Epic… I did the Populaire ride in 5:48, although it’s very arbitrary how they assign your time. The guy who arrived after me got an arrival time of 5 minutes earlier. I started the day by adding a detour of 7km to the route. I was following a bike group out on River Road, caught up to them, starting chatting with them only to discover they weren’t part of the ride. Uh oh. I did a U-turn right in the middle of that conversation. It serves me right for riding without really being awake. So my version of the Populaire was 148km.

After that I paid a lot of attention to the route. It was funny. This big peloton of guys kept catching up to me. They would zip past me and then after the next turn they would all of a sudden be behind me again. Basically, they were getting lost at every turn. Eventually, they got lost enough that I just dropped them. I rode by myself the whole way – except for one windy stretch where a guy, called Francois, pulled me along. Sitting on his wheel in the wind was awesome, but I paid for the extra effort later.

It was very tough to keep going after everyone else finished. Everyone else was chatting and lounging at the finish. I must have looked out of place industriously filling water bottles and eating way more then my share of the goodies. I did enjoy myself riding. My feet felt great, and the new saddle felt as good as 6+ hrs in the saddle can feel. Riding home from Fort Langley to Richmond seemed like a good plan … However, I did find myself thinking, “Who’s stupid idea was this?!”

Especially when I got lost in downtown Surrey. Continue reading →