What a Day!

     Well, it was good and it was bad.  We did our best to make CRC proud but in the end it just wasn't to be.  Due to a late start, too many stops and my bum knee, we missed the cutoff by 15 minutes.  We weren't allowed to continue with a chip timer so we took a shortcut and cut out 30 km of the course and then got back on (hehehehehe).  We made some amateur mistakes that we definately learned from and won't repeat.
        Of course we had the usual shenanigans that made the weekend fun, a great Sam Roberts concert, an embro cream in the wrong place incident, and thanks to Rudy for being a great host.  All in all it was an amazing event and one that is going on the calendar in the future.  All told there were 3,000 cyclists.  However, in our group there was 1,000.  It was amazing to see that many cyclists on the road with a helicopter overhead (it is supposed to be on TSN in the fall) and the support was amazing with road closures, SAG support, police at every intersection and tons of people out cheering and cowbelling.  The course was really tough as expected with 5 major (and I mean major) climbs.  Some of the stats:

The winner- 4:27 (average speed 37.7 kph)
Feet climbed- 4774
Max downhill speed- 76 kph (Rob) grade 22.5%
Max uphill grade- 17%
Our distance- 137 km in 5:30

The next event is in Niagara Falls July 16-18 which we are planning on attending.