I headed out for a short bike ride this evening and ended up at Parliament Hill shortly before sunset. While I was standing at the fence behind the Library of Parliament, I watched a family taking the usual tourist shots. One of the RCMP officers that was nearby went over and offered to take their picture. He got them organized, but something wasn’t right. Reaching into a pocket in his vest, he pulled out a small Canadian flag, gave it to the little boy and then took the pictures. Then he swapped places with the father and posed for a couple of pictures with the rest of the family.

Though he wasn’t wearing the Red Serge or sitting on a horse, I’m certain the family didn’t care.

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Ottawa has been having some nice weather the last couple of days, so yesterday I checked over my bike and got it ready for the road. It was nice again this evening so I grabbed my stuff and headed out for the first ride of the season.

I made my way to Dow’s Lake where I picked up the bike path along the Canal. Following it down to the NAC, I headed to Parliament Hill where I did a quick lap past the Library of Parliament before making my way back along the Ottawa River Parkway. Normally, I would have taken the bike path, but there were still sections blocked by snow.

This is one of the earliest first rides I’ve taken. Last year, I wrote about the first ride of 2008 on April 25th. Hopefully, this is good omen of the weather for the next few months.

I had my first ride of the year this evening along the Ottawa River.  Just a short ride to the War Museum and back because it was getting late.  Though I have both a tail light and a head light, none of the other cyclists I encountered on either the path or the roads, except one, had any lights or reflectors.

HTA 62(17) – Lights

a bike must have a white front light and a red rear light or reflector if you ride between 1/2 hour before sunset and 1/2 hour after sunrise and white reflective tape on the front forks and red reflective tape on rear forks.  Set fine: $20.00

That’s taken from the MTO’s Cycling Skills website.

It’s not like lights are expensive.  You can pick up tiny white and red LED lights from Mountain Equipment Co-op for under $4/each, so there’s really no excuse for cyclists not having lights if they’re going riding at night.