V2N-N2V postscript

[FairweatherMike]

As the days get shorter and the prospect of catching a weekday ride starts to dwindle (I'm not yet at the stage where a wheel-to-wheel hammerfest in the dark - much less in the dark and the rain, Belgian-style - is an attractive concept), I thought I would take a minute to say a general thanks to the Tripleshot crowd and offer a tip of the hat to neighbour Dave Hill for introducing me to you folks. While it has been hard to carve out ride time in the midst of family life with late-adolescents, I can say my rides this year confirmed that my previously-dormant love affair with two wheels is once again alive and well. The highlight for me this year was what I had at first dismissed as loony, simply because I'd never done it: the Nanaimo full-meal-deal round trip. The more I thought about it, the more the "why not?" factor started to take over. A brief account of my experience follows below - it's from a fundraising e-mail I sent to people at my office.

One thing I didn't mention in the account below (I didn't figure it would be of general interest) was the assistance I got from Karl Ulrich on the N2V portion; a front spoke decided to explode at the Mill Bay stop, and Karl slapped on a spare front wheel. Then I flatted (back tire) at the Malahat summit, and Karl slapped on the matching rear wheel as the peloton vanished into the distance. For a moment I was able to live out a Tour de France fantasy (a la Fabian Cancellara - see Lister's post "Now this is bike handling") as the team mechanic got me back on the road in seconds and I was chasing the peloton in a high speed descent weaving past cars and the escort motorcycles... great fun - thanks, Karl. A big thanks also to Peter for his part in organizing the event and for good advice about lights. Soon as I get over this irritating short-term bug I'll look forward to seeing you all (on Sundays!) in the weeks ahead... Next step: the Triple Shot argyle kit so I'm no longer "that guy in the red"!

Fairweather Mike

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Colleagues -

It has been a week since THE RIDE and I can now perch on the saddle without "undue" discomfort. A hearty thank you to those of you who contributed $$ to this very worthwhile event. For a lot of us riders, it was the motivation to get a taste of what cancer sufferers have to do every day: conquer the task of making it through a day of challenges - small victories adding up one at a time.

I chose the "mad dogs and englishmen" option: leave by moonlight and ride up to Nanaimo with the hard-core roadies for the pleasure of the ride back. So after a night of simulated sleep (lying in bed, eyes closed, visualizing the route, anticipating hazards, questioning personal sanity, etc.) I left home in Fairfield at 4:35; at 4:50, passed the switch bridge Hwy. 1 rallying point for riders and kept going. Since they were due to blast off at 5:15, I figured a 25 minute head start would have them catching me at the Malahat summit. Turns out they had a series of flats on the way up and I didn't see them til Nanaimo! The Malahat by moonlight (and bike light) was alternately lonely, thrilling, grinding and terrifying - the latter while being passed by a semi on narrow shoulder sections. But the slow granny gear grind to the summit was worth it: at the lookout, a breathtaking 180 degree panorama with black star-filled sky and half moon turning to indigo and finally a deep orange pre-dawn glow silhouetting Baker and the mountains to the east. After that, a renewed sense of energy on the high-speed gravity-assisted descent (hoping nobody dropped a muffler on the shoulder during the night), and a steady pace north in the gathering light passing landmarks all-too-familiar to me as a motorist, but with a new perspective on two quiet wheels.

After enduring the seemingly endless grind that is the Nanaimo Parkway to get to the rallying point for the ride - and fueling up - there was lots of good company for the official ride back at 10 a.m.. The police escort was a fun part of the scene, with (volunteer) motorcycle cops clearly having the time of their lives rocketing from one intersection to the next to enable us to ride through. A neighbour described last year's ride as "an easy spin" - it was, I realized, more than a minor challenge with my energy meter already swinging toward E as a result of the early morning festivities. Mill Bay provided a welcome rest and fuel stop prior to the grueling climb up the Malahat in 30+C. temperatures on a bright blue day that I began to wish was cloudy. Conversation stopped and even the honking, supportive thumbs-up motorists seemed to go quiet (in pity) at the sight of a long string of cyclists clearly enduring the pain of the unavoidable slow grinding ascent. This was probably the part of the journey where the purpose of the ride came into focus: as with cancer sufferers, no quick fix, just do what has to be done and put one foot in front of the other.

The exhiliration of the subsequent descent allowed the pain at every part of the body that touched the bike to devolve into a tolerable numbness, and the last order of business was to keep it together for the final leg, culminating in a procession through town to Clover Point, where I made a personal vow not to do that again - until next time.

The Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock begins tomorrow going until October 2. Since I said in the previous e-mail below (with link to my Cops for Cancer fundraising page) that I would make only one appeal for donations, I will not ask twice…I will only hint broadly and thank you again.

Cheers -

Mike


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[FairweatherMike]

Did you know there's a typo gremlin who lives at the Tripleshot site? He has a hilarious time switching letters and words, as in the V2N-N2V postscript: "Now this is BIKE handling" becomes "Now this is shoe handling" ... What? I sure wasn't thinking of shoes when I wrote that... but Fabian probably has cool shoes too - yellow that day, as I recall -

Mike

[ART BOY]

great post Mike - that was my FUN (bike=shoe} I'll turn off the "word replacement now" hehe

[ART BOY]

bike bike bike - there it works now
perhaps I'll set up another...hmmm

[FairweatherMike]

"Galen the Gremlin" - good one... I knew there had to be some form of "artificial intelligence" at work here.