GRR Pick up Adventure!

I Went down to Calgary for the weekend of March 27. On my way I visited and helped Grant at Bentley Cycle Saturday afternoon (well really hung out, answered some customer questions regarding bents, accessories, blogs, etc and almost was in the way! He He) . Had a great time! Then stopped at Robs In Olds (of The Recumbent Blog) to see his Manga Velo  Cool, I think I want one in the future! We talked about velos, recumbent stuff and the TOT in Idaho this year.
I finally got to Ken & Lenores close to 11pm - kinda late for dinner!

Next morning I got up and using  new gps software for my Iphone Called Motion-X GPS Drive, drove to Bow Cycle to look around (no 'bents!) Why are all the "bigger" bike stores so hesitant to bring in ``some`` quality recumbents? They bring in the cheap stuff and then say they don't sell - duh!! I got back into my van and proceeded to make my way to MEC. While I was there I got some new rechargeable batteries (the best price for good 2650 mahs in town), a new seat bag, some clips, & glueless tire patches. After spending my allowance there I drove to Cochrane to pick up the GRR using the Motion-X Drive app. This app for $.99 works really well. It gave pretty good voice directions.

As I got close to Cornells cul-de-sac, I saw him turn a corner on his Cat Trike EXP and pulled up behind him. After razing him abit I followed Him to his house. The first thing I see is a Rans Crank Forward bike that he had built up. Neat, it would nice to have some day, for off road adventures. Sitting beside it was the Blue GRR! Wow, a beautiful cool blue and its so light. After gabbing and gushing over the bike, we went in  and had a nice lunch of homemade minestrone soup and scones. Mmm, Cornell is a good cook - Lucky for Muriel his wife! After lunch and looking at his drum, snare and Roy Rogers/Lone Ranger collection we went went back outside.

With my excitement growing about riding a GRR for the first time, we put om my Crank Bros Mallet pedals, a Planet Bike Super Flash light on rear of the GRR, adjusted the seat and went for a sunny, very windy, 25 km ride among the rolling hills and vistas near their acreage! Cornell & Muriel sure live with a majestic view! Boy, the GRR is so much more responsive and so much easier to go over rolling hills than even the TE! Being my first ride on a GRR I was very impressed. Yes, I sold a great bike and bought another without ever riding it before; but the I expected it after reading so many ride reports and talking to others about the GRR vs. TE, I had simply out grown the TE as far as performance and efficency was concerned.

When we got back and were just gabbing, I found out that Cornell was with Canada Parks for over 25 years and had been in every back woods cabin in Jasper and Banff Parks and was responsible for the furnishing of many of the historical sites in many western Parks; WAY COOL! As were going for a coffee Cornell showed me a cool battery charger: PowerEX. Another electronic gadget that the wives would roll thier eyes up on. Anyways this thing recharges, discharges, renews and tells you if the battery is toast! drooooool gadgets! With all the lights and other gizmos I run with having reliable, reusable batteries is important, green and inexpensive.

We had  a great cup of coffee and Cornells homemade blueberry bran muffins (mmmm) while talking about ‘bents and BROL, TOT and diet stuff.(TOT 07: a video) We then concluded our transaction, then he showed me his horses (well mostly Muriels) and acreage. Around 6:45 pm, I loaded up the bike into the van, said bye, and started the drive back to Edmonton. Stopped off in Bentley to drop off a trike rack to Grant; picked up a friend of Kara’s and drove home, got there around 11 pm.

Over all an Utterly Wunderbar Weekend!