Cee’s on fire with all of the excellent challenges lately, providing me with tons of inspiration left and right.  This one, the Share Your World Challenge, is less focused on photos and more answering questions, which I love.  Here goes.

A piece of clothing from your younger childhood you still remember?

Ab. So. Lute. Ly. I was a huge fan of Zoom in the early 1970’s and always wanted a horizontally-striped shirt just like the kids on the show had. Sadly, for at least five years, this never happened. But then, just in time for Grade 5, I got one. Now I just needed to learn the song and dance moves!

Regardless of your physical fitness, coordination or agility: If you could be an athlete what would do do?   Remember this is SYW, dreaming is always allowed.

My favourite athletic pursuit is long distance cycling. Here I am just before I did my second long bike tour – this one a charity ride that raised money for the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation by riding 600 km from Toronto to Montreal. I did it in 2010, and in 2011, just after this photo was taken, I did that route again and then continued onward to Quebec City by myself for a total of 1,000 kilometres.

I’m not a racer, and though I have fun racing on Zwift sometimes, I don’t have a lot of interest. What I do have an interest in is randonneuring: riding 200, 300, or more kilometres in one trip. There are no winners – just those who finish within the allowed time and those who don’t. It looks like lots of fun. I probably won’t do it officially, though. There seems to be an overwhelming tendency for these events to start and finish in places where you need to have a car. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try for a 200 kilometre ride this summer – I did a 170 last summer so I’m not far off. What I like about cycling is that it is faster than walking, but still slow enough to avoid missing interesting people, places, and things. So an athletic event that involves going interesting places at a pace fast enough to appreciate them without worrying about winning or losing sounds like heaven.

The other thing I’d love to do is a long term tour of 6-12 months. I don’t see how that will happen without some magic happening. A lottery ticket found (I don’t buy them out of principle), a friend gifting me thousands of dollars. I dream of putting all of the worldly goods I might need in four panniers on my bike and setting off on an adventure. I’ve had so many amazing experiences on shorter trips like riding around Vermont and Quebec or riding to New York City. Imagine what would happen in one or more unfamiliar countries for several months.  Maybe some day I’ll get to hang a placard on my bike like this:

In a car would you rather drive or be a passenger?

Always a passenger. Driving is a necessary evil. If I’m going to be in a vehicle, let someone else do the navigation and stress about maintaining all of the attention needed to avoid anyone’s getting hurt. I’ll watch out the window or read my book.

What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?

Taking this picture. (More on this subject in another entry…)