My mum knew I had friends involved in #ridejamesride last year....this weekend we were talking about how the main participant took over my Netflix and then did a training ride the next day.
Eventually it clicked that I know James and his organization team. I suspect that she will be spreading the word more through.the area James rides though first.
Do you have postcards or posters hat people can drop in along the route?
Do you have 45 minutes to make some using canvas, that supporters can print and post?
Ugh - I was going to make up something like this months ago. It never came together. The combined impact of my unartistic lilt and a lack of inspiration.
I should do it. Excuses and all that.
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Had a very busy weekend on the cycling side of things...
On Friday, some cycle-tourists were coming for a visit. I suggested a route to our house for them, and then headed out from the office to meet them and escort them through town. They were distracted along the way, and took a different route. Meant I got to finish my workday with a 20km ride through a part of town I usually don't get to. It also meant the cyclists beat me home.
Since the cyclists were vegetarians with an array of food allergies, we weren't sure what to feed them. This was made simple when they volunteered to cook for us! For dinner we had Tacos with beans and rice filling, and an array of veggies for toppings. Delicious.
In the morning we had scrambled eggs, and then rode with them to Toronto. A nice and familiar 60 km ride to the roundhouse... in the rain! Not really ideal weather-wise, but great for us to see that even in poor weather we can tick off the miles. James really wanted to ride the mini-train around the Roundhouse Park, but it was out of service due to weather. He was bummed, but alas, such is life.
We got on the Go Train back to Whitby, packed, put the bikes on the car, and drove to Owen Sound for Ride-Don't-Hide ,a charity ride for mental health that we had signed up for months earlier. We got to a hotel at about 1:00 AM and I carried James from the car to bed.
Waking up the next day, we had missed the alarm, and were late to the bike ride. Because of this we didn't get into the 80km ride that we had signed up for, and instead we had to go in the 50km ride. In the rush, we didn't get breakfast or fill our water bottles and a pile of other nuisance things were out of place. We ended up on the second-last start of the 50 km ride, almost an hour behind the start time we were planning on, without breakfast. Ugh. At least we made it to the ride.
As we hopped on our bikes, James stuffed his face with ride-supplied granola bars and a banana, and packed his handlebar bag with fruit.
We rode with the crowd keeping up nicely. I was pretty proud of James for keeping pace and even pushing our pack a little early on. Then, when we came to the first rest stop, we ducked in and got our water-bottles filled while everyone else rode on - really the stop was not needed, except for the bottle fill. This bumped us to the very back of the 50 km ride. Ugh.
James pedalled hard, and we passed a few people, eventually finding a couple of folks with a pace close to our own. We stuck with them until we came to the second rest stop at the peak of a tough hill. This stop was needed, and James decided to eat everything on his handlebar bag, grab more food from the table, and visit the folks at the stop. Then, when we should have really left, he decided to use the washroom. There was a lineup. We waited. While peeing, the call came out that the 50km sweep was leaving, anyone still at the stop would be cut from the ride. Crud.
We ran from the bathroom to the bikes and rode with the sweep 15km to the next stop. James put a plan together as we rode. At the next stop he was going to just get a banana and a drink, and then leave right away. So we did that... and it worked. On the ride back to the start/finish, we did great, and finished the 50 km ride just ahead of the sweep for the 25km event.
So over the weekend we rode just over 100km - which is pretty respectable. But more important is that we upped our speed by oodles. The 50 km Ride Don't Hide event we started at 8:00 AM and finished around 11:15. Very respectable.