Weekend Report

[Marcus]

Heavens to Betsy, there have no posts on the forum, other than the gear order, since last Friday. No quips from Rolf. No humour from Kate.

On May 7, 2013 Paula noted that

Thanks B2 for the good ride today. We kept it together up until pretty close to the end and it felt like a pretty fluid ride. And guess what, our average moving speed was 32.7 km/hr.

I have been feeling a bit down lately that all of you are getting so damn fast and I seem to be getting slower, and having to work so damn hard to keep up. Today I finally downloaded the info from my garmin and saw that on today's ride we were going fast. So, we are riding faster and faster. I am not getting slower, you guys are just getting even faster... so stop it. thank you.

Well Paula, last Friday the average moving speed on the B2 ride was 35.1 kmh. So we, including you, are getting faster.

Yesterday 10 or so Tripleshot members were fortunate enough to ride the Wheelers Vic Cow ride with 45 others. My pace was definitely slower than 35 but the ride is 135 kms longer than the Friday ride. Many thanks to Joe and Kim Gard and all Wheelers involved for organizing a great ride, including the post-ride barbeque, and arranging the perfect weather. Much appreciated. Also, thanks to Rolf and Kate for waiting for me on some of the hills. Hopefully, I was able to help you out a bit towards the end when I might have had a little bit more left. We came in around 6 1/4 hours for an average speed of 27.9 kmh. It took me another 2 hours to reach Mill Bay. On the Brentwood side, I can definitely recommend the Sea Horse Cafe. Outstanding seafood chowder and fish and chips and if you ride 230 kms you can eat as much of it as you want.

[Rolf]

You're a tough man, Marcus, to have continued on. I was telling Kate from the first stop in Sooke: "Marcus knows pace. I can't tell you how many times I've dropped him on hills, only to watch him trundle past as I sputter and fume." And that's exactly how it turned out!

I find I have a certain cadence I can't drop below on long hills, else I need to start doing little loops part way up to let the legs recover. And that cadence in my lowest gear kept me in front of you. But the advantage is kinda worthless if I have to soft-pedal to recover. Maybe it's just the impetuousness of youth, but I sure hope I can emulate your metronomic strength one day.

I enjoyed riding among so many strong athletes, even if as an interloper. Surprisingly, I never once found myself alone. There's a special connection when you hook up with a complete stranger who keeps a similar pace and you silently trade pulls over 10's of kilometres (okay, not so silent in my case—being adept at shooting off my mouth.) But there's this wonderful tacit recognition of each other: first as a cyclist, and second more broadly as a fellow human, moving through three dimensional space under our own power. That happened for me with an affable, Dutch, hairy-legged Wheeler named Joost. Thanks, Joost.

Kate was my other talisman. She's super tough. We whiled away many hard kilometres together, variously encouraging and heckling each other on. Every big ride like this needs a Kate. And I was very happy Kate was my Kate on this ride. I like Kate—even if she has trust issues.

This really is such a great, challenging, beautiful ride. And Kim and the Wheelers/OBB crew did a fantastic job at providing just the right amount of support. A guaranteed snappy draft to Sooke, good ride food/drink along the way, mechanical support throughout, awesome BBQ/swim at the end and a jolly old bus ride home — all for $25. I'm still shaking my head. We are fortunate to live in such an amazing cycling community.

One of the more satisfying parts of the day was back at OBB after a mildly debauched school bus ride over the Malahat. I had just put my front wheel back on and was about to will myself back on the bike for the short, painful jaunt home, when one of the OBB guys came over with a big smile. "Dude, I just unloaded your bike off the truck and I just had to come over and shake your hand. You did this whole ride on that thing? Wow, man." And here I'd been thinking how the bike porn around me all day had been impressive...

[trevor]

Hi folks.
First a big thanks to all TSers who came out and made the ride that much more memorable. And thank you to those of you who have sent kind words to the club via forums, blogs, emails, phone calls to OBB, or in person. We are pretty darn lucky to be a part of this amazing cycling community and last Sunday is certainly evidence of this.
I have to say this event was a highlight of the year for me. The route and weather, the moto escort and support vehicles, the BBQ and river swim, the transportation and soda pops, everything came together to form a pretty stellar 170k day in the saddle. I rode sweep with Joe and Mick. We had a blast encouraging and supporting those riders around us. Man, there are some gutsy riders out there! For those few riders who got in the van for a rest (I think there were only 5, 3 of which jumped back on their rigs to keep pedalling) the sweep van was a huge help. I think that for those of us who didn't utilize this help, just knowing it was there a few km back, was a big psychological boost.
There are a few packs at OBB that didn't get picked up. Missing yours? Check there.
Say tuned to victoriawheelers.ca for a ride report. Please send any photos of the day to victoriawheelersinfo@gmail.com. And of course, mark this one on your to do list for next year.
Cheers.
Trevor