Original 200K Ride Report

Original 200 km brevet report

We were fortunate to have Vytas and Colleen at the start for the Original 200 km brevet on Saturday morning before 7 am. They provided good humour to send Patti, Alan Ritchie and myself into the cool,wet and windy brevet. I rode with Patti and Alan for the first 10 kms and we discussed rain clothing and some upcoming brevets. I decided to go ahead to get a breakfast and soup at Calabogie. There were a couple of route changes, we did not need to climb Richardson Side Road hill, instead we turned north on Cr. 29th at Almonte ( Petro-Can ) and rode ~ 3km to Clayton road and headed west for ~9.5 kms onto Tadlock and then ~ 3 km south to Cr. 16 to re-join the original route. It was a good change and very quiet roads. The rest of the ride was uneventful, more rain, tail wind to Hopetown and steady 5 C. I arrived at Mumford restaurant ~ 10:15 am, there were no customers ; there were shocked that we would be riding during a cool, wet and windy morning. I explained that there would be two more Randos arriving soon for the hot breakfast. I had the special breakfast, soup, chocolate milk and filled one water bottle; then changed my socks and knee warmers. As I was leaving I met Patti arriving and explained that here hands were getting cold in the OR gortex gloves and she had others .

I made good choices for core and top; LG skull hat - nylon helmet rain cover, neoprene gloves, Brynje polypro inner, would jersey, wool arm warmers and O2 Rain Jacket. Unfortunately , the 20 year old gortex pants, even with the Revivex spray did not work very well - so I will buy either a pair of O2 Rainwear pants , since the jacket was outstanding or invest in gortex pants for cycling and skiing. I also used BBB booties that did not work as well after several hours of rain, but this may have been due to the pants, although I put the pants on the outside of the booties and held them on with the reflective leg straps. I rode on Sunday with longer nylon / PVC pants and Serratus Velcro strap booties with no leakage, however the pants do not breathe, I will use Gortex or the O2 Rainwear pants ( ~ $21 US ) next time.

The ride from Calabogie to Burnstown was very challenging since the rain and headwinds ( 32 with gusts up to ~ 50 km /h ) picked up during my stop; however I put my head down and hands on the drops and continued to pedal. I think a visor or a bike hat would have worked better to deflect the rain drops. The ride from Burnstown was not much easier with the cross winds and hills to Renfrew, it sure felt like a lot longer than 10 kilometers. The rain continued to come down light to moderate until past Arnprior ( after 2 pm ). I did start to find my legs hurting a little , approx. 15 kms north or the second checkpoint. I think because of the rain, cold and the wind that I was not eating enough on the bike so I had a hot chocolate and muffin at Tim Horton's and continued on to Cheshire Cat final checkpoint

The turn from dwyer hill onto Galetta road was very challenging since the wind was much stronger, it felt let 50 km gusts and I could hardly do 20 km/hr and only 16 km/hr on the overpass. I was looking forward to the turn at Carp road for the final ~ 28 kms, I thought it would be much easier but again I felt I needed to eat more because of the extra energy to overcome the wind I ate a banana and two granola bars. The cross wind made it very challenging to stay on the road when cars passed me, I am glad I had the neoprene gloves with great gripping. I made it back to CC at 3:15 and got the bartender to sign me in at 3:20 pm

I enjoyed the ride and it helped me with some issues for training towards BMB this year and look forward to the 300 kms brevet on 4/30. Thanks Vytas for organizing the brevet and being prompt to send Patti, Alan and myself out for a memorable brevet spring ride. I have an updated HAC profile and will send it to the webmaster. The HAC measured 1142 meters of climbing ( adjusted 34 mBars for pressure change ) and the average temp. recorded was 6 C, although it felt below 5 C all day.

Vytas dropped over at the house this afternoon and picked up the control card and told me that everyone finished the brevet on Saturday, which is great news!