Tour for kids 2010

Tour for kids 800km epic 4day adventure, pledges still accepted!

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Day One - Thursday

Stouffville - Trent University

It's 7:20 pm and 15 of us are stranded at the Pioneer Gas Station in Springville - 15 km's out of Peterborough. We started at 9am by the way.....

I knew it was going to be a bad day when I lost my little baggie with $30 in it....somewhere in the first 50km. I also decided to start in the 2nd fastest group again this year, and rode my ass off quite well till 50km (too bad it's a 200km day). I then got dropped like a bad Brett Favre pass. But not after enjoying some "Tour de France" like riding - bombing along the country roads towards Uxbridge at 40+ kph in some flat sections....priceless. In a Peleton (pack of cyclists) you can even go up a decent hill doing 30.

The weather was perfect today, sunny skies, warm with slight winds to provide relief. After the first rest stop, a few of us missed the cut off on

Marsh Hill Road

, and so a few miles later we were officially lost. This would set the tone for the day unfortunately.

I decided that we should "improvise" and find our way back to the group we broke off from, but my travelling companions wanted to retrace their pedals......and before I could turn around to join them I noticed my tire going flat.

AAggghh!

20 minutes later....and two C02 cartridges...I am on my way, map in hand with a less-than-fully inflated front tire. So I know this won't last another 100+ km's, and we're getting close to Port Perry. "There must be a bike shop here somewhere"?

I am now on the outskirts of Port Perry, and pull into a "tire repair" shop which would make sense if I was in a car! Usually these mechanics have everything, including the convertor for regular air pressure and these skinny tires we have.

I skirt across the road and notice a rather impressive looking Audi turning out of the lot, and he's yelling at me! "White trash redneck" is all I could think at the moment, forgetting that it's a $50,000 German car and not a used North American pick-up. I am trying to find someone who works here and the guy in the Audi is still shouting and now he's reversing his car back towards me!

Good grief, he either really hates road cyclists, or maybe he wants to make a donation to Tour for Kids?? (Always the Optimist).

Well, funnily enough it's a client, Adam Ruppell from Chico Racing (Ontario's Premier Mountain Biking guru). "How did you know it was me" I asked? "Your Juice Plus+ cycling jersey gave you away!"

So 15 minutes later as we discuss the state of affairs in Trail Running (stay tuned for new 2011 Chico Trail running folks)....we finally change topics and move onto more pressing matters, like my under-inflated flat tire! "There's a bike guy straight across the corn field over there, Johnston's Bike Shop".

These were the directions I was given by my friendly attendant, who finally emerged from the shadows, reading the Toronto Sun certainly. "Yup...if you could ride your bike straight that way you'd see Johntson's Bike Repair right in front of you. "Or a madder-than-hell corn farmer" was my first thought.

"Great...so how about instructions on my Cervelo here...on a paved road"?

Now I am headed in the opposite direction of Peterborough but happy to find relief in one of the most unlikely places for a roadie. The Bike Shop - a garage actually, but upon entering it's just like the back shop of any cycling mechanic. Messy....chock full of wheels hanging from the ceiling, notes, scribbles and items from across the full spectrum of cycling parts known and unknown. And Brian is larger than life, literally and figuratively.

"Don't get too many road types like yourself in here, they pass by all the time though and would rather spend 2x as much elsewhere."

"Well I just need to add some more air to my front tire, and if you have a spare tube for these wheels I will happily grab one of those as well". (Polite gesture as I figure no way he has one.).

"Got one left as his head emerges from a pile".

"Just 10 bucks for the Presta Valve and Tube."

What a deal I think, and scrounge through my jersey pockets and Bento Box, looking for that plastic baggie with the 30 bucks.....oh oh.

To be continued.......

 

Tour for kids 800km epic 4day adventure, pledges still accepted!

http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=827935&LangPref=en-CA