Biking Inspired My Mystery Novel

 

 

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In April 2020, my husband Will and I got e-bikes for an activity to do during Calgary's shutdown for the COVID-19 pandemic. We'd enjoyed regular biking all our lives, but I'd grown tired of struggling up streets in my foothills home city and walking my bike up the steeper roads. 

The previous year I'd tried out an e-bike at a mountain festival and was awed by its instant power and the ease of pedaling up the base of a ski hill. Will and I considered upgrading to e-bikes then but didn't get around to it. Now, with a summer of limited options looming ahead, we checked out bikes at several local stores and settled on a small store close to our home.  

On our second visit I asked the owner/manager why his store was open when most retail outlets were closed for the pandemic.    

"Bikes are considered essential," he said, with a tone of pride or surprise. "We're transportation."

 

I used that line in my new novel, Spring Into Danger. 

That spring 2020 I was busy finishing the third book in my Paula Savard Mystery Series and starting to mull ideas for the fourth. Since Paula is an insurance adjuster, her next case would come from her insurance work. Ten Days in Summer (book # 2) involved a building fire with a suspicious death. Book # 3, Winter's Rage, developed from a hit-and-run collision that killed a woman. A theft case seemed the likely next adventure for Paula. How about a break and enter at a bicycle store? 

Our bike purchases led to several follow-up trips to the store. My front basket kept popping its screws and was eventually recalled for safety reasons. My spring-loaded seat came off whenever I grabbed it to lift the bike. Okay, I probably shouldn't be lifting the bike that way, but it's a habit. 

The store owner gave me a regular seat and ordered a replacement spring-loaded one. Each time we phoned or went to the store to enquire about the order's progress, he'd tell us about delays in the supply chain due to COVID protocols at the Vancouver port and the demand for bicycles causing backlogs in orders. Everyone was out walking or biking that shutdown summer. We witnessed the shrinking bicycle stock in the store. The owner told us people now had to wait months for e-bikes. 

In hindsight I wonder if I enjoyed those store visits as an oasis of normalcy in the midst of the pandemic shutdown. Grocery stores -- about my only other in-person shopping -- often had lineups. This bike store didn't. At the grocery store checkout, customers waited on floor markings spaced safely apart. Grocery shoppers crabbed about others blocking the aisles since we weren't allowed to pass anyone. Nothing like that at the bike store. By summer most grocery store workers and customers wore masks. I saw no masks in our bike store; the bottle of hand sanitizer on the checkout counter went unused. Grocery shortages annoyed me. We already had our bikes and were only missing my spring-loaded seat. It never did arrive. After two years of waiting, we and the store owner gave up. I find my regular seat comfortable.

My story mulling continued. If I set my next novel during the COVID-19 shutdown, an open store, with casual protocols, would give my sleuth Paula a chance to do much of her work on the claim in-person. Having characters meet face-to-face is generally better than phone calls for drama in story scenes, since more can be shown through body language. For the same reason, in-person would be better than having Paula meet story characters on online platforms, which would become her new work method when COVID-19 hit. The book could still feature plenty of Skype and Zoom calls to give a flavour of the times.  

I started writing the novel in fall 2021. So much had changed since the pandemic start that I felt a strange nostalgia for those first months, when COVID was new and frightening and most of us had no clue what lay ahead. I wanted to process that early experience and decided to set the story in April 2020, when the shutdown was in full force. The novel starts with Paula taking on a new claim -- a break and enter at a bicycle store that raises questions. Through her investigations, Paula navigates COVID-19 restrictions, which impact the characters and plot in so many ways that the whole story would change if I removed the pandemic.   

                      

Now we're into a post-COVID world -- sort of. Will and I are still biking, although we've done less each year as other activities reopen. Our biking got off a late start this spring thanks to holidays in the UK and Ottawa. In addition, Will's e-bike developed serious mechanical problems, which required more visits to our favourite bicycle store.      

    

Biking with friends in Banff - the hills are easy on e-bikes 

Spring Break

 

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During this past winter of staying home, I looked forward to a spring getaway with my husband Will and our son Matt. With travel outside of Canada and our province of Alberta restricted this month, we booked a four-night stay in Canmore, an hour a half drive from our Calgary home and just outside the entrance to Banff National Park. 

Easter Monday, we drove directly to Banff and ate our turkey sandwiches on a bench by the Bow River. Despite the sunshine, a breeze made the 3 degrees Celsius (37.4 F) temperature cool for sitting out. We soon warmed up on our hike up Tunnel Mountain. Sections of mud and ice typical of early spring made us glad we'd brought our cleats. At the top, we rested on Muskoka chairs half buried in snow and enjoyed the panoramic views of Banff. 

Day two of our trip was sunny and warmer. Will and Matt went skiing at Lake Louise, while I spent a summer-like day in Canmore. In the morning, I checked out the local stores and bought a salad and bread for our lasagna dinner. My afternoon walk followed part of the town's extensive trail network. The rest of the day I read on our balcony, looking out at the Three Sisters and HaLing mountain peaks. Will and Matt had a perfect ski day -- sunny, warm, uncrowded, fresh snow from a weekend snowfall. I didn't envy them, since I'd preferred my lazy time.   

                                              Balcony view from our AirBnb apartment

Lake Louise ski hill

The weather turned cooler on our third day and cloud mingled with sun. We stayed close to Canmore and hiked up to Grassi Lakes, an icy trail we couldn't have managed without cleats. At the top, we were surprised and pleased to find the ice on the lakes had melted to reveal their clear, green colour. After lunch, we walked the riverside portion of the trail I'd done the previous day and continued farther. We talked about returning later this spring with our bikes to explore the whole Canmore pathway network.  

                                                                        Grassi Lake

              Former railway bridge on Canmore path - Will didn't hold the camera straight

Rain blew in that evening and we woke up to a snow-draped town. Matt's weather app forecast a relatively nice day at Lake Louise with only 17 percent chance of snow. We drove west. As we approached the village of Lake Louise, we hit steady snow and low cloud that made the mountains almost invisible. Hoping the sky would clear later, we opted for a morning hike through a wooded area. The snow continued, but we drove up to the famous lake anyway. Everything was so white, we could hardly tell where the lake ended and the mountains began. We gave up on a viewpoint hike and walked along the lakeshore. When we returned, blue sky started to appear and we left the lake in sunshine. 

Winter conditions at Lake Louise, summer on our Canmore balcony, in-between temperatures the rest of the time. That's spring in Alberta.

    

                                                             Lake Louise village trail

Will and Matt on our Canmore balcony