Kennetcook - South Maitland 200km Brevet: 24.05.08--200km

200kms is one of my favorite distances and this was a very pleasant ride. I'll put up a map and some pictures when I get a chance.

2008 Fleche - 24 hour endurance ride in Ottawa: 17.05.08--429km

(making up for some lost posts)..

I decided to join Randonneurs Nova Scotia this spring and the first ride we did that was over 100 miles happened to be the Fleche. A Fleche is a team ride, it is over a course of at least 360km predetermined by the team and must be done in 24 hours. There are some more rules you can read here.

There were only two of us in NS that wanted to do this this year and the rules state a minimum of three so we joined two more in Ottawa.

We took the ride at a much slower pace that I am used to but not having done this distance before I was happy to take it easy. Despite the slow pace by the time darkness fell I did not find it easy. I found myself wanting to fall asleep and with nothing open in rural Ontario I couldn't get a coffee to help keep me going. Eventually I found a gas station that sold energy drinks with kept me going for about a half hour, then made me crash far worse.

Eventually we made it, but in retrospect if I do another fleche I'll want to do it in a more populated place during the evening and have an evening start so that when we are at our most tired point the sun will be out and shops will be open.

Here is the ride report from Ottawa Randonneur Peter Grant:

Ride Report - Ottawa Fleche Team PGDM 2008

Our Fleche 2008 almost did not happen. In late winter, Guy Quesnel and I (Peter Grant) agreed that it would be good to ride a Fleche of 400km or more to qualify for the Shenandoah 1200. We just needed 1 to 3 more riders to form a team. As winter ended and riding started in Ottawa we asked friends if they would like to join us, but found no one who wanted to ride a 400+km 24 hour ride. We slowly prepared for the ride which we wanted to be as self supported as possible, without really knowing where to find a team. In mid-April an email from David Ross of Randonneurs Nova Scotia changed everything. He and Michael Godwin would like to ride a Fleche, but had no team in Nova Scotia. Was there a chance that they could join a team in Ottawa? There was very good chance indeed that they could join a team in Ottawa!

A focus on the Fleche returned. Some thing that I wanted to do different from the past 2 years was to be self supporting in the middle of the night. We have used drive through windows at 24 hour Tim Hortons to get hot food at night. The staff of Tims manning the drive through has been willing, some times with reluctance to serve us, but they and we have been subjected to harangues from a back room manager wanting us gone with no service. A strategy which I discussed with Guy was to carry a camp stove and cook a midnight dinner along the road. Guy had a stove and our plan was formed.

The second almost end of the Fleche came at the end of April when a close relative of mine died suddenly in Winnipeg. I rushed off and forgot about registering our Fleche until long past the deadline. My request to the Randonneurs Ontario board of directors for permission to make a late registration was accepted and Peter leiss generously approved my plan 5 days before the ride. Thanks to the board and Peter. I wont do it again.

The team met the evening before the start. We had planned a 6:00AM departure, but the weather forecast was for a cold front to pass Kingston at noon. To try to avoid the rain we moved our start time to 4:00AM. Our planned route would leave Ottawa and approximately follow the Rideau Canal to Kingston. Then we would ride east along the St. Lawrence River to arrive in Brockville about dinner time. In the evening we would continue east in the farm lands north of the St. Lawrence until a road intersection 20km north of Morrisburg where we would turn to the north west and start back to Ottawa. Route scenery would be about half woods and granite hills and the other half would be farm land of eastern Ontario.

We departed Ottawa at 4:00AM with calm wind but temperature of maybe 5C. We were four cold riders who arrived at Merrickville at 75 km shortly after sun rise and stopped for breakfast. With the sun up we left Merrickville in rapidly rising temperature and rapidly rising wind as we headed south west to our rendezvous with a cold front. The wind soon had flags standing straight out and snapping. We worked hard for the next 100km. Our new friends from Nova Scotia proved to be strong riders as we faced head winds of 30kph and more. Come back and ride us again guys. Our strategy of an early departure did not seem to have been early enough, but both we and the cold front were late getting to Kingston. We were just finishing lunch when the first rain started hitting the restaurant windows. We delayed departure until the rain was just a light steady rain and started east for Gananoque. The next 2 hours were in light rain with gusty winds that never really seemed like the good tail wind we wanted. I have a new randonneuring bike this year. It has permanently installed fenders and a rack. The fenders kept the back of my shorts dry. It felt like a luxury as we were on wet pavement for much of the afternoon.

After our freezing start in the morning and an even lower temperature forecast for the night, we made a stop in Gananoque at a Canadian Tire store to shop for warmer clothes and gloves. Then we were on to the 1000 Islands Parkway for the ride to Brockville. It was a pleasant ride with a light tail wind and gradually drying pavement.

Pavement was completely dry and rain seemed only a memory as we pulled in to an East Side Mario's for dinner. A fenced in patio was completely deserted and we used it as a bike parking lot. We were seated immediately in the restaurant and almost as immediately, through the widows we saw torrential rain pouring down. It is hard to believe, but we had the only 2 strong storms hit exactly when we were inside eating. Amazing!

Leaving Brockville we stocked up on extra water and put coffee in a thermos. The plan was to not need any support for the next 150km of night riding. We were again on wet pavement and after a short stretch of city riding were out in the farm lands. We enjoyed a pretty sunset as the sun sank into a line of thunderclouds to our north as we made our way to North Augusta. By Spencerville it was completely dark. The gas station/convenience store was open which would made a good last stop on a future ride of this route. About 23:00 we were at the farthest point in the south east of our route, a cross roads in a forest. We turned north for home looking for a dry place to stop for a late night meal.

We soon found a spot under a hugh maple tree at the side of the road. Illuminated by 2 bike headlights, Guy brought out the camp gear and set up the whisper light stove. In about 30 minutes he had 4 plates of hot spaghetti Parmesan. In much less time, the spaghetti was consumed, the stove packed up and we were on our way again. No cars passed by in the 45 minutes we were stopped. The country side was amazingly quiet. The moon was almost full and a light wind, unfortunately a head wind, sometimes blew. The temperature was cool, but never descended to the levels we had feared. It was a beautiful ride across the farmlands of eastern Ontario. We rode back to Ottawa making a few short stops for snacks. The morning head winds had hurt and we did not achieve our target distance of 443km, completing instead 429km.

I hope that everyone on the team enjoyed the ride as much as I did. Thanks to David and Michael for driving from Nova Scotia and riding with us. Thanks to Guy for hauling the dinner and cooking a hot meal in the middle of the night.

Peter Grant
May 21, 2008