Turtle Miles

The challenge: Starting from Sunday, ride every day for a week averaging 1.5 hours a day. By Saturday I'd averaged over twice that with an 8-hour push to the end. Saturday started with a tandem ride to the market for strawberries and then around Hog's Back Falls.

After lunch I took an out-and-back to the fire-tower in Gatineau park.

The big-ass turtle is appropriate. My goal was to do no harm in my riding: ride gently, don't get tendonitis, or dehydrate, or any of the bad stuff that long miles can bring.

Turtle riding...

Long Ride to Quit a Race For

Nuts: Ahhh, what was that?
Brain: We crashed.
Nuts: You have to keep ahold of the handlebar dumbass.
Brain: I think we are alright. All the sweat makes it slippery.
Nuts: We are wearing our bike like a hoola hoop.
Brain: I'll fix that.

"Are you O.K.?"
"Yah fine"
Racers zoom by...

Nuts: Stuff hurts. Is that blood?
Brain: Yep. This is the third race and the third crash. Its time to pack it in.
Nuts: Let's do the rest of the lap at least.
Brain: Alright, but we will take it slow.
Nuts: Hey, we are getting our rhythm back.
Brain: Yeah, but for how long?
Nuts: You have to roll with the punches better.
Brain: No I don't.
Nuts: Cumon, don't be a wuss.
Brain: Look, I'm taking the long view. We rode two hours to get out here, we are tired, and we slip up. It was a bad idea for racing strategy, but a wonderful ride.
Nuts: Yeah, I agree with that, but it will be an even better ride if we keep on.
Brain: Or even worse. We crashed on the first lap. We're only gonna be more off-the-ball next time around.
Nuts: All I'm saying is if you really want to do the Tour Divide next year (fingers crossed) we can't be quitting every time the going gets tough.
Brain: Yes I want to do the Divide to. We have a lot of work to do to get even remotely close to the fitness we would need for that, and this short technical course we are on is beside the point, and the more crashes we get, the more this is becoming a training liability.
Nuts: Yeah, I guess you are right.
Brain: A lotta good this race is gonna be if the next crash is a collar bone, or our nuts.
Nuts: Alright, no need to lord it over me. Lets go through the start/finish and let'em know we are out.
Brain: Sounds good.
Nuts: We can come out to the next race in a car and have it dialed.
Brain: Maybe. Lets think about it on the ride home...

Saturday Sundae Ride

Working hard on a paper all day. Squeeze a ride in the evening. Luckily the Carp township has ice cream at the 30-mile mark. I think I can entice La Lissa to come out on the tandem for this one...

Champlain by Tandem

Riding has been mellow. I am busy with Neural Dynamics Summer school and writing too many papers. So its work-and-back, work-and-back. Today La Lissa and I went to Champlain lookout in Gatineau on the bike-for-two. I told her it would be two hours. It was four, and then a stop Chez Lucien.

Race

After the century I had some calf tendonitis and took a few days off. Today I got on the tandem for an hour and my calf was still acting up. Since waiting to heal requires waiting, and I am impatient, I tried the strategy of going racing at Camp fortune and covering up the injury by hurting my body everywhere else. Now the contrast between my calf and the rest of my body is not so big. I also went down in a wreck and sprained my pinky, but its OK.

Gatineau Century

I rode around the Gatineau park. There was a mystery section out northwest of the park that turned out to be loose gravel road for about 7 miles. Riding down hill on that section on a skinny-tire road bike was a little like downhill cross country skiing. Once out of the woods, I dropped down to Quyon, a little Quebec town on the Ottawa River that I'm told Elvis once played at. I took the Quyon ferry across the river to the Ontario side and another 40 miles of farm country back into town.

Second Go at Fortune

Last week I entered into a local Wednesday-after-work racing series at Camp Fortune. I hadn't been on the 29er yet this year, it was pouring down rain, and the registration took forever. With one minute to spare and no warm-up I made it to the start line having never ridden the trails before. The course was slick and rocky-technical. I did a lot of hike-a-bike. Today I got the rhythm back. Perfect weather. The only cloud was in my bottom bracket, which was shifting inside the housing a little when I started. A few climbs made it rattle better than before. Another trip to the bike store...

Cold, Cold North

Weekend Rides totaled 100 miles, pretty much evenly divided into 50 each day. Both were unseasonably cold, and Sunday was unbearably so, with hail and freezing rain while wearing a short-sleeved jersey. I was planing an 80 miler to Merrickville and back, but turned back at 25 at the first sign of cold-ass rain. Pictured below is the brighter day on Saturday on the waterfront in Wakefield Quebec.

Besides running errands on the tandem and work commutes, I've been resting. Mountain bike tomorrow...