All in all, not really a fair weather day.
(L-R: John, John, Cynthia (in the van) Ralph, Mike, Pete)
(L-R: Rita, Pete)
But off we went, heading north out of the city. 28km later we were all enjoying a break at the Tim Hortons in Lucan, trying to warm up our toes -- we'd been sprinkled upon for 1/3-1/2 of the ride so far, and most of us had very cold toes.
This was when the trap was sprung. I'd been anticipating an 80km or so day. And with the weather as it was, I was beginning to think that 60-70 would be good enough.
But suddenly I find myself among a group of people who are deciding that they want to make a century. (one-zero-zero kilometers!? In this wind!?) And off we went further north to Exeter and another Tim Hortons. It was a conspiracy, I'm convinced. I blame P and J. (given that there were three Peters/Pieters and two Johns on the ride, that's nice and vague. But they know who they are!)
By this point it became clear that we were not going to be done by noon, as I had expected -- in truth, as we had "promised" everyone when we advertised this ride on the sea-to-sea forum. But around 11am there we were, at the 51.5km mark! I took a moment to call my wife to apologize in advance for the fact that I would NOT make it home by noon.
As a side note, both of these stops in Tims were interesting for the mini-publicity. There was a reasonably large crowd in both places. And before we left, a good number of them knew that we were training for a cross-continent ride. It was fun to spread the news, and get some kind words of encouragement.
The ride home was supposed to be a cakewalk, as the weather forecast had the wind switching from NW to N. But it didn't, really. The wind was definitely strong, and it was far better than when we'd gone north, but I found that it was still mostly a cross wind, gusty, coming over my right shoulder and sometimes just directly from the West, as I pedaled homeward.
And so I joined the century club -- 100km. I made it home a touch before 2, so overall that was 7 hours from start to finish. But I don't recall when we exactly left. My computer reported an average of 20kph by the end, so that would be roughly 5hrs of actual pedalling.
All in all, it was a lousy day for biking -- cold, rainy, windy, gusty, did I mention cold? (I had 4 layers up top, plus gloves, and never felt like removing them.) But John Vandersteen, a veteran of the 2005 ride, passed along this interesting observation: If we made it today, we'll manage the C2C. The weather today was the worst we'd likely see on the tour, so if we made it today, we'll make it then.
And THAT is some nice encouragement after all!
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Here's the route map on mapmyride.com, if you're curious. Not my favourite so far - not because of the weather. I just prefer quieter country roads so that you have the option to cycle side by side and have more of a community feel. These roads, on the whole, were just too busy to do that.
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