On A Lake Simcoe Ride

I met QB at the Grinder at 6am Saturday (June 18) morning. The weather was supposed to be cool so after getting my cloths on I had to take it all off and put on knee warmers. I don't think QB was waiting too long he was adjusting his cadence sensor when I got to the Grinder.

QB is something powerful, I really had to push myself to keep up. (In my defence QB would only do one third of what I had planned for my own legs.) QB was also tapering, he'll be doing an Iron Man in Nice next Sunday. (Lucky #$@&!) Oh and QB if you do read this, good luck! Not that he'd need it.

QB and I went up Leslie, most of the pulling coming from th guy on the tri bike (QB). Just past 19th Ave there is a lovely little hill a tri group was climbing, we powered to the top, QB turned back and I kept going, clobbering the tri guys at a rate of six or seven a minute.

As I approached Stouffville road one of the tri guys pulled past me. I jumped on his wheel as he gradually slowed down to a painfully slow pace. I got out from behind him and powered away, after a time he surged past me and I grabbed his wheel again, yet again his strength failed him and I went out front. This silly surge and die was driving me crazy and I was loosing interest in the guy's worthless draft when we got to a technical decent with tight turns around a pond (Haynes Lake) just north of Bethesda Side Rd. I am not the most technically proficient rider out there but at least I can hold my line round a corner which was a hell of a lot more than this jerk could do. I would try to pass right, he'd suddenly weave right, no warning. I would try to pass left, he'd weave left. The hill levelled out I scrambled passed him and went gangbusters up a hill. I figured he'd surge (I'm not a particularly good hill climber) and drop me then I could ride comfortably for a while. Sadly he was a weaker climber than me!

Eventually on a rolling flat the tri guy did overtake me and I just watched him hammer past me.

Despite efforts to keep up a nice gap, I had nearly snapped all the distance between us when luckily the tri guy turned at St. John's side road. I continued to New Market and turned east on Mulock (Vivian).

I continued North on Warden, occasionally passing, cyclists. At Boyers Side I had planned to turn left (west), except Boyers was surfaced in loose gravel and looked completely unfit for road bike. Instead I went west on Base Line Road, a busier road to be sure but I only had to use it for 2km. Then I took Deer Park Drive to Varney (there's a short steep climb on Deer Park) and Varney to the south Shore of Lake Simcoe. I first saw the lake at 8:55 in the morning. I completed my run of Lake Drive not very long after and was queued up at the Tim Hortons at 9:20.

I learned a valuable lesson about myself. I need one supplemented bottle to get to Lake Simcoe and two bottles, one plain water and one supplemented to get to Stouffville. It is also important to take breaks. I stopped to rest at the Tim Hortons for about a half hour before continuing. The result was I was pretty strong for the journey south.

I set out down McCowan Road, which on a Sunday is devoid of cars, but not Saturday. Mind you, it's not like, say Kingston Road which is chalk full of cars, McCowan has some traffic, but I am talking about maybe two or three cars a minute as as one gets further south, especially below Ravenshoe Road the traffic on McCowan drops off almost completely.

I modified the route to Stoufville, instead of turning at Vivian I only took McCowan as far as Herald Rd (Green Lane to the west). Herald was almost empty, I think on my 4km trek of Herald Rd there were perhaps five encounters with cars (almost as many encounters with fellow cyclists.) The first bit of Herald, from McCowan to Highway 48 was a dense pack gravel that stuck to the pavement, it was not the most pleasant thing to ride on, but not all that bad. After highway 48 Herald was a delight, the one thing, I planed and did make my south (right) turn on Ninth Line, but one can easily overshoot Ninth Line, there is no stop sign for Herald Rd traffic (unlike Ninth Line) and the sign is very small.

Ninth Line is quiet possibly the nicest road in Ontario for a cyclist, there are no, and I really mean not a single car, except the ones going east/west on Davis and Vivian, all the way to Aurora Rd. There were a few lovely rollers, the last one before Vivian was positively brutal. Someone like Thi Ng (the mountain goat!) would have loved it, I was hurting, but it still felt pretty good.

As for the rest of the ride, I tore down Ninth below Bloomington a little above the posted Speed Limit (50km/h) and yet got passed -in more than a few cases dangerously close- by a good many cars. I was in Stoufville by about 11:30 and took Reesor Rd (or 10'th line) to 16'th Ave. There was a group of roadies there who looked lost. I asked if they needed help. They declined and I decided to try 16'th Ave. I took 16'th to Ninth Line again, unlike Ninth up near Vivian, here there was a ton of traffic, and I was happy to turn east again on 14'th Ave.

In all I rode 184.6km in about six hours 10 minutes, I averaged 29.9km/h and burned off over 7500 calories. In all I can think of few better ways to spend a Saturday morning.