May 1/2 - it's never easy

Nope. It's never easy. I always have some complaint or another but I keep doing these rides anyway ! That was my first Canadian Brevet ... and now I'm officially (well, official as soon as the French process the results) SR 2009 qualified. SR = Super Randonneur = completed 200,300,400,600. Although I did a number of Permanent 200's, it takes the four Brevets to get the SR designation for the year and, in that year, qualify for Paris-Brest-Paris. There are many more SR's in the years of PBP, especially in France, since about 5,000 people ride PBP.

However, my goal for this year -- schedule permitting -- hope I can do this -- is to complete three of these series. I could look at yesterday's 200 as the last of one of the other series ... or the first of a Canadian series. I'm thinking the latter, because I'm driving to Rochester NY next weekend to do the former.

On Friday I puttered around for most of the day, leaving here around 4pm. I stopped at the Subway at Waubushene and watched this older lady (well, perhaps younger than me !) put toppings on my ham sub -- she must have been counting the pickles and olives as she laid them on the sub. Next I stopped at the Canadian Tire at Bayfield in Barrie and then made my way over to Alex's. He and I yakked for a couple of hours until I hit the sack a little after 10pm. Up at 5am, I had coffee and breakfast and set off for Alliston around 6:45. Alex and Jean and Murphy the dog were up around 6:30, so I was able to say goodbye and thanks before leaving.

It's less than 45 minutes to Alliston and I was parked at the Sobey's/Tim Hortons parking lot at the west end of Highway 89 and Industrial Pkwy. Other riders were unpacking their bikes and getting organized; I found Isabelle Sheardown or she found me; I was officially signed in. Isabelle was riding too so at 8am everyone set off. I guess that this is not a ride that you show up late for ! With the organizer gone, you'd be toast.

For the first time, in cold weather, I was properly dressed. I didn't have my skull cap on but I was wearing my winter gloves. By the end of the ride they were the only thing that had come off -- yes, I did the entire ride in shoe covers, leg warmers, short and long sleeved jersey and high-vis yellow rain jacket -- the latter over top of my vest. Twice, or perhaps three times, I took off the yellow jacket and put it into the pack but then it came back out either due to cold or due to impending rain. The rain never amounted to more than a few drops though.

So -- what was my complaint du jour ? Well, for one thing, I had having to wear all those clothes. That, however, was minor to the wind. Early in the day it was in our favour but it continued to pick up so that by the end of the ride, coming straight from the west, it was quite a struggle.

I rode on and off with Paul and Pierre. Paul had done a couple of brevets before; this was Pierre's first. Pierre drafted behind Paul all day -- Paul is a very strong rider, used to full gear riding in the winter and plowed along at a pace slightly faster than mine -- perhaps 1 mph -- so that they would catch up to me; I would ride with them for a bit at times, and a few times they were trailing behind me. Paul liked to take his time at Controls and twice I set out a few minutes before them. Once they were behind me about 100 yards for a long time and then I realized that they'd disappeared. They pulled into the Control a little after I did and I found out that Paul had taken a phone call. It seems that his wife had pulled into some underground parking that didn't quite have the clearance for the box on the roof ... I'm sure that will make for quite another story !

Bottom line, we left at 8am and arrived at 5:30. Our official time, I think, will reflect a 5:30 arrival -- we organized our stuff into our cars before going into the Sobey's to check in. I recall that my GPS showed 8:04 rolling time in that 9:30 total time.

The ride was quite pretty, arcing clockwise part-way around Lake Simcoe before turning south, going back through Barrie and arcing around the other side. Lake Simcoe is very large though and a circuit would take us more than 200km, so with some dipsydoodling to Bradford we then headed west and north to Alliston for the finish. It would be prettier with leaves on the trees, buy hey, this is Canada eh ? I believe that the 300km ride, which I intend to do on May 30th, does a full circuit of the lake. There was about 3500 feet of climbing.

So on this ride I found out what it would be like pushing the Hummer along for a whole ride in full gear. Now I guess I'm prepared for next week in Ontario NY, which looks like it might amount to the same thing, based on the weather forecast.

After we checked in/out at Sobey's, I headed east on 89 looking for the DQ that I'd seen in the morning. Somehow I missed it, but stopped shortly afterwards at a convenience store/Subway for a chocolate and sub. Later I stopped at the service center south of Parry Sound for gas and an ice cream cone; at the gas station in Nobel I stopped again for a drink. I made it home by 9am, unloaded my clothes and bike and then had some mushroom risotto that Sandy had made for dinner. A couple of helpings of risotto later, some crackers, a can of pop, a desert ... and I was through eating for the day ! In addition to a couple of bottles of Perpetuem I had my breakfast of course, my usual cereal, and two bagels at Controls and a bag of chips.

Oh -- one more thing -- on the way to Barrie on Friday I had stopped at Britt to check out the Mass time for today, and found that they'd hung a piece of paper on the sign with 4:30 Saturday marked. So that means that I'm off to Sudbury after breakfast this morning. That will be my first trip to Sudbury since last spring, I think.

I am going to stop at Home Depot before Mass and look at the suspended ceiling tiles that Sandy had been looking at. I need to start planning for doing the basement ceiling -- my next project. Originally I was going to stop in Barrie on the way to Alex's but changed my mind once I found out that I'd be going to Sudbury today.

That's it ... Abby and I are hungry !