Ride to Conquer Cancer - Day Two

I'm not a camper. For a person who spends a lot of time outdoors cycling and running and such, you'd think I might be, but I'm not. So last night was one of the drawbacks to this trip, a night in a tent. All in all, it wasn't too bad. Volunteers had already set up Tent City, so the ride participants just had to grab their bags and find their assigned tent. I chatted with my tentmate briefly in the evening. He's a survivor, who does a lot of charity rides, including one that went over 800km in four days last year. The biggest issue of the night was that my tent was in reasonable proximity to the port-a-potties. It's nearly impossible to close those doors quietly, and with almost 3000 people, someone was going in or out pretty much all night. I think I got about 4 hours sleep, which was going to have to do. We were served a full hot breakfast, with eggs, bacon, sausage, and waffles. (I'm trying to focus on the good stuff of the weekend, but one complaint: I think the waffles (pretty much Eggo's) were boiled, which isn't the right way to do it. They were soggy and unpleasant.) Everything was washed down with some OJ, and two strong cups of coffee, and at 7 o'clock, the roads were opened and we were escorted out of Hamilton.

The route today took us along the ridge of the escarpment, heading east. The prevailing winds through here are from the west, so it was a tailwind most of the day. I kept a nice hard pace for the first half of the ride, stopping at the pitstops (did I mention two cups of coffee?) and then cruising the section after "lunch" (the 50km marker, which I arrived at 8:45). Once we got to the Grimsby area, I was riding on all my old roads, and remembering a lot of the sections I did on the St.CCC group rides. We cut through the Short Hills north of Welland, which was the only significant climb of the day. This was also the 70km pitstop, so some last refueling, and then I decided with 34km to go, I'd burn the rest of my matches. Once back on the road, I opened the throttle and passed a ton of folks. I may be a bit of a jerk, but it sure was fun passing pacelines of riders. I did that last section in about 55 minutes, then was at Niagara Falls. The road followed the river, so we could see some of the upper rapids, then finished in a park just across the road from Horseshoe Falls. There was a good sized crowd already gathered to cheer on the participants, and it was a pretty moving experience to get to follow the path to the finish line.

There, I caught up with my wife who made the trip down to see me, ate even more at the BBQ, got cleaned up, watched a few more finishers, then hopped on a bus back to Toronto. And so ends the riding.

Bike: ~104km

I'll just briefly here add my thanks. To all my friends and family who donated to this cause, thank you for your support of all the research being done and PMH. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to take part in this wonderful weekend. My life has been touched in a good way, and I relish what I was able to participate in. Thank you to the organizers for all their excellent planning of a great weekend, and most thanks to a team of wonderful volunteers who made it easy for all of us to just ride our bikes. We may have been the ones on stage, but you were the real stars of the weekend.