Ride Report: Oh Karen, where art thou?

  Route / Event: Karen's Challenge / 400km Brevet [ Ride Log ]

Asleep(?) at the BMotel
3AM approx. Blenheim, Ontario
Photo credit: Stanley Zhou

I pulled into Tim and Brenda's place in Lasalle Ontario in the early evening. My gracious hosts had agreed to put me up for the night, given that our brevet the next day was departing at 5AM nearby.  Given that I lived two hours away by car this arrangement saved me getting up and leaving my place during the hour of the wolf. The ride would be a 400km loop from Essex out to Port Stanley on the north shore of Lake Erie, and back, and we'd have all of 27 hours to complete it in order to be credited completion.

"Great news" said Brenda as I pulled my bike into their garage. "Tim's decided to ride with us tomorrow after all!". 

"That's awesome!" I replied excitedly. It only took a few seconds though to realize that this otherwise exciting bit of news completely disrupted my packing strategy. 

I had packed my bike under the assumption Tim would be providing support by car at our controls. This meant I needed to find a way to pack a few things on my bike that I had assumed would be in a duffle bag in the back of a vehicle. Was this a problem? Nah -- I'd certainly rather have Tim riding with us than not. But this being my first brevet requiring a ride through the night, all it meant was that I would adjust from not knowing how to pack for a supported overnight ride to ... not knowing how to pack for an unsupported overnight ride. Let's just see what happens. 

Settling down in the home of fellow randonneurs the night before a brevet was comforting. We chatted over IPAs about rides of course - and I learned about how this route "Karen's Challenge" got it's name. That's a fact you won't find documented here though, out of respect for some people's privacy (deserved or not). If you're riding with me sometime, ask me. 

Eight Riders (left to right): Fred, Michel, Edwin, Vincent, Tim, Brenda, Stanley, Luke

We arrived the next morning at the departure point -- the parking lot of a Tim Horton's and McDonald's in Essex, about a ten minute drive from Tim and Brenda's. I'd always found it a bit cliché to be launching a brevet from yet another Tim Horton's, but in the pre-dawn morning it made a lot of sense.

The lot was well lit, and this particular Tim Horton's was open 24-hours. This meant access to coffee, breakfast, and washrooms at the ungodly hours of our departure, and potentially our return. 

I greeted Michel, who was unpacking his bike in the lot. Under normal circumstances Michel and I would have carpooled together from London, but he had just arrived home from a business trip at midnight the night before. This constraint almost led to him backing out of this brevet entirely, but his wife Natalie, who fiercely supports Michel's passion for the sport, had agreed to drive him from London and share the ride with us, rather than scour the brevet schedule for another 400. This had Michel up for a 3AM departure for London. I wondered if he'd even slept at all. 

With the temperature still only single digits, and a rain threat in the air, we rode out as a pack of eight, riding two abreast. Though it's pretty customary for brevets in the Huron chapter to remain as a social group ride for the first hour or so, I began to wonder how our small pack might break up over the course of the ride. I was Michel's ride home so we were no doubt going to be stuck to each other (or with each other depending on how we were feeling at the time). And since I also still had overnight gear at Tim and Brenda's place, it made sense that I try to remain with them as well. Luke, Edwin, and Stanley had come in from Toronto the night before and I assumed they'd stick together for the entire ride. But Tim and Brenda, ever the ambassadors of a great brevet experience, seemed determined to ensure that our three Toronto boys would have a great time, so I could see a future where Finally there was Vincent, astride his race bike. I was pleased to see he was still with us as we pulled into a Tim Horton's in Tilbury for a quick stop after two hours of riding. 

The Tillbury stop wasn't a formal control, so all we needed were to fill bottles and drain bladders. Vincent bade us leave ahead of him though, stating he'd skipped breakfast to make the early morning departure, so he was going to fill the void. He would pass us later in the morning fully tucked into his aero bars, waving as he passed. And so eight became seven....and would remain so for the remaining 360kms of the ride. 

"If you want to ride fast go alone. If you want to ride far, go together."

 -- Some proverb, who was probably a randonneur. 

Control 1: Mitchell's Bay (80kms)

Where do people get milk in Mitchell's Bay?

We rode for another 40kms before arriving in Mitchell's Bay just before 10AM. Mitchell's Bay is a small marina town on the east coast of Lake St. Clair. The control itself was Mitchell's Bay Variety Store. Spending the last couple years riding around the coasts of Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie taught me much about the seasonal patterns of these coastal port towns. So it wasn't really a surprise to see that, once we'd arrived, the variety store was closed for the season. It was late April of course, and this was clearly a summer town. 

Second Breakfast at Parkside Restaurant
Mitchell's Bay
Photo Credit: Brenda Wiechers-Maxwell

Across the road there was a diner that was open, so we stopped there instead. I took time to sort out the mess that was my trunk bag because of my hasty re-packing the night before, so I was delayed getting inside. By the time I got into the restaurant, I still wasn't sure if this was a quick coffee stop, or a second breakfast. This was clarified when I saw the excitement on the faces of Luke, Edwin, and Stanley when their stack of pancakes arrived. Longer stop it is then -- I ordered an egg and cheese breakfast burrito for myself. 

Control 2: Glencoe by Day (160kms)

The weather was extremely inconsistent over the next leg. It would rain, so the group would stop to add a layer of rain gear. Then it would stop, so the group would stop to remove that layer. We played this game over the course of the day. Not really having any rain gear to swap out, I just hung out, and used the time to eat, or answer any calls of nature. 

Somewhere around Newbury though, Brenda had to pull over. Her front tire had failed, having developed some kind of a slice and a swell in the sidewall. Not only was this causing the tire to wobble unevenly, it also exposed the inner-tube to the elements, drastically increasing the likelihood of a flat.  

Tim and I rode at the front as we got going again. So I had to ask. 

"Expressed as a percentage," I started. "What are the odds of Brenda's tire making it the remaining 300ish kilometers we have?" Tim thought about it for a second. "About....ten percent?", he replied, disquietly. 

We pulled into the Glencoe Tim Horton's at 14:30. As I lined my bike up against the gate around the outdoor patio I noticed a little girl sitting at an outdoor table with her mom and dad; a Barbie bike leaning up against her chair. 

"Nice day for a bike ride isn't it?" I said to her. Her parents smiled. 

"We're on a BIG bike ride." she said excitedly. No qualms at all about talking to a large bearded, and likely smelly man, this one. "After this, we're going to the park!".

"I'm on a big bike ride too!" I replied. "I wish I got to go to the park, but I will be going to the beach later...but I don' t think it's warm enough to swim. What do you think?" I asked. 

"Where is there a beach?" she asked. 

"Port Stanley." I showed her my brevet card, which listed all our checkpoints, and showed her that Port Stanley was where I was going next. "Can you sign your name here? I need proof that I got here in Glencoe." I looked at her parents to ensure they approved. They were enjoying this whole exchange. 

Steeling herself for this important task, the girl took about five minutes, painstakingly writing her name as neatly as possible. A-B-B-E-Y. Her parents encouraged her along. 

"Thanks, Abbey. This is perfect." I said. "Enjoy your ride, and I'll enjoy mine". 

Control 3: Port Stanley (230kms)

Before the ride I'd held a faint hope that I could have dinner with my wife in Port Stanley figuring I'd be there around 5:30PM. But with more stopping due to costume changes, combined with some other conflicts back home, the timing didn't work out. Perhaps if I'd had Vincent's speed, it could have worked out. In fact, Vincent had arrived at the Port Stanley control at 4:20 in the afternoon, just in time to witness police chasing down three teenagers who had knocked off the liquor store and a K-Mart. They had collided with a parked car in their attempt to flee the scene. [ news article ]. 

GO LEAFS GO!
Round 1, game 3: Leafs vs. Lightning

There was no sign of any of that action by the time our group finished the fun descent into the Port Stanley basin, just before 7PM in the evening. Natalie, Nicole, and Marc had both made the trip down from London to meet our group for dinner. Marc, being a fellow randonneur, would have been on the ride with us, but had had just recently undergone an appendectomy following stomach cramps on a 200km brevet two weeks prior. I was happy he was able to share in the experience in at least this way. 

The pub we stopped at was packed to the walls, and there was no way I felt we would get a table together. I found myself a free stool at the bar on my own, and plugged in all my ectronic gear to charge from a tucked away powerbar. The reason for the furvor at the bar -- The Toronto Maple Leafs were in the first round of the playoffs, in game 3 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. 

Eventually we did convene at a few tables. Tim and Brenda's friends from St. Thomas, Mark and Rachel, had brought her a spare tire. They'd entertained putting in on at the pub, but decided to pack it and take the risk that they might have to swap it on in the dark by the side of the road. 

Just as I thought our meal was coming to a close, a large wave of food landed on our table. Luke, Edwin, and Stanley had gotten a little carried away with the menu it seems, and ordered family-sized everything platters for... I dunno, the whole restaurant? If it hadn't sunk in yet that this brevet was going to be a full value affair, this feast sealed it. 

After dinner I went outside to get my bike ready for the return legs. Natalie had brought CLIF bars, apples, and bananas for us to stow. I had no idea where I would put them. My trunk bag just looked like a giant bowl of soup and I didn't know where anything was. This being my first experience heading into a night ride, I started to get frustrated at apparent lack of a functional packing system to rely on. 

"I'm holding so many things and I don't know where anything is!!!" I remember exclaiming to no one in particular. 

Eventually I found my headlights, and mounted them on the bike's fork. I put the extra food in my pockets, and repacked everything into places I thought made sense. I'd probably eventually forget. It shouldn't be frustrating, I told myself, but this kind of micro-management drives me crazy. We left port Stanley at 9PM, a full two hours after we'd arrived, riding into the night back toward Essex. 

Control 4: The long road to Blenheim (316kms)

The road to Blenheim involved a segment that was essentially a 50km straight shot west, and unfortunately right into the wind. The group was holding a speed of just over 20kph. I'd been training all winter to improve my overall pace. I'd been doing this because I knew that, in a month's time, I'd be riding on a team with Tim and Brenda in the Fleche, and my goal was to not be a liability for this team. Put more optimistically, my goal was to build myself up to the caliber of cyclist that could ride a long distance at a sustained high speed, with the likes of Brenda and Tim. So while I shared this with Tim as we took our long pull at the front of the group, I knew that tonight wouldn't be the night I'd see what I was capable of. Instead, our goal tonight was to stick together, work together, and succeed as a group. As long as we traveled fast enough to keep my core temperature high, I could accept it. 

At around 277kms we came across an Ice-Cream stand in the middle of nowhere (Take-a-Bite Inc.). It was just after 11PM by this point, and we were still a few hours away from Blenheim, so we decided to put a foot down here. Since it wasn't yet past midnight, I took the opportunity to call Kim and tell her how it was going so far. Michel and I also each did a Duo Lingo lesson on our phone; him yelling in Spanish, and me in Dutch. Boom -- kept that daily streak alive. Somehow, through all of that, some of the others took a chance to micro-nap. Should I have been doing that? I wasn't tired in that kind of way. Actually I just wanted to keep moving, both to stay warm, and to finish the ride. This was all new to me. Maybe my years in an on-call IT job had given me some sleep-deprivation super powers? Or maybe I wasn't even close to tapping into that yet. What did I know? 

Another hour of rolling saw us cover twenty more kilometers, and there was a group request to stop again. We were at the intersection of Talbot Line and Desmond Dr, quite literally the middle of nowhere! I followed suit with the group, setting our bikes down in the grass, and taking refuge from the strong wind behind a large tree on the corner. Before long we were all sitting down. Brenda was taking the opportunity to use the tree to explain the principles of drafting to Edwin and Stanley. The two seemed to have endless endurance, but had a habit of dropping back from the group and missing the benefit of hiding from the wind. The result being they were working harder than they needed to, and it was tiring them out! 

A time of quiet "reflection"
Photo Credit: Xinhua (Luke) Luo

Then one by one, riders started to lay down. Cool! I get to have my first ditch nap! This was turning into a full night riding experience indeed. In fact, I was so excited by the prospect of napping on the ground, that I couldn't even sleep! Was it this keeping me awake...or was it the sound of Stanley snoring? Actually the snoring sent me into convulsions as I worked to stifle my laughter. If only I could tell dear Abbey that I was still on my bike ride, sleeping by a tree. What would she think? 

An undetermined amount of time later, once we decided it was time to keep rolling, I hopped on my bike and started riding up and down the road while all the others readied themselves. I had to get my core body temperature up again -- the temperature was hovering around the freezing mark and I was shivering hard. 

Hotel BMO, Blenheim Ontario

It was exactly 2AM when we finally arrived in Blenheim. The entire town was asleep, and nothing was open. We rode up the main downtown strip and spotted a BMO ATM and decided to make that our shelter for a rest -- for how long, I had no idea. I was full-on just doing whatever the group did at this point. 

Inside the ATM it was bright, and the music was loud. Was this intentionally to dissuade riff raff from using the place as a makeshift motel room? I sat down on the box labeled "SALT" in the corner -- the plastic cracking under my weight so loud it sounded like thunder. "I guess I need to lose some weight" I said to the group. "I should ride my bike more". 

Then, as before, one by one, our group of riders started closing their eyes and falling asleep. Cool! Now I was going to experience this whole concept of sleeping in an ATM! I was so excited by this prospect that I couldn't even sleep. Was it this keeping me awake...or was it the loud music, bright lights, or the sound of Stanley snoring again? Oh Abbey -- I'm a disgrace and I'm sorry you ever met me. I hope you had fun at the park today. (Wait...wasn't that yesterday?)

Control 5: The long road to Wheatly (316kms)

I recall only one thing about the road from Blenheim to Wheatly. Riding along the neverending Talbot line, I caught a glimpse of a figure coming out from behind a tree in front of a large country home. Arms raised, the figured growled fiercely. Lightning shot through my body and my heart started racing. Then the figure broke out into a laugh, as did the rest of the group. It was juts a guy out having a smoke in the middle of the night -- he must have seen us coming from quite a ways, and had the bright idea to scare the shit out of us. "Thanks! That warmed me right up!" I yelled, in hopefully good humour, as we rode past."

By the time we got to Wheatly, the sun was up. Our last control was a Circle K at a gas station, which thankfully, was open. Like a bunch of tired drifters, we settled at the back of the store, munching on breakfast snacks and caffeinated drinks. It was here again, that I looked around and saw a few of our riders' heavy eyes shutting, and settling in for a nap. But this was in stark contrast to the fact that the place was being actively patronized by people buying gas, cigarettes, and whatever else. This made me self-conscious. 

"Alright. Up! Let's go guys. We only have 40kms to go and we're running out of time." I said. I got up, and went out to my bike. We were into the 24th hour of the ride, so I wasn't kidding. We needed to motor. 

Finish: Finally back to Essex (407kms)

The last leg saw our group break up slightly. Tim, Brenda and Luke were riding in a formation around Edwin and Stanley, who were very tired after the long night of headwind and lack of sleep. And I stayed with Michel. Michel had ridden strong all day and through the night, but it was at this point I could tell his lack of restful sleep from having traveled home on a plane Friday night had taken it's toll. He was stable and safe, but he just had no watts left. The wind had died down, so I no longer needed to block for him. In fact I was more effective riding behind him, calling out potholes and other obstacles, navigating, and keeping our speed above 15kph. I kept talking -- asking him questions about his cybersecurity consulting engagement, about his kids, about dungeons and dragons, about nihilistic existentialism (Michel has a Ph.D. in ethics) -- anything that would keep him alert. 

Once we were a block away, we came across the rest of the team. They'd agreed to wait for us so we could all arrive together. We did so, and with 20 minutes to spare. Oh, AND Brenda's tire survived. Definitely a full value affair. If only I could tell Abbey. 

Michel and I got a couple hours sleep back at Tim and Brenda's before heading back home to London. I was even home in time to see my son's violin recital that afternoon.

#winningatlife

 

Lessons from this ride: 

• Never assume you're going to finish at a certain time on your own terms. The social aspect of randonneuring makes many decisions for you. And for the right reasons. 
• Traveling together trumps traveling alone. Sure there are more stops, and sure, it takes longer. But randonneuring is an experiential hobby. If I finished the ride alone at 3AM, what then? Wait in my car for 5 hours while others return? Where's the fun in that? Where are the stories? This ride really made me reflective of why I ride, how I ride, and with whom I ride. And I wouldn't have done it any other way. 

Finishers! 26:23