Ganaraska Cherry

So last minute I packed the truck and printed the directions to a place I've never ridden before to join an MTB club that was hosting a group ride. Ganaraska forest is beyond huge. Something like 100km+ of trails! Definitely not a place you want to goto alone as you can get lost for a very very long time. It's not unheard of people having to stay overnight because they couldn't find there way out. Upon arriving the 17 riders split into two groups, slow and fast. I stuck to the front of the fast group. The hosts of the group ride chose a near perfect set of trails with surprisingly excellent flow. Riding with Defiant MTB made all the difference, this trip was definitely worth while. We lost a few riders at our lunch break as they didn't stay for the final 20 km, however after a good 10km into the last loops we were down to only 5 people left. There is alot of climbing and sand which took its toll on people.
When I join the group rides, its to just have fun and be social. I'm not looking to race anyone or push the pace, I just want to enjoy the trail with others. I spend so much time training and riding solo that it's welcoming having others around that I can share the experience with, especially when I'm riding with my wife. I tend to be able to hold any pace or distance just about anyone can throw at me so I always adjust my ride to match the people I'm with. Alot of people feel pressured when a quicker rider is around, they don't like their back wheel being ridden by someone behind them so they go too fast and get sloppy riding out of their comfort zone. As much I try to avoid this, it happens alot. So I end up riding out front more or less alone as usual lol! There is a few other club's rides out there that would label me as the 'slow guy' and give me a real good workout. I love these, but most of those groups are rather 'clicky' and don't invite outsiders to join them often. So many clubs, so little time.

Recovery Day

Friday rest day could not have come sooner. After a week of bone pounding technical riding, I need to let the bruises and cuts heal! This works out well as it gives us a chance to clean the drivetrains and check over the equipment. It looks like I'll need a new seat as mine is beginning to tear. Pretty good, it lastest quite a while which is rare for me. Fran's been eyeing the Look pedals I have stashed away in the cycling parts bin. I figure we'll pickup some shoes for her to fit them so she doesn't have to swap her pedals between bikes all the time.
Rest days also seem to be stuff my face silly with candy and junk food. I should really lay off the chips and sweets but as long as I'm not putting on weight I am not too worried about it. I burn enough calories through the week and eat reasonably well. Or at least leaps and bounds better than what I used to eat! While in Bracebridge we hit Marty's world famous coffee shop and came across the biggest apple pie I've ever seen. This thing was monstorous! It was $60 for the pie which should put it into perspective. Brian PFG could easily erase the 'P' with this pie. He's been known to devour 1000+ calorie apple pies with a side of full package of hot dogs (spider dogs to be percise). He's my hero! :)

Saddest Vacation

Oh snap!
The morning started off well, but ended in nothing short of misery. We slept in after last evening's beautiful night ride. There was no pressure to rush today as we were doing a 4hr road ride in Huntsville so we could start it any time of day. The weather report looked swell and we are fairly organized so packing the truck would only take moments. I went to pack the truck, I always start with the most valuable/critical stuff first. I grabbed the electronics, bike lights, ID etc and noticed something was missing from the pile. Not a problem as that something is only ever stored in two places - either with my ID/credit cards or its in the center console of our truck as I don't take it cycling with me. The problem as you may have guessed was it wasn't in the center console either. First there was confusion, as if I placed it somewhere out-of-normal? Then there was complacency, as if it'll just magically turn up any moment now as there is no way it's been lost. Then anxiety as it wasn't jumping up and saying 'HERE I AM!'. Panic. Despair. Desperation. Panic. Nerd Rage. Then I got really scared. I think I remember TV sit-coms about this scenario and I think it always ended with the man laying dead in a ditch somewhere after being visciouslly pummeled to death by a raving mad woman. Well there's no sense delaying the enevitable so I may as well just confess and get help trying to find it.
"uhhh.... uhhh.... uhhhhh.... I can't find my wedding ring". A moment of silence. She just stood there. I could tell she was working things out. I thought maybe she had seen it and was trying to recall where it was. I had hope. I thought all is well. I thought she'd just find it right there under my nose as she does with everything and sarcastically (?) follows up her easy find with "You're such a man" as if the "cant find sh*t" gene was passed on to me by my gender. So here I'm thinking all is well, we'll just laugh this one off. She slowly moves over to the kitchen counter reaches out to grab the obvious as I probably left on the counter while washing dishes. No wait. I don't wash dishes. .... ... W.T.F. goes through my mind as a sharp peircing pain goes right through my chest! again and again, she relentless stabbed me with a chopping knife, right through my heart!?!! She grabs the scissors off the counter and screams 'BOBBIT!!!!!!!1!@$!!! as I squeel in agony as peices of anatomy fly through the air. I tried to make a run for the door but then she pulls out the chainsaw - WAIT - WHERE THE HECK DID SHE FIND A CHAINSAW?!?!!! ZOMG MY LEGS!. Ok well, luckily that was just what was all in my mind, but damn that was one loooong awkward silence after delivering the news that will forever change my life. *Gulp*. Sooo we looked and we looked and then we looked in the most desperate of places. After retracing my steps we came to the conclusion it probably fell off my hand rather than my putting it somewhere and forgetting about it. The thing is - I'm a PFY. Previously Fat Guy. The year we got married we had the ring sized before I lost weight for our wedding. The ring was made of Titanium which we are told cannot be sized, ever. My once sausage fingers are more like those skinny chocolate fingers I got so fat on at one point (Yummy cookies!). It's been falling off from time to time, and well I guess this was bound to happen one day. I'm sad. I'm sad that she was sad. I try to rationalize it by saying it's just a peice of metal and that all that matters is that we have each other and I know she loves me and I love her and wait is that a chainsaw in behind her back?? Ok, don't try to rationalize it. EVAR. Things happen, be sad, mourn the loss, and be stronger knowing we can appreciate how awesomeness our relationship really is. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I still have my legs, my male anatomy is in tact, and there's not puncture wounds in my chest. It could be worse I guess. Tim the beaver approves of our relationship. :)
Sooo on that dismal note I wondered if we'd still be riding in the afternoon. The tough part about long road rides is that you have a long time to be with yourself and your thoughts on the open road. You need to be mentally balanced and can survive the comfort of your own company for hours at a time. I didn't know if she wanted to commit to a 4 hours solo road ride (we planned not to ride together on this one due to pace/climbing differences). My wife is one tough chick. Seriously, the toughest woman on the planet. Heck she's with ME! :) We had our sad moment, she sucked it up and had lunch and out we went. Just short of 100km with a 40km/h headwind and a ton of climbing, I was glad to have that ride over with. The plan was for me to get to the truck, drive backwards and pick her up at whatever point she made it to. I did an extra 16km to complete the entire Ironman Muskoka bike course and then starting packing up to go save teh wife. Low and behold she arrived! Wow my wife is amazing. That was a brutal ride for me, and she finished the entire loop! I'm so proud of her! I should have known not to doubt her strength, she has proved herself time and time again. But then I got worried. The first thing she said was "maybe you had a revelation while on your ride and you remember where the ring is?". Uh Oh. Is that the humming sound of a 2-stroke motor coming from behind her back? What is she doing with that chainsaw!?! ... well I was too tired to run so I took it like a man and offered her a peanut butter cream cookie instead. We jumped in the lake together which was surprisingly warm but refreshing. We topped the day off with an evening in Huntsville and fine dining (lousy service ugggh) but as always made the best of it.

I love my wife.

Rewarding Night Ride

Trying to get caught up here. We had a couple late nights so I never had a chance to update the blog! Wednesday brought us to Buckwallow Cycling Center. It's very popular as it has a balanced mix of moderate technical rock and fast flowing singletrack. A great challenge for a weekend warrior and just tough enough to keep an advanced rider occupied. This place has a welcoming committee. You arrive at the parking lot and within minutes someone is there to greet you. Well I think it had more to do with they wanted to collect the money for the trail fee, but nonetheless it's different from the typical 'honour' system of a drop-box. At $10 a head it's a steep price to ride trails, but these trails are very well marked and maintained and these guys have earned every penny. The ride started off on the most technical singletrack. It probably wasn't a good choice for a warmup, and in retrospect it was technical but a lousy technical with no obvious good lines. Perhaps after seeing it once or twice it would help as you know what to expect. I failed miserably at this section, or maybe I was tired from the day before. Regardless after that things looked up! We got our rythm back and were knocking off trails left and right. It was our second time here so we knew enough of the trails to peice together a great flow. Surprising we ran into a few famillies out on the trails. Some were in the intermediate trails which I suspect was way over there ability. I'm guessing the seen a 'cycling center' in a tourist brochure but didn't understand that bikes cand do some amazing things on rocks and logs. In the end we found the one family didn't even bring helmets. It's mandatory bike helmets here obviously. Helmets save lives. I'm guessing his daughters didn't want to mess up there hair or something, but ultimately I strongly believe in bike helmets. Obviously wearing one is not foolproof but it's so easy to bump your head on the silliest of falls and your life is changed forever. Not worth it in my opinion. I feel naked on a bike without one. The plan was to do a lap, picnic our lunch and then head out again. Our first lap took quite a bit longer than expected and we didn't get our night ride in the night before so instead we just picnic'd and headed back to the hotel for rest in prep for Torrance Barrens. Admittedly I was a bit nervous about the whole night ride on trails we didn't know very well. Fran was downright scared about the wildlife. We had a bear bell but I don't know what we would do if we ran into a wolf or something. The place is super dark and somewhat deep backcountry trails on wide open area rock. When we night ride around home you can see a crazy amount of glowing eyes looking back at you from the reflection of the lights. There is always a ton of wildlife hiding in trees that you can't see in the day. It's spooky. So being up North, we were a bit worried about what's behind the glowing eyes as there are much bigger wildlife to worry about up here. Well we fired up the lights and headed out. The trailhead had a few cars in it as it looks like a fair number of astronomers were here to take advantage of a clear sky on an official Dark Sky reserve. Right off the bat we took a wrong turn. I was following my GPS course that I downloaded of the internet but made missed a proper turn. Once we were back on track it was smooth sailing. The trail was surprising easier to follow in the pitch dark as the trail markers were paint on rock which reflected just enough light to see where to go next. Remember this is open rock landscape so there is very few trees or anything to connect a sign to. We stopped a few times to turn off the lights and look up to see a crazy number of stars. It was a perfectly calm warm night, we couldn't have asked for better conditions. Fran freaked out a few times about sounds of 'things following her'. I think she watches too much TV. I reassured her that no matter what happens, I know I can run faster and bike faster than her so I know I'll be fine. :) We did half of the figure 8 trail route. There was no sense doing the other half and risk batteries burning out. Plus I had a bad experience on the other half last time we were here (daytime). I went over the bars into a disgustingly swampy bog. It wasn't pretty.
Anyhow - Once back to the truck, we pulled out the lawn chairs and I had a beer under the stars. Perfect end to an awesome mountain bike day.

Porcupines Rock

Tim approves of Porcupine Ridge. Who's Tim you say? Tim is Fran's buddy. He goes on our trips with us to remind us that things could be much much worse. Our last trip to Algonquin interior consisted of some hardcore canoe/portage on non-maintained trails in early spring. To put things in perspective, it was snowing when we put in at the trailhead. Day 1 of the trip got cut short due to huge waves on the lake which made it unsafe to cross, and believe me we tried! Day 2 we had to make up for 2 days travel which countless lift-overs and beaver dams but we got to where we needed to. Day 3 is where Tim The Beaver comes in. About halfway through a huge 2500 meter portage between the tim river and a little lake we came across an area that was literally decimated by beaver. Large tress that I couldn't wrap my arms around were fell. The non-river turned into a huge muddy impassable pond that we would have had to canoe across as the trail ran right under it. We had to make a couple trips to collect the gear for a literally 10 second canoe ride except every time we had to climb over countless fell trees and one in particular stood out. A large fell tree stump that was knawed on to the point where there was several INCHES thick of goey white puss with blood dripping and oozing throughout it. It was a really sick sight. All we could imagine was some bloodshot eyed pyscho beaver bleeding at the gums and relentlessly knawing on this tree, the thought of crossing the beaver's path was scary. We named him, BEAVERZILLA. We quickly crossed Beaverzilla's pond to try to find trail on the other side. We were in unmarked territory off the typically beaten path that most backcountry travellers avoid. None of these trails are maintained by the forest ranger like most people are used to. So on the other side we search for quite some time to pickup the trail. We came across skulls and bones and could clearly see that the narrow pass between two ridges was probably a kill zone for something unfriendly. In the end, Beaverzilla had destroyed any chance of us continuing, the path was lost forever and clearly nobody dared continue on. The next 'pond' was so small that to aimlessly wander for hours with all the gear would be suicide. We were to turn back and now the furthest point away from the put-in we were forced to paddle against the current of Tim River and travel 3 days worth of distance, in 1. There are no campsites along this route, we had to make it back to the next major lake. Needless to say in the end, I was at my breaking point physically so I don't know how my awesomely tough wife handled it, but she did. Damn I'm lucky. Damn you Tim The Beaver (Aka Beaverzilla). So when we got back to the ranger station, I picked up a stuffed beaver toy to remind Fran of how fun and loving beavers really are. This was the second trip wrecked by beavers, I won't even start on the other one (It was our honeymoon!) So far this trip is nothing short of awesomness. Tim joined Fran in the car this morning and they spent some quality time together for the trip up. We reached the parking lot for Porcupine ridge to find out we're surprisingly the only ones there. I understand these trails are extreme by even the most technical mountain bikers but I still expect to see at least ONE vehicle in the parking lot. Anyhow we grabbed a quick snack and hit the trails. It starts out with a wheely off a skinny bridge, onto a teeter-totter and the up the only couple big uphills and into the most technical rooty, rocky trails you can find around here. We did 2 laps total, and hit just about every marked trail you can find. Not a single crash, not a hint of a mechanical just perfect riding. The rocks started off slick, it looks like there was recent rain in the past 12hrs but after an hour or so they got there traction back. That gave us time to warm up on the more tame trails, rather than risk getting injured or breaking the bike on the first challenging trail. It worked out well. Even managed to peice together a hidden super-technical loop with skinny's and a drop or two. In the end we packed things up and headed into Bracebridge as the trail reviews for Porcupine Ridge had highly recommended hitting a small 'world famous' coffee shop called Marty's for the best butter tarts you could ever have. Well they were good, but not mind-blowing or anything. The only mind blowing thing was the $7 for a vanilla milk shake and $4 for a tart. Yeh, smells like a tourist trap, feels like a tourist trap, damn they got me. Oh well, I paid my dues. The only down side for today was we didn't get the room at the INN that we had reserved. There's a special room with a perfect view through a big bay window that the bed is right up against. You can wake up and roll over and look right out over the lake. Well, that room was not available so they 'upgraded' us to the biggest place they got but it sucks compared to out special room. We were too hungry to care, and we had boxed ourselves in by bringing food that needed to be barbequed so to go elsewhere would mean we would have to eat out and let these steaks go to waste. So we stayed here and barbequed. Except the BBQ took for frackin' EVAR!!! So hungry and it took forever to cook. I don't know if Natural gas burns hotter or something but thie propane bbq is nothing like the one we got at home. It took 10 times longer, I wish I was joking. We were pressed for time to slip a night ride in at Torrance Barrens so maybe we'll try to get it in tomorrow night. We have most the day free tomorrow so we should be rested and fed in time to attempt a night ride. It just means we'll suffer that much more on Thursday while pre-riding Ironman Muskoka bike course.

Lap 1 trail review by Mrs. Lord of the Chainrings


The wall - video don't do the grade justice, its quite vertical


Lap 2 Trail Review by Mrs. Lord of the Chainrings

Packed

You can work up a surprising amount of sweat and upper body workout just cleaning bikes! In preparation for our cycling trip, I stripped my drivetrain on both bikes. It's easier to remove the chain and let it soak in degreaser. Ditto for the cassette. I didn't take apart my bottom bracket this round, because I did that last week. Looks like new now :)
I was hoping to go for a run today, but I can feel that my shin splint is almost healed. I don't feel like over-doing it now, especially since the next few days are going to include some hardk0re cycling. For instance, tomorrow we're hitting Porcupine Ridge in Gravenhurst. Imagine trails with large boulders, jagged rocks, exposed granite wall climbs, near vertical granite ridge drops, teeter-totters and skinny bridges spanning 10ft drops. Yes, this is going to be so much fun!! Assuming we don't kill ourselves, I'm also hoping to squeeze in a night ride at Torrance Barrens. This is nothing but a huge area of exposed Canadian Shield. It's almost like road riding, but offroad. It's a dark sky reserve so this should yield some of the most rewarding night riding EVAR! Fran's a little nervous about running into wildlife so we'll be bringing bear bells just in case. I'm more worried about a mechanical in the middle of nowhere. This trail is very hard to follow even in the daytime. Sure hope the GPS don't die on me this time! For Wednesday we're hitting Buckwallow. It's practically world famous mountain biking. It's just like Porcupine Ridge except it's toned down a few notches so your average mountain biker can handle it, but still fun. Thursday we're pre-riding the Ironman Muskoka course. I should be plenty beat up by then so I'm expecting a real slow pace.
I'm feeling a little guilty tonight. Endulged on some Chineese food last night, and then the left overs tonight. I doubt chineese food is very healthy, but it tastes sooo good. I'll just have to work it off this week!

Oh so here is my first chance to post my 'weekly training totals'. I should have done this yesteray lol

Running: 2hrs
Cycling: 6.5hrs
Swimming: 1.5hrs

Week 3 Total: 10hrs

New Roads

Slept like a baby last night. I stayed up a bit later and I think that helped me have a deeper sleep. I'm finding that I can't sleep in no matter how hard I try. I'm on vacation, I shouldn't be getting up to goto work. What's up with that? If I had to goto work it would be really hard to get out of bed but on my days off I'm up no problem. I think I'll just drink more tonight, I'm sure that will do the trick. :)

I tried to hit the bike store today to pickup some chamois cream (butt butter) but the stores were all closed. All Brantford stores have weird hours. All the heat and cycling is catching up with me, I need something to smooth out the sandpaper chamois. All the shorts I bought at the spring bike show are already worn out. :( Tried out some new roads today to mix it up a bit. I must have been going the right way because I seen more roadies on this route today than I have the entire year. Usually I'll ride around Brantford/Cambridge/Paris but today I ventured over and did a loop closer to Hamilton. I welcomed the 35km/h winds as they kept me cool and I didn't overheat. I forgot that I was going out for a good 3 hours and didn't plan for somewhere to top up my water bottles. Again, the wind was nice :) Came out slow, ended strong. Tried to get the avg speed up over 30km/h but it just wasn't going to happen with that wind today.
The best part was coming home, striping my clothes off and jumping in the pool. The pool is colder than usual due to cool nights and a ton of rainwater. Sooo refreshing. Fran made us ceasars and we layed by the pool and tanned a bit. Well I tanned, she just burned more. She must have been out there awhile already. I'm not encouraging her to ride right now as I need her as fresh as possible for this week's supa' hardk0re mountain bike riding. It's going to require a great deal of strength to negotiate these trails. She can't run either, as her knee is still recovering. I figure by the end of this week she'll be one hurtin' puppy. I hope I don't break her too bad. :) She is one tough chick!
Tomorrow is packing for the cycling trip, cleaning the drivetrains on the bikes and making sure they're mechanically sound. We're taking both road and MTB as we'll be pre-riding Ironman Muskoka. I'm also taking the bike lights in the hopes we can squeeze in an offroad night ride at Torrance Barrens. TB is a dark sky reserve so I'm expecting a ton of stars and a wicked experience riding exposed Canadian shield. You'd have to see these trails to understand. I'll get some pics.

Excuse the audio in the video. I was cruising along at 30km/h and it was windy. My first VLOG on a moving bike.... I'm hoping to replace my corporate Windows Mobile Phone with an iphone, the video from those look so much better.