Ride Report: No gears, no fears on Ontario's escarpement

 Route / Event: Niagara Ramble 200 / 200km Brevet [ Ride Log ]

Sometimes the bike carries you
Sometimes you carry the bike

The Niagara Escarpment on a lovely October weekend -- now that is a recipe for a picturesque ride. The weather forecast called for a mere 3 to 5 degrees Celsius; unseasonably cool for this time of year but nothing I wasn't prepared to gear up for. 25 - 30kph winds weren't ideal. The good news is there was no rain. No need to add wet to an already cold and windy day. 

But weather wouldn't be the theme of this ride. Neither would the pressure of having to finish the day and get back to London knowing I had company in from out of town for Thanksgiving. No -- this ride would have a new wrinkle. 

"You've got to be fucking kidding me" I said. I had just tried to shift down from my highest gear only to feel my shift lever give way to the cable, and go completely limp. 

Michel, riding beside me, asked about this sudden change in temperament. 

"I can't shift." I said. "I think the cable's snapped." We pulled over and I looked it over. I could feel the slackness of the cable as I inspected it's connection to the rear derailleur. Not wanting to make the problem any worse, I left the cable alone. So my rear gear would remain stuck in the 11 tooth sprocket -- great for top-end, but I'd be damned if I would be able to climb. I could still move my front shifter between 50 and 32 tooth rings. Those two gears would have to do. The irony of this was that this exact issue had happened to my brother in-law on our last brevet only a month ago. Only I didn't have the luxury of being close to home to swap my bike out. 

Sixteen kilometers in and I had two gears. I remounted my bike and was taking my sweet time getting to speed when a fellow rider approached us from behind.

"Hey, I thought we were right at the back" I told him as we greeted. The rider was Paul Young, a self-described "full value" randonneur. In Paul's words, if he had 13 and a half hours to complete today's ride, he'd come in around 13 hours and 28 minutes.  With his swept-back flatbar akin to a Jones H-bar, and his coious amount of luggage, Paul really did look like he was out for an all day tour. His relaxed approach to tackling a brevet in this way really helped get my head back in the game. My bike still worked, and I could finish like this -- I would just be slower. No....I would just get the full value out of the day.

Locks and Lifts up the Welland Canal Parkway

Either Lock 6 or Lock 7. They were all different. 

We spent the morning in the Niagara basin, which was great because that meant no climbing -- at least for now. I knew I'd have to square with the escarpment at some point, but that would be a bridge I would cross when I got to it. Speaking of bridges, our ride along the Welland Canal Parkway gave us a view of several of the locks, each engineered slightly differently. 

Along the Welland Canal parkway I briefly caught site of a lesser known feature I'd been meaning to see. The monument to the Cannonball, a bicycle that was manufactured in Thorold, Ontario, could be seen along a line of buildings to my left. I wasn't about to stop here since it wasn't a great view. This feature is more prominently featured in the Cannonball 300 bikepacking route, which runs along a rail trail right up along those buildings. I'd leave my admiration of that art for a time when I was passing along that route. I turned my attention back to the locks in the canal for the time being. 

Control 1: Michel, Paul, and I arrived at the first checkpoint, a Tim Horton's at the 70km mark. We met up with sadrik, Natalia, and Michael who had arrived 10 - 15 minutes before us. I explained the situation I was having with my shifter. Michael and sadrik suggested I adjust my b-screw and find a better gear to spend the entire day in. Paul even offered to give me a new cable to swap in. (What didn't he have in that luggage?). While I appreciated the camaraderie of my fellow randonneurs, I shrugged off the aid. The bike was rideable, and I felt like if I tried to swap in a new cable, I might render it un-rideable. 

SIDE NOTE: Michael Henderson's ride report can be found here. 

Our ride continued south along Niagara Parkway -- infamous for it's many wineries and B&Bs. Just one week prior to this ride I did a bicycle wine tour with Grape Escape Tours took us along the paved parkway on a set of rented hybrids as we visited six wineries. But today was a different pace altogether, and we stuck to the road as we meandered past Peller, Reif, Inniskillin, and many other wineries. 

Hike-a-bike!

The big climb: The climb that followed was a 15% wall. Not wanting to break a chain, I hopped off my bike as soon as I felt some resistance. Michel said he'd wait at the top, and off he went. I started to push my bike up the hill, but doing so made me feel weak. I don't consider myself a vain person, but I really hated the idea that passers-by would perceive me as being incapable of tackling this hill. So instead, I hefted my bike onto my back and carried it up the escarpment that way. This, I felt, changed the perception to me carrying a broken bike. Though this was punishing to my quads, it made me feel much stronger. On some level I knew this was completely superficial, but I also knew that I needed to feed my stupid ego to keep my morale up. 

Fred and Michel at the horseshoe falls

Climbs have a way of separating groups of riders in long rides, and Michel and I were back to traveling as a pair as we approached the tourist trap of Niagara Falls. We briefly spotted Michael taking in the falls on his own, but didn't notice if we passed anyone else. 

Control 2: About an hour later we rode into Fonthill, the site of the second checkpoint for this ride. 

"Long stop or short stop?" I asked my ride-mate. 

"I think I'm ready for some proper food." he replied. I was glad. Though I gave him the option, I was hoping for a longer stop. The eastbound headwind had drained me, and I needed a proper reset. 

"There's a SubWay on our side of the road here, but I don't see a good place to park if we're gonna sit." I said. 

Michel looked across the road. "The Tim Horton's has a bike rack." 

I looked more closely at the single bike that was already standing rigid in the rack, noticing its familiar yellow bar tape. "sadrik's inside." I noted. 

The three of us shared lunch and swapped stories of the day. We agreed that this was among the most scenic brevets we've each of us ridden, but between the climbs, traffic, and wind, it was proving difficult to remain packed up with other riders. We saw Michael make a quick stop at the SubWay across the way before heading out on his own again -- there was no way I was catching him on my broken bike today. I stalled a bit to see if Paul might make it to this control, but we left before catching nay sight of him. 

Into the wind: I had to walk up the final climb just west of Font Hill. By the time I got to speed again, sadrik was a dot on the horizon. Michel waited for me of course. That's the thing about carpooling -- you're pretty much guaranteed a ride buddy for the entire ride. 

And boy did I welcome the company. The wind was blowing at about 35kph straight into us, and I could barely maintain a speed of 20kph. I started yelling at my bike as it refused to shift to my inner ring. 

"Shift damn you!" I screamed into the wind. 

"NO! You've used me enough today!" I imagined my bike stubbornly responding/ 

"I've had to. You're all I've got. So shift!"

"NO! You ignore me for a whole season, and now you're making me work harder than I've ever had to. I'm done!" it responded, still rigidly refusing to move the lever. 

"God damnit, I need an easier gear in this wind. Fucking shift or I swear I will replace you with a one-by the moment I get home."

The lever gave a click and the chain dropped into the inner ring. I could feel the lactic acid draining in my quads as my cadence picked up. Sensing my low spirits, Michel found a gap in the road traffic and pulled up next to me. 

"Okay so here's what we're going to do. We're going to make up television show pilots by combining two well known premises. I'll start. Six friends, living in urban New York, dating and working joe jobs" he said. "And we get to follow their lives over the course of 24 hours. Each episode is exactly an hour, in real-time."

"I get it," I said, appreciating what Michel was doing. After a minute I responded. "Okay. So imagine you could visit the world of Game of Thrones, except all the characters are just artificially intelligent cyborgs working pre-programmed storylines". 

"Like Westworld..." Michel said

"Westeros-world." I corrected. 

"Good one!" he exclaimed. 

We did this back and forth with the headwind whistling in our ears until finally we were prompted by our Garmins to turn out of the wind, and before long we pulled into the final checkpoint in Smithville. 

We didn't stay long at the Tim Horton's. In fact, I didn't even go inside. This being the third Tim Horton's I'd stopped at today they really all seem the same once you're inside. Michel took our bottles in for a refill while I sat with the bikes. When he came out with full bottles he said to me "You know, I can't believe you've done this whole ride on two gears."

"I think I'm down to one" I conceded. "The front shifter is super stiff and I think the cable is about to snap as well."

"Well just 25km to go." he assured me. 

"I just checked, and there aren't anymore climbs either." I said. "You know, all things considered, this isn't a bad route to lose my gears on. It's pretty flat -- except when it isn't. All the climbing is done in three of four distinct spots."

"Good thing it isn't one of Charles' routes" Michel said as we got going.

"You mean like Sandhills, last month?" I said, thinking of what my brother in-law went through. "Poor Jeff."

"No kidding." Michel agreed, as we re-inserted ourselves into traffic. "Okay, so imagine the cast of Seinfeld...but they're stuck on a deserted island after a plane crash...."

Dreaming of Burritos: The sun was setting. "You know what would be really fucking good right now?" I saod to Michel after a long silence. "A seven layer burrito from Taco Bell." I said, not giving him a chance to respond. 

"How did I know you were gonna start talking about food?" he laughed. 

"Because we're at 190kms and it's about time we start talking about what we're eating on the way home." I said. 

We hit a steep descent and I welcomed the rest. My legs were just about done after spending most of the entire day in top gear. Out of nowhere sadrik overtook me in full tuck. I had no idea where we would have even passed him! At the end of the descent, the three of us packed up, and finished the ride together. 

Don't ask me why. This was just what I needed. 

We pulled into the Casablanca Service just before 7PM - dusk this time of year. Once our gear was stowed and our bikes were loaded up, I checked Google Maps for the nearest Taco Bell. I was serious about getting a burrito on the way home. 

"You won't believe this." I said to Michel. "There's a Taco Bell right here!". 

"Where?" he asked, looking around. 

"It must be in that facility over there." I pointed. "This was meant to be." 

sadrik joined us for some post-ride fast food indulgence. I ordered two bean burritos and two seven layer burritos to reward myself for finishing the ride. (Love Taco Bell, but I do not eat their meat). Once we were done, my quads were so stiff I could barely get out of my chair. Thankfully, Michel offered to drive home. 

Lessons learned from this ride: 

• When it comes to re-cabling a bike I can do it. But it's usually a whole afternoon job. I'm not fast at it, and I'm not good at it. I certainly don't enjoy it, and I can't do it roadside. I may need to work on this. 
• Wind is the worst. What would I have done without a creative ride buddy? I've been recommended earplugs, which I may add to my gear list. 
• Niagara Falls in the fall needs to be a yearly tradition. 
• Taco fucking Bell, am I right?