The last day of the season for the NCC Alcatel-Lucent Sunday Bikedays is always the Sunday of the Labour Day weekend. This year was no different, but it certainly seemed to come too soon in the year!
The early part of the summer in Ottawa was very wet this year and that curtailed a lot of outdoor activities. But now that things are drier, officially summer is over and so are the Sunday bikedays. The day was perfect though, nice and cool, with light winds. Even though we had just returned from a camping trip and were still cleaning up we couldn't resist getting out early this morning to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.
So we completed the 30 km quadracycle round trip from our part of the city to the Second Cup on Laurier Avenue, Ruth's favourite destination! It was a nice way to finish the Bikeday season, even if we have lots of summer left to enjoy, yet.
Read our Quadracycling in Ottawa Blog for the complete story.
We recently heard from Ottawa writer and green project consultant Jamil Sharif, who found us through this website.
Jamil was interested in seeing our Rhoades Car with a view to building a full-fairing for this model, turning it into a more all-weather velomobile. Jamil has quite a bit of experience with velomobiles as he owns and rides a Danish-made Leitra velomobile.
We met on Sunday 16 August 2009 at the University of Ottawa. Jamil brought along his Leitra, Ruth and I brought our Rhoades Car 4W2PCP and we each took turns trying the two vehicles out.
Read our Quadracycling in Ottawa Blog for the complete story on this interesting swap.
We haven't had a lot of luck out on the Alcatel-Lucent Bike Days on the Colonel By Drive this year. In the two previous years we have been able to do the 30 km ride from our house downtown and back almost every weekend. But we hadn't had a successful run yet this year.
There was always a reason for it. The weather has been pretty wet in the early part of the summer, we have lost some weekends to other commitments, too. Then there were the two previous attempts we tried that resulted in mechanical problems.
This weekend we were determined to get a successful trip in. After all it is July already!
I can report that we completed our run into town and even made it for coffee on Laurier Avenue without a hitch. Phew!
Read our Quadracycling in Ottawa Blog for the details.
In early May 2009 we travelled to Montreal to play tourist for a few days.
We did all the things that tourists do in that city: went to museums, hiked up the mountain, ate bagels and rented a quadracycle in the old city down at the docks.
The quadracycle that we rented was a made-in-Montreal Quadricycle International Quad-3, which turned out to be very different from our own quadracycle back home. In fact, other than four wheels and pedals, they didn't have much in common. We had a lot of fun pedalling around the waterfront area and we learned lots about the difference between tourist rental quadracycles and touring quadracycles.
We also took lots of photos and put together a complete review of the Quadricycle International Quad-3.
Read our Quadracycling in Ottawa Blog for the review.
We have been running our Rhoades Car using the tires that came with it when it was delivered from the factory. The Chinese-made Cheng Shins have been fine tires and still have a couple of season's wear left on them, so we weren't looking to replace them quite yet.
However circumstances made some new tires available to us and we took the opportunity to pick them up when we could do so.
Today we installed the new German-made Schwalbe Big Apples and took the quadracycle out on the road to give them a test and see how they compare to the factory-installed tires.
The difference was actually quite noticeable and well worth making the switch for.
Read our Quadracycling in Ottawa Blog entry for the complete story.
Sunday April 5th was the day to be outside. After a few days of really torrential rains it stopped and the streets finally dried up. Looking at the weather forecast the next five days are going to be rainy and perhaps even snowy!
The first gardening task was to get some bags of top soil. Ruth's estimates indicated that we would need quite a bit of it, in fact about eight bags.
The good news is that it was on sale "dirt cheap" and not far away, at our local shopping mall, too.
The bad news: eight bags weigh 280 lbs! The load was heavy, but quadracycle was easily up to the task!
Check our Quadracycling in Ottawa Blog for the story.
This past winter was relatively cold, but with a pretty average amount of snow - nothing like last winter when we had near record amounts of the white stuff and it lingered well into April here in Ottawa. This year, with a very low snowfall amount late in the winter, less than three centimeters of snow in March, the snow was gone by the end of that month. After a good few days of rain at the end of March the salt was washed from the roads and it was safe to bring out the Rhoades Car for the year!
Our first day out involved a cold wind, but it was good enough to inflate the tires, re-grease the chains to do some test runs on our street.
Everything went well and we are now ready to go out and enjoy the spring weather. There is gardening work to do, of course, and this means that the Rhoades Car will be used as a pick-up truck to go shopping for the heavy loads of material needed.
Read our Quadracycling in Ottawa Blog for the story of this year's season.
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They are sometimes called quadracycles, quadricycles, quadcycles or even four wheeled bikes.
Whatever you call them they are a lot of fun and have some distinct advantages compared to bicycles and motor cars.
Whether ridden on the road or on bike-trails there is no other pedal-powered vehicle that can offer the advantages of side-by-side seating for two.
Quadracycles are the ultimate "green", zero emissions car. They can carry similar loads to a motor car and do it quietly, without burning any gasoline and while providing some good exercise. They are more comfortable, more stable and carry a lot more than a bike. There is a comparison with these other vehicles in About Quadracycles.
We have been riding our mountain bikes in Ottawa since 2001 and have greatly enjoyed our experiences on the city's great network of bike trails as well as on the streets. The Alcatel-Lucent Sunday Bikedays NCC parkway closures to motor vehicles have been wonderful experiences as we take our bikes out, along with thousands of other bike riders and in-line skaters in the city.
The people of Ottawa love their bikes. They own and ride them in amazing numbers. We have seen thousands of bikes, including recumbents and the occasional trike, but in all the time we have been biking in Ottawa we have never seen a four wheeled bike. That seems amazing in a bike-crazy city like Ottawa!
Perhaps when we took our quadracycle out on the city streets for the fist time on 25 March 2007 we were the first to pedal one in Ottawa?
Whether this is the first quadracycle in Ottawa or not, it has been getting lots of attention from people who see us. So we decided to create this website to provide information about quadracycling, quadracycling rules, explain how we got into it, talk about what our personal experiences have been and let you know how to have a closer look at a real live quadracycle.
We also have a collection of quadracycle photos, plus pictures of the Rhoades Car family of quadracycles.
Find out about quadracycles and what they are good for.
This page was last updated on: Sunday 6 September 2009
