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In an earlier post I mentioned participating in the 80k bike tour for charity. I was recruited by a friend to join him and his team. Here is my report on the event.

PRE-TOUR
The plan: wake up at 07h15, leave at 07h30. Arrive on site at 08h00, a half hour before the 80k tour starts.

The reality: I awoke at 06h40 or so, terribly unusual weekend behaviour for me. Partly due to having had a refreshing mid-afternoon nap the day before, I imagine, but mostly I suppose I was anxious about the tour.

I ended up goofing off by reading RSS feeds until after half-past seven, then scrambling to round up my gear, check tire pressure, etc. before leaving. This sort of last-minute rushing about is entirely normal for me, unfortunately.

It was raining lightly, about 10°C outside. If I were biking the half-hour to work I’d be wearing my bike shorts, a shirt and a windbreaker. With the prospect of spending 4 hours in the cold rain, I added ski pants.

About 5 minutes into my trip to the site, my clothes were soaked through to my skin. At this point I realized I’d left my wallet and water bottle at home. How will they identify my unconscious, dehydrated body lying on the roadside?! More importantly, how will I buy post-tour beer? Silly thoughts like this do tend to wander through my head.

ON SITE
I’d made arrangements to meet the teammate who would be participating in the 80k with me. The others were doing the 35k; we two were the crazy ones. I arrive at the start point at 08h15 and begin searching.

08h20: no teammate. I suppose he should have a name other than teammate. Let’s call him Wartbag. That’s probably the name I’d be using for him right about now anyways. He has my bib - with my entrant number printed on it so they can identify my unconscious, dehydrated body - as well as my complimentary “thanks for coming out” tour t-shirt and my $30 gift certificate for raising $440 for the charities.

08h25: no Wartbag. They’ve started announcing stuff on the P.A. now. Stories about some of the children who inspired The Tour, the obligatory sea of Spandex jokes and such. I found a bucket full of bottled water and stuffed one in my bottle holder where it rattled about loosely.

My speedometer started reporting crazy numbers such as 574 km/hr. The rain wreaks havoc with the sensor terminals. I reluctantly stuffed it away. I will miss having some sort of progress meter on this long trip, but if it shorts out and one of its chips releases the magic blue smoke I will miss the speedometer more.

08h30: no Wartbag. The tour has started. At this point I’m feeling a bit down. No teammate to tour with, surrounded by cyclists with their fancy bibs, my back all plain and not in any way marked with a nice official-looking number, rain-soaked clothes clinging to wet skin. Trying to wipe my foggy glasses on my soaked shirt in the vain hope of being able to see, you know, things.

I am seriously contemplating abandonment at this time. Just 11k away there is a warm, dry bed. Nobody will notice I’m not among the cyclists. I don’t even have an ID number. Surely the cops will pick me up for not having a tour ID number?

08h35: no Wartbag. It’s decision time, so I choose to do the tour. All these other fine folks are out here in this crappy weather, smiling and cycling in support of a great cause. The idea of looking myself in the mirror after choosing to turn away from this does not appeal.

THE TOUR
It’s five minutes in, and I’m starting to catch up to other riders. My socks are soaked through. My ski pants are clinging as my legs pump the pedals.

Ten minutes in, I meet a friendly cyclist named Mike. We chat for awhile. It’s his fifth year. Apparently the big tour used to be 50k. Then it got bumped to 60. Now it’s 80k. He surmises that their plan is to keep upping the number until it’s just nine crazy cyclists left and they have to run the route with a semi-trailer to haul the fallen ones away. I suggested it was just inflation.

Mike cycles slightly faster than I do. I start to feel a pain in all the diodes on my left side so I slow it down a bit. I look around and recognize where we are; we just got on Herzberg Rd.

The rain has stopped falling, or perhaps it has simply relocated itself from the atmosphere to the inside of my shoes where it squishes.

The world continues to slowly pass by as I incessantly pedal onward. I see trees of green. In between the vast clouds of white I see skies of blue. I pass by a fellow cyclist and greet them with a how do you do. What a wonderful world it is being out in the open air on this bright blessed day on a bicycle.^[1] I wish I’d brought my music player as other silly thoughts like this spawn throughout my brains.

I’m not sure what time it is. Time is starting to become less important. We arrive at the auto-park near the Corel Centre where there is a rest stop. My water bottle is thus far untouched. I drain it and replenish my supply. I eat a slice of orange. It is tasty. I return to my bike.

More time has passed as I cycle along. The sun is starting to peek out through the clouds. I’m just cruising along now, almost effortlessly. Maybe I’m getting into the groove - or maybe there’s a hefty tailwind giving me a boost. I enjoy it with the wary sense that I shall pay dearly for the pleasure later, on the way back.

I see signs for a rest stop but I continue on. I have no idea where I am now, except to know that we are out on country roads. The area is sparsely populated. There are volunteers at various spots along the route. When we pass by, they bang plastic, air-filled sticks at us, kind of like the fans do at hockey games, and yell encouraging words.

Time has almost no meaning. There is only now, and the next time I get off my bike. I’ve reached another rest stop which is also the turn-around point. I drain another water bottle. I cannot stop walking about. I briefly look for oranges but the crowd is too thick so I move on. My toes are cold and wet and becoming numb.

Time has no meaning, but speed does. Before the turn-around point I had lots. Now whenever I try to speed up a gust of head-wind puts me in my place. I soon figure it out: the atmospheric pressure system is directly linked to my bike’s gears. When I shift up, a gust of headwind blows.

Yes, that’s right, it blows.

I pass by that rest stop I didn’t take earlier. If I had a brush and some paint, there’d now be three little water bottle icons on the side of my bike. I avail myself of the plentiful bounty of oranges. These are the finest, most pleasurable oranges I have ever in my life tasted. The nice girl attending the station gives me one for the road.

I bike on. At some point Mike pulls up from behind. When did I pass him by? I ask him how far we’ve come so far. 60k. We chat a little longer, mostly to bemoan the headwinds, but once again his cadence is slightly faster than mine, and I slowly fall behind.

I cannot feel my toes. My legs are cold. I find myself standing occasionally to relieve my butt, which is more accustomed to comfy office chairs than bicycle seats for hours on end.

Time still has no meaning, but the world has changed. Now the houses are closer together and the road surface is smoother. Civilization! A sense of near-completion urges me forward to greater speeds. Or perhaps it is the improved quality of the road or that the headwinds are broken up by all the buildings.

I stop at one last rest stop. The tastiness of these oranges is incredible, as if the goddess of fruits raised each and every one with tender loving care in her personal garden. I can see the spire of Nortel building 5 in the distance. The end is in sight!

POST-TOUR
Speaking of goddesses, no sooner did I cross the finish line and turn back do I see my fiancee standing before me.

Half an hour into the tour, I’d thought to myself, “This isn’t so bad. Perhaps I’ll bike home after the tour.” At around the 60k mark, fighting headwinds and hills and fatigue, I thought, “I do hope Hunnybear shows up so I don’t have to bike home.”

My only thought after (clumsily) dismounting my bike after crossing the finish line was, “I shall chain this medieval torture device up in the basement and never ride upon it again.”

Fortunately, before thoughts of attacking it with an axe and welding touch could set in too deep, I was distracted by hot dogs.

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