4th
When average becomes epic…
Today’s ride got a little out of hand.
I was up at 4:30 this morning to give me plenty of time to pick Larry up by 6am at his place so that we could tackle his Airport Road route and still leave enough time for him to get home before noon.
Of course, I didn’t get to his place until 6:10 and he never came downstairs until 6:20 and as we drove and chatted our way up to Hwy 9 and Airport Road, our goal of getting on the road by 7am quickly turned into a 7:54am start.
I left the rain bike at home this morning, even though I took the time to prep it last night. After standing on the front stoop for a few minutes in my bibs, I calculated that the weather would be nice enough, and dry enough, to take out one of the “good bikes”. I grabbed the A0, mainly because I wanted to give the Zipps a workout in the hills. They are fast on the flats, but I wasn’t sure how they’d be in cross-winds and on the hills.
Shortly after we started out, the dry roads, got a bit wet and then the drizzle kicked in. No matter, even though I was wearing a 3/4 knicker, I had rubbed my legs down with embrocation to make sure that they stayed warm. Embrocation is a mixture of greasy stuff and hot stuff (like capsicum) that works to raise the blood to the surface of the skin for hours on end. Think of it as slow release hot pepper sauce that gets rubbed on the legs.
The cross winds were crazy. Wind was out of the Northwest at a steady 40kmh, gusting to 80kmh (according to The Weather Network anyways). Whatever it was, it was a stiff wind come right into us across the road. When it gusted, my wheels caught it like a sail and threw me off balance. Descents were a mess because I wasn’t able to keep the bike in a straight line for very long. I swear, I used at least half a brake pad today.
We turned onto Hwy 24 after about 60 kilometers or so and started the big climbs for the day. Average grade for about 5km was between 11 and 16 percent. As we got to closer to the top, we noticed that the woods were covered in snow.
(The picture on the right was taken about 1/2 of the way through the climbs up to the top, grade was approximately 14% here…)
Cresting the final hill, we moved from the shelter of the trees, directly back into the wind, which hadn’t relented in the least and was now blowing snow out of the farmers fields directly across the road. Worse yet, it was piling up in finger drifts that crept across the width of the road. The further we went, the less clear road there was to ride on, until finally, the entire roadway was covered in snow that was piled 3-5 inches in places.
When we came to our next turn, we decided to seek the shelter of a nearby cafe and make a decision about what our next steps would be. Option A was to ride north down into Creemore, about a 10k push, through the snow on a busy road. Option B was to turn back the way we came, through the same snow, but on a less busy road, and then head for home. While we debated the route, we downed some mediocre coffee, ate some Lara bars and put on the spiffy new socks that Larry bought us. Dry, wooly and nicely matched to my outfit. Larry less coordinated, chose to hide his new argyles under his tights, I proudly wore mine 80’s style hiked up over mine.
We opted to retrace our steps. All in, we were only missing out on about 10k of the planned ride, and given the crappy weather, didn’t feel confident that we’d be able to stay out of the way of the highway traffic on a very busy road.
Heading back was slightly easier as the head-crosswind turned into a tail-crosswind. We quickly made it through the snow (with Larry making a small detour as he was blown into someone’s driveway) and descended back down to Airport Road.
Stopping at the bottom, we realized it was at least 2-3 degrees warmer, the roads were drying up and it was only 10km to Creemore if we headed north.
So we did.
The ride into Creemore was pretty unremarkable after the numbing cold and massive climbs we had just completed. Even the odd spot of drizzle didn’t hold a candle to the near-blizzard we had just come through. I could help but notice how much of difference it made to be wearing dry socks.
After a quick stop for a real coffee in Creemore, we headed back. After picking our way through the gravel and mud that Creemore calls its main street, we flew out of town at a 50+kph pace - that beautiful wind was again our friend.
We made pretty good time on the way back to the vehicle. A near bonk with about 5k to go (at the base of the last big climb of the day, out of Hockley Valley) reminded me of the importance of regular eating. I stole a cookie and Powerbar from Larry and quickly felt better.
All in, it was an outstanding day. As Larry said, definitely one of his top 25 most memorable. I’d have to agree. Its not that often you go out for a nice early spring ride and get stuck in a snow storm.
Just over 5 hours of ride time, 5000 feet of climbing over 120km, 5 inches of snow build up, two very messy bikes and two very happy riders. I was especially pleased with our pace in the face of the hills, and the fact that my average heart rate was just 137bpm, going anaerobic only once during the entire ride. More pictures are over at Flickr…
May 8 is going to be awesome.
Posted at 19:43 - Comments (View)
