Mountain Biking 23:00 [2] 6.6 km (17.2 kph)
Algonquin Park - As a warm-up, we rode from the Minnesing Trail parking lot into Canisbay Campground to visit the Hingorani family. After reading so much about cadence on Attackpoint lately, I manually counted what felt like a high cadence on a road section, and now I have a sense of what 80 rpm feels like (not really super-high). Normally, I don't have hummingbird cadence like Lance - I'm a big gear grinder like Jan. But I have a bad knee, so I figure it's worth trying to change my technique.
Mountain Biking 2:03:00 [4] 24.5 km (12.0 kph)
Minnesing Trail, Algonquin Park.
This is an annual tradition - always lots of fun. This year, the whiteboard at the trailhead was plastered with warnings: "Very Rough Conditions!", "Many Sections Unrideable!", "Not for Inexperienced Riders", etc. So it wasn't a year to break records. They've apparently had a wetter year than usual - we don't remember seeing so much mud in September. However, that made for good AR practice. Especially on the first half of the trail, we did a lot of weaving to choose the best line through deep muck between rocks, then we would do a dry, rocky climb with a nice ride along a hill before descending into the next mud pit. The second half of the trail is an old carriage road, and parts of it provided a fun, blazing fast ride. I haven't done as much technical riding this year as in other years, but things went pretty well, and it didn't feel like a big aerobic challenge, so I guess that part of my training is working. Luckily, the rain held off for us!
Paddling 1:00:00 [2]
Kayak paddling, since we had an odd number of family members to go in canoes. We returned to the canoe campsite where 'Bent and I were married ten years ago and asked the occupants if we could come ashore for five minutes with our parents. They were very nice and thought this was really cool. One of them was a justice of the peace, and offered to renew our vows! Nice to return there with the family.