On Missing the Saddle

I was reading an old post I published about a year ago. I was describing one of the early BCC rides I was on - a trip to Stoufville via Claremont. It was a beautiful day warm, but not hell raising hot and clear blue skies. It was also a hard ride for me, I was a lot weaker.

I recently proposed a route to Danny for a Sunday ride, 130km almost all of it through rolling pastoral country side. There are few things in life better than mounting the saddle and spinning for hours at a time, just your breathing, and the sound of the chain punctuating the calls of the animals and rustle of the wind. (Before anyone asks, yes Lesley is one of the few things that are better. The fact that I am at the office on a Saturday, not with Lesley should not be taken to mean I love work as much as the saddle or Lesley, far from it.)

Anyway I proposed a route for Sunday, up Leslie street all the way to New Market then across to Claremont and home. It is a far cry from the longest ride I have ever done, but this time of year and the scenery I know I would get to see, it sure would be one of the better rides.

Speaking of long rides, I have been tracking Peter Oyler who as of Monday (June 23) at noon was the fastest North American in the Race Across America. Sadly he is (was?) in sixth place and wearing a neck brace. Given that I had a chance to ride with Peter, once in 2008, and I know a lot of really good people who know him well, everything I have heard is that he is a really decent guy. So I am disappointed because I know he wanted to win this thing and that is looking increasingly unlikely.

Still the RAAM is a psycho race that takes a grown well trained and strong guy and spits out a broken husk of a man with the letters DNF beside his name (I think six DNFs and the race is only half over) and you realize even lasting a day in The RAAM ought to count for something. That Peter might make it to Annapolis in his goal of, I think, nine days constitutes a hell of a good reason - to may way of thinking - to have a ticker tape parade and national holiday in his honour.

Sadly I don't get to set national policy, but I will say this, check out the Senior Senator from the great state of New York, he's a proud cyclist. I like Chuck! Remember those old maps after the 2004 Presidential elections, where all the costal states went for Kerry (Democrat) and the inland states went red for Bush (Republican)? Well someone took one of those maps threw Canada in and relabeled things, Canada and the Blue States became the United States of Canada, the Red States became Jesus Land. I propose something a lot more modest, that we trade New York for Alberta. What a win-win! Albertans don't need to worry about how pesky environmentalism, we get Chuck, and The Greatest City in the World - which has the added bonus Canadians can stop hating Toronto and develop a grudge for New York. New Yorkers don't need to worry about terrorism and suddenly the blank stare that crosses people's face when you tell them you are from Canada can be replaced by the ugly look of, "oh you must be a New Yorker!"