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230km in one weekend
A couple of weekends ago Hannah organized a get together down at the cottage for our Grebel friends. I planned to bike down with Matt Langeman and Doug Friesen, but this time I was going to bike back as well. The ride south was a good one... we got away at about 1:40 PM and covered 27 km in our first hour (which admitedly is fairly down hill). My average heart rate was flying high at about 180, yikes. During the second hour, I had to ask the guys to slow down, because at the pace we were going I was going to turn into silly puddy :)
We stopped in Burford (half way) for a 15 minute break to get some more water, and then we were off for part two. It was a fairly windy day in the wrong direction... not bad, but it was noticeably harder than when I did the trip in August. Drafting helped, but I was also a bit tuckered from my intense first hour, and it's a bit harder exerting yourself in the late afternoon VS early morning.
As we came within 22 km of Turkey Point, I took the front and as has happened before, started peddling like a mad man. We got our speed up to 26, 27, 28, 29, heading West. The wind had died down since by this time it was 6:00 and the sun was setting. For the next 50 minutes we motored at a pretty constant clip. During the last 10 minutes I had to stay pretty focused not to slow down. The whole while my heart rate was fluctuating in the 180-185 range, which is pretty crazy after being on the rode for 4 hours!
We arrived after 4:42 on the bike, with two 15 minute breaks bringing our total enroute time to 5:12.
The ride back started at 5:42 AM on Sunday morning, and I couldn't find my sweat shirt in the darkness, so I headed out without much on my upper body. It was coooold! My poor hands got numb with the wind rushing over them, and I anxiously awaited the sun to rise. My first hour was a slow one at 19k. For starters, I lost around 3 minutes because of the hill coming out of Turkey Point. But it was just harder than I expected to get my body going. It seemed cranky, and my heart rate at one point fell all of the way to 125, which is a far far cry from the 180 I was doing the first hour coming down to the lake!
I did ok until the climb from New Dundee to St. Agatha. I was tired, I had already been on the bike for 4:30, and it is a long 12k stretch of slight upward grade between the two towns. To make matters worse, you can see St. Agatha about 8k before you actually get there!
By the time I got home I was pretty cooked and ready to get off of my seat post. I willed myself to have a quick shower before collapsing into a chair. Within an hour I could tell that something wasn't right... my energy level was nowhere to be seen and it was work to even stand up. That evening I collapsed into bed and slept for 13 hours. I got hit with a nasty cold which I think started to manifest itself during the last hour of my ride, plus bad sinus alergies from getting lake water up my nose the previous day. Ouch. Here I am 7 days later and I'm still trying to kick the cold, but it's almost gone... I hope.
Some memories:
 | Taking a Friday afternoon off of work :) |
| Doug eating like crazy... we couldn't fill the guy up! |
| A crazy 26.5k the first hour. It felt like I was running a marathon! |
| Average of around 26.5 km/h the last 50 minutes, covering 22k... after 4 hours on the bike... what was I thinking?? |
| Flying down the hill into TP, the perfect way to end a bike trip |
| Eating at the only restaurant open in Turkey Point... Crawdaddies! A burger and fries never looked so good! |
| Some deep thoughts before sunrise on the way back... the world is a more dramatic place in the dark just before the sun rises, and the additional blood flow to the brain is probably a factor as well :) |
| Having a group of 4-5 riders fly by me just southwest of New Dundee. It was on an uphill stretch: They were going about 30 km/h while I was doing about 15 km/h, partly because I was trying to find the gum I had buried in my pocket. They quickly made 300m on me, so I figured, what the heck, I'll give it some effort to see if I could close the gap at all. No luck, they were out of sight within 10 minutes! :P |
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