May 23-25 - 300 & 200

I left around 9am on Friday, heading to Stef's and then dropping Abby off.  I then went to David's to help him with his outdoor wiring. 

He'd already dug the trench that morning, so he was prepared.  We went to Lowes and picked up conduit, connectors and boxes for both ends.  At the house end, we were extending the existing box outwards, so we needed to attach the new one to the brick and seal it.  At the fence end, the box simply attached to the fence.  In between, it was a pretty straightforward matter of running the pvc conduit, feeding wire into it as we went, and using pvc cement to seal the deal.  At both ends we made the electrical connections and put in two receptacles and in-use covers.  Now Kim can run her fountain without having extension cords running across the grass all summer :).

We finished up just after 5pm, well, I finished up and headed to Alex's.  David still had to do the final attachment of the box to the fence and fill in the trench.

Jean had prepared her from-scratch butter chicken recipe.  It was excellent and filling ... just the sort of meal that I needed before the weekend's rides.  I left there and went to Alliston, about 1/2 hour away.

Bob had already checked into the Red Pine Inn and I unloaded my stuff into the room.  We chatted a bit and then turned in.

Up early, even though the ride is close, we got organized to leave.  I had to leave first, since, as "ride organizer", I had to be there to give people their brevet cards.  Just before I got to the Tim's start, I realized that I'd left my cell phone at the motel.  I was hoping that Bob would notice, but no luck.  I didn't know his phone number, so I couldn't call him.  Rats.

Henk was the first one there.  Then Bob and Richard Rogers rode up.  Sure enough, he had not noticed my cell phone.  Double Rats.  I left Tim's brevet card with Bob and rode back to the motel.  Wanting to speed things up as I was already going to have a late start, I put my bike in the car and drove back.  It's only two miles, but still faster in the car.

Tim, Bob and Richard had waited for me so we headed out around 6:15.  At the end of the day, Henk beat us in by a little more than 1/2 hour so we basically kept pace all day.  Tim, Bob and I waited for Richard at least that much over the course of the first 200k so it was probably a wash.

Richard was doing ok up until that point but was slowing down.  We were through the worst of the flat and windy patches and us waiting for him in hills didn't really do anyone any good.  He had 100k to go and I figured that he'd be ok.  He had many, many hours to do that 100k.

Well, he didn't make it.  I guess that his GPS wasn't charging when it was supposed to, so he went slightly off track at one point.  He'd been wearing all of his clothing all day and when the sun went down, he got very cold.  Yup, I've been there, done that.  The difference is that I always have extra clothing ...  He also had a water problem.  I've offered to coach him before his next long ride.  Anyway, he found a warm pub and got a ride back to the Red Pine Inn.

Tim, Bob and I finished up that windy ride at 8:20.  Henk came in at 7:44.

Bob rode back to the motel; I stopped at the LCBO and picked up a couple of beer and Subway to get, well, a sub.  Bob already had stocked up some Thai food in the fridge at the motel.

We ate, drank and were as merry as can be :).

The next day, up again.  This time, of course, we were emptying the motel room so nothing was left behind.  Besides, I was driving to the start this time anyway.  It was colder, mid 40's but the start time was 1/2 hour later.

The 200k was a slog for Bob.  He looked ok but was feeling the pain.  He just hasn't been able to put many kms into his legs this year.  But ... getting 500k done on the weekend was a good thing.

It took us about 4.5 hours to complete the first half and then Randy rode ahead.  He finished at 2:45; we finished at 4:06 ... he put over 1.5 hours into us on that second 100k.  Sheesh.  However, we did complete the 200k in 9:36, which was quite respectable given that we'd done a 300k the day before.

I talked to Randy and met him at the Essa Road park-n-ride in Barrie so that he could give me his card.  I was home about 7:45.

It was a good weekend riding.  I needed that 500k too.  It was interesting doing a 200k after a 300k ... something like doing a 600k which is usually broken down into 400+200 except that we had a longer break in between.

Today ... still working that out ...

Onward !