Jul 9-12 - Lake Ontario Lap (LOL) 1000k -- check

Yes, it's over. Shortly after the Shenandoah 1200 I knew that I'd be happy to do that one again. I still haven't decided about the LOL 1000.

Having left Erin Mills at 6 a.m. on Thursday, I arrived back there at 11:14 p.m. on Saturday, my job done.

The good -- scenic views of the lake and St. Lawrence river; the weather
The bad -- the Thousand Islands Bridge; the weather
The ugly -- the flies; the weather

Day 1

I had a good sleep, leaving Stef's around 5am and getting to the Erin Mills Town Center at 5:15. I met the other riders, all eight of us, got organized and we left at 6 a.m. It was a little cool but with my long sleeved jersey and vest I was ok until the sun warmed us up. Our route took us through the slightly rolling terrain in that area as we headed west and south towards Burlington Bay and then Niagara Falls.

From the start, three riders headed out, clearly on a mission to make good time. The five of us rode together, spread out a little, semi paceline at times. When we got to the park by the lake close to Burlington we stopped, re-organized (eg. I took off my vest) and then headed out again. We crossed Burlington Bay on the lift bridge since the Skyway is not open to cycle or pedestrian traffic. At that point we were 25 miles into the ride.

From there we headed "inland" as it were, away from the lake and up the Niagara Escarpment on New Mountain Road. We had a spectacular view of the farmland below and the lake beyond from Ridge Road -- definitely worth riding again. With our meandering route it was close to noon before we got to the Rainbow Bridge, found a tourist to write the time and initials on our Brevet cards, rode across the bridge and queued up with the traffic for U.S. Customs and Immigration. We were now 86 miles into the ride.

Before we got to the bridge however, two things happened. First, we lost Fred, or rather Fred dropped behind. Partly my fault because I was pulling a lot of the way, however, I could see that I was being followed and did not know that the pace was too much for the back rider. No one knew when Fred had dropped. I knew Fred from the Simcoe 400k. We hoped that he was ok but never saw him again. He never showed at the first night's control so he was a DNF. When I got back to Erin Mills after the ride, his car was not parked beside me any more.

The second thing that happened is that the three guys "with a mission" pulled up alongside us saying that they were on their second lap of the lake. They were joking of course, having missed a turn and lost quite a bit of time. They stopped shortly afterward and crossed the border sometime behind us. We had already stopped twice by that point.

Our group of five, and then four consisted of me, Ken Jobba the ride organizer, Jerzy, (a Polish name) from somewhere in the Toronto area and Jonathan from Brooklyn. Jonathan came up with his wife and children, I believe, took in some of the local sights prior to the ride. I never asked him what his family was doing while he was riding.

As it turned out, the easy part of the day was done. Jonathan went to Customs first, answered all their questions and then the three of us went one at a time without much fanfare. Now in Niagara Falls NY, we followed the "Seaway Trail" marked route basically all the way to Kingston with an overnight stop in Ontario NY at Peter Dusel's. We found a Subway and had lunch. While we were at the Subway, the other three riders went by.

Now east of Niagara Falls, we were headed into the wind. The prevailing wind is of course west to east but we were headed into an east wind. The headwind was brutal. As usual with an undisciplined group ride, people were taking long pulls and exhausting themselves. I called for a quick restroom break and suggested that we change to 2 mile pulls. Everyone agreed. We did one rotation at 2 mile pulls and Ken suggested that we switch to one mile pulls -- even two miles was too much. The land was flat and we were totally exposed.

We stopped at one point for Renato -- one of the three guys on a mission -- who was having a snooze in the grass by the roadside. It seems that he'd been dropped by the other two and wasn't making much headway on his own so decided to have a rest. He joined up with us. Soon after we were on the Lake Ontario State Parkway, heading towards Rochester. There were no services for many, many miles and we were all out of water. Jonathan bonked. Ken needed to stop. I knew that the water was not coming to us and plodded on at a moderate pace. Ken waited for Jonathan; Jerzy and Renato drafted behind me and then after a couple of miles pulled ahead.

Thinking that they were finally at the turnoff from this parkway, Jerzy and Renato headed off on Manitou Beach Road ... I waived ... they didn't see me. There was no way that I was going to chase them down and exhaust myself so I continued on another couple of miles to "East Manitou Road", mile 170, knowing that the beach road only went a mile or two and dead-ended at, you guessed it, the beach. A couple of miles down this road and I found a convenience store in a sleepy little town. It was early evening by this time and the wind was finally dying down. I stuffed myself with a bag of Chex Mix or something like that and filled my water bottles. Jerzy and Renato rolled in and made their purchases and then along came Ken.

About a mile before the convenience store I'd seen a family-type restaurant. I almost stopped there for water but decided to press on. Ken called Jonathan on his cell phone -- Jonathan was almost at the turnoff -- and arranged to meet at the restaurant. Renato elected to join them. I wanted to press on and Jerzy decided to join me. I found that Jerzy was good riding company but his riding style was different than mine. He tended to ride faster on the flat than me so he had to slow down for me, slower on the hills so I had to wait at the top, and would stop and rest when I wanted to press on. We had 35 miles to go at that point ... it went quickly nonetheless.

Except for the wind and the lack of services on that parkway (or perhaps our lack of foresight in not filling up), it would have been a great ride to that point in the day. It was scenic (other than downtown Niagara Falls NY) and the weather was great. However, the wind had sapped everyone's strength and was a factor in the ensuing three days. The rest of that day's ride was largely without wind but it had already taken its toll. The course took us towards Rochester along the lake. Flat, with lake view most of the time and quite pretty, we started hitting the rolling hills on the west side of Rochester. They felt good to me ... this is my type of riding. Through Rochester, the hills continued to Peter's. I'd ridden this road before on the Ontario 200k that I did early in May.

We -- Jerzy and I -- arrived at Peter's around 11pm. I immediately hit the shower, then had some pasta and a bagel and went to bed. We'd heard that the first two riders had left about 1/2 hour before we'd arrived. They had planned their overnight stop at Oswego NY, thinking that they would be there much earlier. The wind had taken its toll on them too. Just before I fell asleep I heard Ken, Jonathan and Renato arrive. I did not get up to greet them ... it was already close to midnight.

So ... Day 1 summary -- Good -- scenery and weather; Bad -- weather (wind)

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Day 2

I woke up at 2am. I had set my cell phone alarm for 2:30, planning a 3:00 a.m. departure, so I got up and organized myself to leave. I was moving slowly ... I got away at 3am. Peter was up, waiting in case Fred showed up. Sandy, Peter's wife, had gone to bed. She was getting up with my fellow riders who were planning on leaving at 5am. I never saw them again, but I got an update email from Ken late yesterday (Sunday) that he, Jonathan and Renato made it into Erin Mills after 3am on Sunday.

This next section was perhaps one of the most enjoyable parts of the ride. Between Ontario (205 miles) and Oswego (262 miles) the terrain rolls but nothing very long or steep. It was almost a full moon. It was warm. I was the only traffic on the road. With music playing -- actually I had music playing for the rest of the ride -- it was relaxed cruising.

Four hours or so later I stopped in Oswego at the diner that Peter had talked about and had pancakes. Before that, however, I'd stopped at the only open convenience store halfway to Oswego and had an egg and sausage McMuffin (but not called that because it wasn't MdD's. That really hit the spot. That also started what I would consider to be more adventuresome eating rather than straight Perpetuem. What the heck. At the diner I had pancakes with jam. That hit the spot vacated by the McMuffin. I'm learning. Snack, snack, snack + Perpetuem + gels. Listen to my stomach and don't eat too much at any one time.

At that point I figured that Ken et al were probably 2+ hours behind me. I had no idea where the fast couple of riders were. I plodded on. It warmed up and then got hot. With lots of space between services, I filled up whenever I saw anything that would sell water. I started to drag a little and came upon an ice-cream joint and decided to have a milkshake -- figuring quite rightly that the sugar would give me a kick start.

So there I was having probably the runniest milkshake that I've ever had and a couple of riders went by on a cross-street and waved to me. They looked like the two guys ahead of me -- racks and packs like mine -- and I waved back. As I consumed / drank my milkshake I looked down the short street to see them at a small shop a few doors down and thought -- "did they see a lunch stop that I missed ?". I got ready to leave, thinking that I would head down to see what they were up to and then they headed back.

I waved and the lead guy rode over and stopped. It still had not registered with me that he was not one of the 2 riders. He looked very familiar, but as it turned out, was not. The other rider made to continue on by and I looked at him and said "Shane ?" -- "Shane?" -- sure enough it was our ABB mechanic from the ride across the U.S. He stopped and we chatted. What a small world.

It was around noon at this point as I recall.

Shane and his wife and a couple of other people were also riding around Lake Ontario but were taking the ferry across at Wolfe Island, rather than the Thousand Island Bridge. Shane had stayed at the same motel in Oswego as my fellow two riders -- another huge coincidence -- and already knew about our ride. He said that they couldn't be too far ahead of me. Later in the day when I was stopped having a diet coke and a snack they came along and we chatted -- it seems that I'd passed them when they were stopped. They did not have a plan for the evening ... neither did I at that point but was certain that I didn't want to stop at Millhaven short of the ferry -- more on that later. I told them not to wait for me.

The Thousand Islands bridges -- there are two of them a couple of miles apart -- were both low and high points in the trip, no pun intended. The high was due to the view. It was spectacular. The river is fast moving, crystal clear water, heavily forested small islands dotting the broad expanse, many many boats -- big boats -- going up and down river. It's a view that you cannot get from a car. It's a view that most people will not see because the bridges are two spaced out for anyone to really walk the distance. It's a view that most cyclists will not see either because it's a hellish crossing by bicycle as well.

You are not allowed to ride your bike on the roadway; the pedestrian walk is mandatory. That walkway is so narrow that you cannot ride it -- I had to tilt my bike so that my pedals wouldn't bang against vertical struts and my hip would bang against the railing on the other side. Clearly the ADA hasn't forced the Americans to do anything about their part of this bridge !

I'd consider the bridge crossing to be a low in the trip -- 1.5 hours for the crossing and Canadian Customs on the other side. I'm glad that I wore my mountain shoes with the recessed cleats !

The customs queue was long, perhaps 1/2 hour. The fellow ahead of me was on a motorcycle with Alberta plates. I commented that he had much more luggage than I ... but he didn't seem inclined to chat. A trucker beside me yelled over, all in good humor, that I needed a bigger engine ... I yelled back -- "but isn't it quiet ?" -- we laughed. After providing my explanations to Customs -- and curiously enough -- he scanned my U.S. passport but not my Canadian passport -- I flagged down a customs guy walking across the roadway and asked him if it would be against the rules for him to initial my Brevet card. Of course not -- and he opened his bag, got out his stamp and obliged. I don't think that the U.S. people would have been so obliging, but then again, I never asked.

It was now 4:30 p.m. and mile 366. Kingston was still a long ways off; Millhaven even further; the ferry even further. Long story short -- I made the 10:15 p.m. ferry and was in a motel in Picton a little after 11pm.

Along the Thousand Islands Parkway from the bridge towards Kingston there is a bicycle or multi-use paved trail. Although it was rough, it was preferable to the traffic lanes since the road was busy. After exiting the Parkway at Ganonoque, mile 375, highway 2 follows the St. Lawrence river and seaway. Basically from there to Oshawa we stayed close to the river, alternating roadways. Sometimes on highway 2, often not, the NOT parts are rough roads in general. Not rough to a car, the pavement is rough enough to really increase the rolling resistance. That, plus the wind that was now blowing west to east -- oh joy -- made the second half of the trip somewhat of a slugfest.

I stopped for a Subway in Ganonoque, continued on into downtown Kingston having to walk my bike in the downtown area because the main drag was blocked off and packed with people and street performers. It was an interesting interlude ... and soon after I was at Millhaven -- it was close to 9pm. Originally I was planning on stopping there with Ken et al but did not want to have such an extended stop, since the earliest ferry in the morning is at 6:15.

Next came one of the nastiest -- perhaps THE nastiest parts of the ride. It was dusk; I was by the water & various swampy areas. There were clouds of midges or whatever you want to call the small flies. They were unavoidable - I was covered in black dots. My arms, my legs, my face, into the vents of my helmet -- yucch yucch yucch. All over the roadway I went, hoping to avoid them. These flies basically died when they hit me, too tiny to survive when they stuck to my sweat soaked skin. Black flies, mixed in with the midges would ping off me -- they would stop to bite. I stopped a couple of times and used my hanky to wipe my face. It was disgusting. I thought that they would disappear once it was dark, but no, in fact they were attracted to my headlight and I kept hitting them. I didn't want to open my mouth !

I got to the Glenora Ferry landing, mile 428. There was a public restroom and I washed my arms; I grabbed fistfuls of toilet paper, soaked it and wiped my legs. I was worried that any motel would turn me away !

I only had to wait about 15 minutes for the ferry. After cleaning myself up I put on my long sleeved jersey and vest. The ferry ride was quick and I was back on the road. Now completely dark I wondered what awaited me -- would I find a motel or would I be doomed to riding most of the night. I stopped at the first place, just before the descent into Picton -- he was just about to close up. He wanted $110 for his "big room" -- "but there's only me" I pleaded. He was content with nothing ... I rode on, not sure if this was a smart move. Down the hill, finding another motel the girl had one room left. A combo place with cottages and motel, she reduced the price to $75 from $95 after I did my pleading. I probably wouldn't have ridden on at that point anyway.

She was most obliging, helping me find a pizza place for delivery -- that gave me just enough time to have a shower and then I wolfed down all but one piece of a large medium pizza, unsure if that was going to come back to haunt me. It didn't. It was midnight ... I set my alarm for 3am ... I intended to be rolling by 4am.

I was now at mile 434.

Day 2 summary -- good - riding conditions, scenery and weather; bad - bridge; ugly - flies.

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Day 3

My alarm (cell phone) went off at 3am. I tried to move and thought "this ain't going to work; I need more sleep" -- and reset the alarm for 4am. I knew from watching the weather channel that there was a series of thunderstorms rolling across southern Ontario that I was not going to avoid whatever I did, so what difference would an extra hour make !

I got up at 4; I was rolling at 5; It was already getting light. I stopped at a convenience store and had coffee and something else (I forget).

Although it was now light, it was a gray day. There were a lot of rough roads ahead of me and it was slow going at times. The parts on highway 2 or smooth roads were welcome interludes. Most of the time I was a long way from any civilization, other than houses along the waterfront and farms in the distance. I realized that I was getting hungry for solid food as I was coming up to Consecon, mile 454, and there was a General Store. I went in and found a dining area with a large group of guys coming and going -- it was Saturday morning in a small town and the guys were having breakfast. Farmers, local tradesmen -- they all knew each other -- it was not an organized get-together, rather it was the same crowd that you'd probably find at the local hotel bar in the evenings. I decided on a ham and cheese omelet and coffee. Of course it also came with home fries and toast -- I ate it all.

One of the guys called over to me -- "nice pair of tail-lights, I could see you a half-mile away". "Great", I replied "that's what I want". Now when a guy says to another guy "nice pair of tail-lights" that's exactly what he means. "Nice pair of headlights" means something else altogether ... ok, I couldn't resist. Sorry about that.

Breakfast over, I headed out again. There were more rough roads ahead of me. It was slow going. The countryside was pretty; I made sure that I kept fueled; rain threatened but did not fall. Finally hitting a more populated area -- Coburg -- the rain held off no more. Looking at the sky, I figured that I was going to be riding in the rain for the rest of the day. I pulled on my rain jacket and my rain cap, slogging on through pouring rain. It let up a bit; it was close to noon; I stopped at a Tim Horton's for the restroom, coffee and a 12-grain bagel. Lo and behold it started to clear and soon afterwards I was able to -- no, I take that back -- I had to -- take off my jacket because it was getting steamy out.

Onward -- still many more miles to go -- by now the sky was clear with equally clearly defined thunderheads visible. Hopefully I would avoid any more rain, but that was not to be. I plodded onwards. As the roads got better, I got faster. Getting to Oshawa, the route headed away from the water. I stopped somewhere in that area and had a Subway. It was sunny. It was hot. The thunderheads still loomed. Needing to put in those 1000 kms, the route headed north to Stoufville, quite north of the city. There I picked a place for my Control and continued on. I was then at mile 562.

Skirting the edge of a thunderstorm, some drops hit me and I thought that I was in for it. I stopped and put on my jacket, but I was lucky. I stopped and took off my jacket. Continuing along north of the city I was hitting the major north-south routes -- Warden, Woodbine, Leslie, Bayview ... would I make it past the growing thunderhead -- I got to a 2km stretch of gravel road. All of a sudden the wind whipped up and the sky opened. I took shelter beside a small group of trees to break the cross winds but soon continued on riding in the mud. Although the rain only lasted a little while, with that storm came the cold front. I left my jacket on for the rest of the ride. I'd gotten chilled.

The wind was now blowing from north to south. That worked out well -- I still had about 20 miles of west and 20 miles of south to deal with so the wind was neutral traveling west and a great boost going south. I stopped at a Tim Horton's, mile 580, and had a ham and swiss sandwich. It was about 7pm or so and I still had at least 3 hours, perhaps more depending on the riding conditions.

It was hilly -- that slowed me down. I hit a closed section of road -- that slowed me down. I did a bad thing -- rode through that closed section of road across a bridge under construction over the 401 ... I was too tired to find an alternate route. My bike was already covered in mud; I had my mountain shoes on so I could walk if necessary ... onward.

11:14 and I'm finished and I'm done, done in that is. It's mile 622. I got my card signed, put my bike in the car, went back to the Wendy's and had a burger and salad, then headed to Stef's.

Day 3 summary - good - scenery and weather; bad - roads; ugly - weather

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Post ride.

The cue sheet is in very bad shape. Leg distances are wildly incorrect in some places. Street names do not match the cue sheet. Without the GPS and my pre-plotted course, there's no way that I wouldn't have put in many "bonus miles".

I got to Stef's at midnight and left around 8am. I hit Parry Sound in time for 11am Mass and arrived home at 1:30. I did go into Canadian Tire in Parry Sound and buy that DVD player -- they have great prices -- $39. I stopped at the LCBO after Mass and picked up the case of Sandy's wine that had arrived.

Arriving home, I had the car to unload. My leg muscles were so sore that it was hard to walk down the steps. My leg muscles still hurt. Of course maybe that's because we have stairs here -- I might not have noticed the issue in Florida. It's almost 36 hours since I completed the ride. The Shenandoah was not this hard. Did I push myself harder ? Perhaps I did, because I was riding alone. In spite of there being much less climbing, the wind was a huge factor and so were the rough roads.

Speaking of climbing, my GPS accumulated 15,000 feet. That was all short rolling hills. Most of it was moderate grades, but I did see 14% on my GPS at one point. With a heavy pack -- made heavier due to the fact that it was wet -- that was hard.

Did I make good time ? Perhaps -- the deadline was 9am on Sunday, i.e. 75 hours. I completed in a little over 65 hours. In some ways, a 1000k is easier to make time-wise. With only two nights stop, there is less down time.

Ken, Jonathan and Renato completed after 3am. Jerzy was somewhere ahead of them, opting to continue while they dealt with a mechanical problem in Coburg, according to the email from Ken. They still had almost 6 hours to spare -- not too shabby. They too had thunderstorm adventures, but I'll probably never hear the details. The fast two riders, I'm assuming finished sometime ahead of me. I'll find out once the times are posted but I expect that it will be hours.

My ride stats are somewhat messed up because I forgot to turn on the GPS at the beginning of the second day and went about 10 miles. It will show the course without accumulating stats -- so it fooled me. That would have lost some climbing, perhaps taking the 15,247 closer to 16,000 feet. The rolling time, showing 43:25 would have been around 44 hours out of the elapsed 65 and change. About 11 of those stopped hours were night stops leaving 9 hours for "convenience" stops, as it were. That sounds about right.

Ken was saying that the last time this ride went, two years ago, 8 out of 10 people doing the ride DNF'd due to the wind and the rain. It's not a forgiving ride. The hilly sections -- before Niagara Falls, between west of Rochester and the bridge, and north of Toronto, give you shelter and variety of pace. With wind and rain, the rest would be a real slog-fest.

My next ride is the TSWO -- tour of southwestern Ontario. It's a 600k, fairly flat, could have some of the same issues as the LOL. We'll see. At least it's shorter !

That's it. I have to go and set some minnow traps.