First ride: Klare goes to Chartwell; Clare goes for a ride

 As we were winding up our first session of pilot training orientation and hands on experience, I felt it was getting to the time to move Klare to Port Credit so that the next phase of our training could be done on the actual trails we had planned for our ride season.

As I had been a little under the weather last week, I postponed the call for an escort to ride Klare the 6.5km from home to Chartwell Robert Speck until the night before the planned event.  I had decided that a Saturday morning would be best as traffic would be light and co-pilots more available than during the week.  My message out our Streetsville Slow Rollers got several responses and Kim Tan, who is still recovering from his broken collarbone (cycling casualty) offered to attend and record the send off from 1113 Dreamcrest.

Although I wasn't feeling the greatest on Saturday morning, the sight of our escort riders buoyed my spirits and we were ready to roll within a few minutes of the designated 10:00am departure time.  Our route took us down to the Eglinton MUT, through a quiet neighbourhood and then over the Confederation bridge to catch the bike path at Living Arts Drive to Burnhamthorpe.  Thankfully Kim decided to ride the trishaw as a passenger and navigator through the quiet residential streets since, although I had plotted the route on PlotARoute, I hadn't memorized it!

The trained Mississauga Cycling marshals that accompanied Klare & myself made sure that all intersections and pinch points were properly accommodated and we made our entrance to Chartwell to be welcomed by Clare, my mother-in-law and the 94 year old inspiration for the name of our trishaw and her daughter, Lisette, who recorded it for posterity.  My thanks to Juelene, Kris, Kim, Kirk and Joseph for their help in getting Klare to Chartwell.

Since Clare was out already I asked her if she would like to go for an impromptu ride around the entrance round-about at Chartwell and she was game so we loaded her up with Lisette riding shotgun and did a once around the driveway.  She was so enthralled with that short ride that she was game to go further and I was itching to try out the route that I had walked around Chartwell earlier in preparation for this event.  We bid Joseph adieu as he had to return home and while Kim kept watch over Mum's walker, we headed out on the trail accompanied by Kris, Kirk and Juelene.  Since I had not ridden this trail on a bike, much less a trishaw, I was overly cautious on the slopes but Mum took it all in her stride and enjoyed the sights of the scenic (if urban) Cooksville Creek admiring the ducks sunning themselves on the banks of granite block erosion control boulders.

We rode back to the Burnhamthorpe trail via Absolut Ave after disturbing a homeless resident under the Robert Speck bridge while making a 3 point turn in the trishaw.  Except for one steep section of the Alberto Cautadella Memorial Trail in the Woodington Green park where I needed a helpful push from Kris, the trishaw behaved beautifully and brought our precious cargo back to Chartwell safe, sound and excited.  It was the perfect Mother's Day present for Clare on the day which would have also been her 69th Wedding Anniversary!  We created a shared Google Album for the occasion which I hope you will enjoy.

Thanks to all who made this possible including the cooperation of Nadine Scoccia, activities manager at Chartwell who has been excited about this program from the time I introduced it to her.  She has agreed to display Klare in the bistro until we are ready to move her down to Port Credit Residences where she will reside for the season.