Pedal Whipped

It’s truly amazing how quickly 500km+ goes by! We’re at our final night of camping before crossing the Quebec border tomorrow morning!

Talent night last night was an overall success! Every group had a unique performance. One in particular performed synchronized swimming on land!

Tonight we’re in Lancaster after riding 110km and enjoying a wonderful Blizzard from Dairy Queen; they also donated 50 cents from each Blizzard to PWA. Not looking forward to this camp ground since there are tons of spiders everywhere that have already begun nesting on my tent!

Until tomorrow!

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After a great afternoon and evening in Kingston I had my only night of sleep in a real bed! It must have helped though because today was a very fast day! We made it into camp by 230pm!

The morning of Kingston is a special day for the top fundraisers! Congratulations go out to 6 of my team mates that earned their gold jerseys again this year!

Today we rode through Gananoque and the Thousand Islands. Our home for the night will be in Johnstown and dinner will be followed by team talent night. We’ll be performing a reprisal of Heigh-Ho from Snow White; a fitting end to Disney Day on the ride!

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Wet weather seems to be a constant theme of this year’s ride! Again this morning we started the day off with a downpour of rain, but you can’t keep us down! Everyone was in high spirits for the short ride to Kingston in their red dresses! This must have helped because the weather quickly changed as we were departing camp and the hot sun followed us throughout the ride and kept us dry.

There were hundreds of men and women riding across the highway and through downtown Kingston to our home at Queen’s for the night all in red. Ball gowns, cocktail dresses, tutus and t-shirts were all present. A personal favourite outfit sported by one of the riders was a ball gown and 7-inch high heels. I’m not sure how this outfit was so successful for riding, but he was one of the first into Kingston!

Kingston is team night dinner and an opportunity to celebrate our halfway mark with our team and as a larger rally group with Miss Conception. To start our team festivities we rode our first team pace line right through to Queen’s.

Here’s hoping it’s blue skies and sunshine from this point on! Half way there!!!

Well, Day 2 has been by far the most interesting and longest days thus far. The skies opened up on us at about 2am and I was awakened what sounded like loud clapping hands and, some time later, a flood of water pouring through my tent.

We were delayed in the morning due to thunder and lightning so day 2 ended up being about 2 hours behind schedule and we had to sweep (sweeping means you are the last to leave in the morning and arrive at lunch/camp after all riders to ensure everyone arrives safely).

The rain let up part way through the day only to later rain again very briefly, but enough to soak us through, followed by hot sun again.

Today’s ride took us from Port Hope to Adolphustown. We rode through part of Prince Edward County and had a beautiful ferry ride on the Glenorra Ferry.

Tomorrow is our Kingston ride and the ever popular red dress day. Be prepared for fabulous red frocks to be speeding down the highway into Kingston and our 1 night in a real bed!

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Year 2 on the Bike Rally and Day 1 is already behind me! A completely different experience from last year in that I know what to expect as far as the distance we need to ride each day and markers to our next break.

This time around I’m taking some more time to enjoy the great scenery that seems more vibrant this time around. The lake is gorgeous and a very bright blue, complemented by fields of green, yellow and purple!

Looking forward to tomorrow as we ride to Adolphustown and get to go for a lovely ferry ride!

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Thank you to everyone for your generous support of the Friends for Life Bike Rally! Together we have been able to raise almost $3500!

Training for the ride has flown by! It’s hard to believe that departure day is finally here and we will be leaving from Queen’s Park at 9am, joined by police escort and the media.

Stay tuned for updates and photos throughout this journey!

Today we set off from Kipling Station and headed towards the beautiful hamlet of Bellfountain. This ride can be quite challenging and comes complete with a lovely switch back. I do say this about every training ride with the Friends for Life Bike Rally, but I love this ride! This area does not disappoint when it comes to scenery.

Time to complete this ride was approximately 5.5 hours so we averaged about 22km/hr. With two weeks until the Bike Rally, we’re more than prepared for the ride to Montreal!

I recorded a small portion of today’s ride and this time the footage is much better! More video of this ride to come later…

This morning Chris and I set off for Keswick after an evening full of celebration for Canada Day and Toronto Pride weekend!

Both of us were quite tired and, after not having been on the bike in a few weeks, felt quite zapped part way through. Keeping ourselves nourished by eating a bag of peanuts we acquired at a gas station we passed, we conquered all 113 km of our ride in just under 5 hours! This isn’t the greatest time so far, but, given the circumstances, we have much to be proud of!

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I attempted to record part of our journey, but I haven’t quite got the hang of using the camera while in motion! I’ll practice and hope to post more, and much clearer, videos in the near future! You can catch a quick glimpse of Chris just before the camera goes awry.

Until next time!