The Unofficial Ride

Last night Mark, Ian and myself headed to the trails in spite of the earlier rainy conditions. On the first climb we found a lonely Jim searching for riding companions. It was wet and muddy but ended up being a great night for a ride. The temperature was nice and cool and I got a chance to try out my new light (surely to keep me high in the attendance ranks this year). It was a great ride finished off with a cool beer and a bike cleaning party at Mark's.

The Tribe has Spoken.......

It was a brisk and muddy evening, but a majority of riders had a solid ride. Morton was slick and Malden was clean and cut. Overall a nice evening was had, until ............our mouths became drier than a fiddler's fart.

After a couple weeks of deliberating a group decision has been made regarding the "Great Beer Debacle of 2011". The CRC has ruled that a rider who does not supply his bevies after a week of notice (without some chance of providing) will be deducted a point for ever week that the beer is not supplied. This may sound harsh, but rules are rules and a majority decided.

This is a dark day, and hopefully this will set a tone for the future.

The tribe has spoken.

Ps. Who is bringing the beer next week?

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.

Collingwood Centurion

      I have registered a team in this event (Collingwood Centurion) for the weekend of September 17,18th.  I rode up there this week and all I can say is it is some of the most enjoyable road riding I have ever done.  Here is the ride.  Quiet roads, lots of challenging hills and some great 70 km/hr descents.  So far, Rob, Ali, Rudy (not a CRC member but he rode with us on the road) and I are participating.  To participate as a "team" we need one more person.  It is set up like a Gran Fondo.  It is fully supported , with rest stops every 25 km. It can be raced, or just ridden.  They are closing the roads and anticipating 3,000 people.  There are 3 days worth of events, but we only plan on doing the last day, but will likely head up Saturday morning and believe we have a place to stay right at the mountain.  Here is the video from last year's ride.  We plan on riding this together.  If you are interested, let me know.  If you want to join, the team is Chain Reaction Cycling.  Go to the website and click register and select our team from the dropdown menu.

Bye bye Gary Fisher. Hello new Trek!

Well, after 5 or 6 weeks of waiting, hopefully my new frame...or should I say bike...will come next week. Yep, that's right. I have spoken to the warranty gurus and after repeated backorders of the frame they were going to send me, they have decided to ship me out a new bike. Hopefully all goes better than the last time I heard they were sending me something.