Puppy Pedal

This one could pretty much be called "the awesome weekend that almost wasn't".

About a week ago, we found out that the Puppy Pedal was happening the same day as the Marathon championships, we decided to do our hard racing on Saturday at the cross race in St Catharine's, and for Sunday take the more relaxed route, with the Puppy Pedal. The Puppy Pedal takes place largely at Torrance Barrens, which has been high on the "want to ride there soon" list, but we never seem to make it. I booked a rental car for pick up on Saturday morning, and we were ready for a lot of driving (obviously as well as a lot of great riding).

Saturday morning, though, the powers that be turned against us. We were a bit behind schedule when we arrived at the car rental place, but still ok to make it down to St Catharine's. They didn't have the size car I'd requested. Ok, we'll take the mini van. No problem - or so I thought. Every few minutes, it was something else - it needed to be cleaned, the tire air pressure was low and it had no gas, it won't take long to fix. I slowly become more grumpy and agitated, as I watched my course recon time, then my warm up time, then my registration time, and finally my driving time, all dwindle away. We finally left with a vehicle at 10:20 - definitely not enough time to make an 11:30 start! We were both seriously grumpy at this point, as it had been a bit of an effort to get there with all the race gear and it felt sucky to throw in the towel, but we just didn't want to bother with the drive at that point. The Boy didn't care if he raced, so we just canned the whole trip.

We went home, and re-packed the van for mountain biking. We went out for second breakfast and coffee, and after a few errands, hit the road for Kearney, where we were staying for the night. The Boy's friends live on a large property, where the Boy himself has done some trail building. We hiked the trails, had dinner, and watched a movie (Breaking Away! on DVD!!) before bed.

The next morning, we left a little late to go back down to Gravenhurst. I know, I know, you are sensing  a pattern here, but I honestly had nothing to do with our lateness on Sunday morning! We got to the starting point about a 30min after the group left. Prosser, another fast boy, rolled up as we were getting dressed, and we immediately set off chasing down the group. The pace was pretty high right off the start, but I wasn't too worried - as long as it didn't get tight and technical, I knew I could hang enough to draft off the boys on the road. I was working pretty hard to do it!

After some nice paved cottage roads, the route turns onto Old Stone Road, this dirt/mud/rock road that was used to transport granite stones. Super fun at speed on the mountain bike! It comes out, and almost immediately follows a rolling gravel road. Finishes with some rolling pavement, and were greeted at the Barrens with homemade cookies.

Based on the attacks that started on the last gravel bit, I didn't think I'd want to be chasing them all afternoon. I went out with a couple of other guys at a more mellow pace, and got a tour of the two major loops. So fun - it reminded me of Cattle Point, where I used to go play on the rocks in high school. Lots of huge flat rocks, some ledges, and multi-line sections. Really great. The small drizzle didn't dampen my spirits. We got to ride the same gravel and dirt roads back to Gravenhurst, where there were tonnes of prizes and pub time.