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[Monday, July 10, 2000: Enviro Trek.]
Today was Enviro Trek day. The plan was to spend the morning planting trees in Gatineau (?) Park and volunteer at Escapade 2000 (where 65km of bike trail around the Ottawa-Hull area were officially opened).
All in all, it turned out to be a fairly uneventful day. Most of the people who actually did stuff were part of the Enviro Trek committee. They ended up manning the stands and displays, while the rest of us (after we had planted our token tree) were basically free for the entire day. I spent most of my time playing volleyball, ultimate and throwing the disc around. I even learned how to do the spinning jump catch! *twirls*
![[My Future Trek group.]](../Pictures/2000-05-14/2000-07-02a.jpg)
During the last full day of Future Trek, we had an event called Enviro Trek where we promoted environmental awareness and helped plant trees in Rockcliffe park. As I was not part of the Enviro Trek team, I wasn't needed to man any of the tents or displays. I was only there to plant my tree (and enjoy the weather). This involved surprisingly little back breaking work, and much of the time was spent mulling around waiting for things to happen. (Was I ever going to regret it later that day.)
This is the "Out of the Blue" group shot.
The weather was oppressively hot and sunny in the morning, but as lunch rolled around, a wave of clouds came by and we were subjected to occasional showers. Nothing too heavy mind you, but it always seemed as if something big was coming along anytime soon.
One of the attractions at the event was a vehicle known as a velobus (velo = bike for those non-french people). It was a boxy four-wheeled, 33-seat (three rows of eleven) peddle vehicle which steered like a pig and moved so slowly that people could run to keep up with it. Don and I wanted to get on the velobus before we left the park. I was a little wary once I found out that people on the velobus were pelted by waterballons as they were leaving, and after they had returned. Every time we heard a large calamity at the entrance, we knew that the velobus had returned.
Don and I had missed a couple of chances to get on the velobus, so we jumped on the opportunity of getting on the vehicle. We ended up getting on the back and sped away as the lynch mob threw water balloons in our wake. Some hit the back of the vehicle, but we came out mostly dry.
![[The Vélobus.]](../Pictures/2000-05-14/2000-07-02b.jpg)
One of the events that was taking place during Enviro Trek was the ride on the Vélobus. The Vélobus is a 33 seat peddle vehicle (it even has a license plate!) which was used to tour around the park. This was also the same vehicle that ran over my foot when we put it away. Ah, the memories.
This is the picture of the Vélobus.
The velobus was very difficult to get moving. It had only one gear, and no matter how hard you peddled, the darned thing didn't accelerate very quickly. The driver and the other two riders in the front I recognized as some of the better soccer (and ultimate) players that I played with during the week. They cane up with this harebrained idea to bike all the way downtown. This suggestion met with considerable support from the peanut gallery, so as we approached one of the main roads, they started turning left (away from the designated path which was marked by pylons). One of the guards who was standing there asked us where we were going and our driver told him that we were going to go downtown. He sorta laughed at us and told us to stick to the trail. What could we do? We turned right and continued along the trail.
Now our driver still had the idea of directing us down to downtown Ottawa, but in the meantime, he had fun trying to wave between the pylons. This was very difficult (impossible basically) since the pylons were spaced less than the length of the velobus, and since the vehicle couldn't steer worth.. crap, we ended up running over quite a number of pylons. It took us (in the rear) some time to figure out why there were so many pylons getting stuck under us.
Now I should note that the trail that was marked off was still partially open to traffic. The pylons were put in place so that bicyclists wouldn't have to worry about any cars that my be coming to greet them. Further, the velobus's four wheels were attached to the vehicles like stubby little appendages to the side of the bus, so the vehicle required a little more horizontal leeway than it looks.
Dissention began to rise in the ranks as our illustrious leaders began to drive rather haphazardly, driving with one side of the velobus in the gutter, or casually sucking up pylons along the trail. They somehow managed to (more or less) behave around the checkpoints where guides were posted to help us along the way. At one point, we had to stop and turn, so one of the guys in the front jumped off, grabbed an extra reflecting vest that was lying at the checkpoint, and ran to catch up with us. I was tempted (actually, I did) to peddle as hard as I could, but he managed to catch up and jump back onto the bus, plus reflective vest.
Now, the people in the back started to really worry as the leaders pulled all of these antics. It all came to a head as we were careening towards a four-way stop, a little too close to the side of the road. We didn't seem to slow down much as we approached the intersection, until someone (who was on the right-hand side) tried to shout out to the drivers that we were too far to the right. Too little, too late. There was a *THUNK* and our bus came to a sudden halt. The STOP sign that we ran into bent a bit. One of the leaders hopped off, gave the sign a swift kick, saw that it was still sturdy, and we continued on (after maneuvering ourselves around the sign). There was a witness that I noticed as we slowly sped off, and I shouted out to her,
"You saw nothing!"
Like that would hold up in court.
We continued on the trail until, for some odd reason, the line of pylons ended. I might not have been paying attention at the time, because we (in the back) were staring at this odd foot peddle that only the person in the back right corner of the vehicle could press. It was around the time we left the trail when we discovered that it was (as some of us first predicted) another brake peddle (there's also one in the front). We realized that we (in the back) suddenly has some (nominal) power over our navigators (at the front).
The next time I looked up and around us, I noticed that we were away from the park grounds, and in the middle of a residential area. Curious residents who happened to be outside watched us as we waved and hollered at them. They seemed (to me) surprised to see us, which suggests that we did stray from the pre-designated path. This only fueled the bickering between the front and the back. Don (who had control of the brake peddle) stopped us a number of times as we approached stop signs when it was pretty obvious that the guys in the front wouldn't. (I found out later that the velobus is in fact a licensed vehicle. It even has a license plate!) It's always nice to obey the law. Each time we slowed down, someone in the front would look around to the back and ask,
"Who's doing that?"
But the conspirators in the back (I think only four of us knew) remained quiet.
After wandering around in the residential area for a little while, the guys in the front asked us what we wanted to do. They wanted to go downtown still, and wanted to put it to a vote (there was a resounding cry of "No!"). They were also quite lost. Fortunately, one of the guys with us was from the area and directed us to continue going forward. We eventually saw pylons in the distance and headed in that direction.
Reaching the pylons, we saw that we had come back to someplace in the middle of the original trail. We were on the wrong side of the road, which meant that we had to cross the road to make it back to the trail. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of traffic (cars on the near side, and bikes on the far side) that made this passage difficult. A couple of the guys in the front jumped off, one donned the reflective vest (that they acquired earlier in the ride) and went into the middle to stop traffic. The other two went out to clear out the pylons to allow us passage. So, as traffic reached a standstill, we (ever so slowly) peddled our way through the gap and back into the pre-determined route. There must've been quite a number of surprised onlookers.
We were not out of the woods yet, the last leg of the ride was mostly downhill, and despite our confidence in our leaders steering ability (or because of it) Don rode on the brakes part of the way down, so that we wouldn't end up careening over the edge of the cliff.
As we approached the park entrance, we prepared for the onslaught of water balloons that we expected to come our way, but we didn't see anyone. The only thing we saw was an ambulance parked on the side of the road that arrived while we were gone.
When we got to the entrance to disembark, I saw that there was a girl who was lying on the grass with her head and neck held in a brace, and cushioned with a couple of pillows. Asking around, we found out that one of the girls got hit in the head by a waterballon and something happened to her neck. The mood of the group got much more somber after hearing the news, and despite the number of people who wanted to ride on the velobus, they told us to put it away.
I decided to help out with putting the vehicle back, and we went through the labourious process of turning the vehicle around. Because you could not peddle the velobus backwards, we needed people on the side to move the vehicle in reverse. It was a tight corner we were rounding, so we had to go back and fourth a number of times before clearing the curb, at which point the velobus really picked up speed.
I was pushing on the right hand side of the velobus in front of the rear wheel. Once we had cleared the curb, the vehicle picked up speed and I started running with the vehicle when I felt my left foot (which was extended behind me) stop moving. The next moment, I was thrown aside onto the road and my foot was throbbing in pain. I was in complete agony and couldn't do anything but roll around and clutch at my injured foot.
I'll continue this story later.
Monday, July 10, 2000 at 23:41:09 (UTC)
Ooooh! Captivating story.. plenty of drama! Can't wait for the second half.
Hwanphlegm
Sunday, July 16, 2000 at 22:20:15 (UTC)
On the bright side, at least your injury is credible. Just think how goofy you'd feel saying "yeah, so I was hospitalised after a water balloon hit me on the head."
Mikeomatic