers heading into the golden hour on an unseasonably warm Dutch afternoon. on the backseat of the tandem, Chris captured some really remarkable scenes that beautifully reflected the serene ride we shared through the scenic scapes.
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guests in Deutschland
we arrived in Germany, welcomed by Sun and 15c, calm air – a high pressure system that would grace us for our entire week in Deutschland. we trained from Frankfurt airport to Wiesbaden, where Cora and Jacob live. many of their Canadian and American guests arrived around the same time. Cora and Jacob were the…
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n+1
no one wants to die alone and you can’t put a price on happiness. one can never have too many bikes. buy the bike.
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Las Vegas, unnaturally attractive
for over ten years now I’ve been making it a point to rent a bike and explore a little of the City and surroundings beyond the city limits, after working all week within the urban, concrete confines of the Strip and the Convention Center and the sights seen in between. from the perspective of a…
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an eye on Vegas
innumerable distractions in Sin City. these are a few less conventional sights that captured my short little span of attention
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(Sun)dog days of Winter
another cold, crisp Winter’s day. The blue sky and sinking Sun drew me out from my work to shovel the snowfall onto the burgeoning banks and then run a few errand downtown. Jeremy at the Trek shop shared my hopefulness with the noticabley longer days. a reminder to me how awesome it is to live…
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but it’s a Sunny -24c
-24c when we woke up this morning with the low Winter Sun streaming into our front room. Mikayla and Jordyn, still in their jammies ate breakfast and were raring to get outside. We shovelled, played around on the snowbanks and walked Artie a bit before I took off for a roll around the Bay in…
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Blue Monday ð
Blue Monday is a term for the third Monday of January, widely marketed as the “most depressing day of the year” due to a combination of post-holiday debt, broken resolutions, cold weather, and low motivation. it seemed like the perfect time to bundle up warmly, head down to the Flying Monkey to hoist a pint…
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January sights
some sights that left a meaningful impression on me in this cold, dark, snowy month, so far
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the Golden rules
every once in a while, I need to remind myself that it actually is this simple, despite it seeming so difficult at times
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turning the page on 2025
powder snow continued to fall on New Year’s Eve stifling the City’s celebration in Barrie and presumably in other snow belt communities. Chris and I headed up the highway with Artie to have some fun with the Orillia gang. such an enjoyable time with Rae and Luke and the kids! Harrison and Lily love playing…
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to… and fro
leaving home in dark studded tires pop like hot corn cold air bites my face leaving work, Sun’s lowpedals bring me to the darktwilight glows beyond
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wild horses
Monday’s commute brought me, once again, past my equine friends as they grazed breakfast on the cool, grey morning. they seemed rather frisky after they trotted over to me for a nuzzle. one of them found my sweaty jacket sleeve and enjoyed the salt lick while I gave the others a gentle rub. I suddenly…
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Remembrance Day
What I remember, vicariously, through my fatherâs and motherâs storiesâĶ Both my parents were Dutch immigrants to Canada in 1960. All my siblings and I were born in Canada. Growing up, weâve heard many wartime stories (World War II), vividly remembered by mom and dad who were ten and twelve years old when the war…
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Marina Moon
walking home from City Hall last night, the peaceful evening and waning Moon conspired to create some spectacular scenes along the path home
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sinking Sun
as the Sun slowly sinks towards the Solstice, I feel that long black cloud of November is coming down on me. October was generally gorgeous outside as I got into the rhythm of my new (and longer) commuting routine. that made for mostly favourable riding to my new workplace in Oro-Medonte. Until this past weekend’s…
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towering inferno
I rode downtown after work today to meet a colleague for dinner. Ben, from Seattle, is the marketing team’s photographer and video guy. Ben was in Ontario to capture photos and drone footage of the new HÃķrmann Oro-Medonte facilities as well as product application videos in and around Southern Ontario. As we arrived at the…
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TWTN Ridge Road clean-up
I figured I spend so much of each year enjoying the beautiful Ridge Road that I should help maintain it’s beauty. so, I contacted Simcoe County and told them I wanted to adopt a section of road. Lucky for me, they had the first stretch of road leaving Barrie available for me. The inaugural Two…
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mechanical music
I had lunch today sitting at a picnic table outside our new workplace in Oro-Medonte, enjoying the Sunshine and scuttlebutt with some coworkers. our conversation was interrupted by the lazy rhythmic drone of a Lockheed C-130 Hercules’ big engines. it’s a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft, that I guess took off from the nearby Lake…
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Photo Chute
a spectacularly scenic route along the Big Chute Loop, perfect weather, and a photogenic and capable crew made for some fun photography on the two-wheeler today. starting and ending at Quayle’s was Orrin’s perfect plan. thanks for the drive, Orrin!
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don’t worry. bee happy
this cup plant’s bright blooms that Artie and I pass by on our neighbourhood walks are busy with foraging bumblebees the last few days. fascinating to stand and watch them work
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the wheels on the bike go ’round and ’round
Mikayla Leah and Jordyn came to my work for a surprise visit! awesomesauce
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Southwood Road Ramble :: 2025
“it was a rainy day in Pizzaville…” after many weeks of drought, I was actually happy to see the welcomed rain, despite my plans for a long bike ride. we need it. badly. however, for the people previously considering joining me for the fifth annual Southwood Road Ramble, the rain wasnât attractive. nevertheless, seven other…
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bee focused
a slow, tired walk with Artie in the evening golden hour brought us past some beautiful blooms and a busy bee that caught my eye. the warm glow of the August evening Sun provided just the right colour and amount of light I needed for these captures
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bad ideas. good stories
I saw this truthy nugget printed on a coworker’s t-shirt on Friday (dress down for inventory). based on many experiences in my adolescence and early adulthood, it struck me as a very poignant reminder of how we become wiser and more cautious with age, but that we lose some of that reckless abandon that comes…
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Hairshirt North :: 2025
starting with a flat before we even rolled out of Meridian Place, delaying our start a little, allowing late-arrivers a bit more time to get ready and leave with the rest of the group after the puncture was patched up. heat was a factor today. 32c midday when we parked the bikes for lunch in…
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Jordy’s Three
Chris and I pedaled across town to celebrate Jordyn’s three complete trips around the Sun. we stopped by the Airshow to see several skilled and spunky pilot above the Bay and a few ignorant and idiotic spectators around the Bay. of course, most people were great and happy to share the spectacule in the sky…
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Wasaga Won Hundred :: 2025
the forecast for the fourth annual April fondo ride was looking pretty grim during the week leading up to it. late March and early April were mostly cold and a little wet and I really needed a pick-me-up; I was hopeful this ride would help me shake the blues. a pleasant surprise that Paul made…
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the Arborist’s wet dream
the horrible, beautiful ice storm disaster of Spring twenty-five… to a meteorologist, it’s a rarity to a tree hugger, it’s a crying shame to a photographer, it’s a rare spectacle to a property owner, it’s a liability to a mayor, it’s a state of emergency to a provincial premier, it’s a photo op to a…
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thin ice
despite the cold, grey, wet weather, Chris and I decided to walk about with Mikayla, Jordyn and Artie. the icy environment comes into sharper focus when seen through children’s eyes. the lights in our home had flickered several times before we left for our walk causing us to speculate there may be several branches down…
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eye to eye
Lily’s eyes are so striking. wide with wonder. blue as the great beyond. sparking with a spirit of spontaneity and joy.
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Nature. Always. Wins.
for millennia humans have been altering our environment to better suit our desires. we have developed a self-assured hubris that we can dominate and control the Natural world that surrounds us. yet, Nature proves to us time and again – think pandemics, hurricanes, wild fires, to name a few examples – that our hubris will…
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a spoonful of sugar
the wonders of modern medicine: this was all before Doc got me on the right meds. I’m much better now ðĪŠ
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sticky
I biked to work this morning on dry roads but by noon wet sticky snow was falling. by evening, when I was forced to leave my two-wheeler at work and walk to Mom’s place and back, I experienced a cognitive dissonance as I was cursing the slippery, snow clogged sidewalks while simultaneously enjoying the beauty…
Two Wheels To Nowhere 