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[Monday, June 5, 2006: The first ride.]
I got up early this morning to get ready for the Ride for Heart. I didn't have to get out of bed at the crack of dawn like I did in prior years, as I was living much closer to Exhibition Place and I was travelling alone.
The drive down was fairly uneventful. I got slightly lost when I was looking for the parking lot, but it was because it was so hard to see from the street. Had I not known about it's existence, I probably would never have found it on my own.
I was expecting at least three people to show up: Laz, 2046-LM, and I. I wasn't sure if others would arrive, but I wasn't keeping my hopes up. All three of us were running a bit late, but we somehow managed to get into the lineup at a point much closer to the starting position than last year. As such, we only waited at most ten minutes before we started our tour of the highway.
![[Before the ride.]](../Pictures/2005-01-13/2006-06-04a.jpg)
2046-LM did much better this year than last, and with the lack of people, our entire group quickly rode up the parkway. I personally would've liked to have stopped once: at the end. But this is a democratic society, so we stopped once before reaching the top of the highway.
The ride back down was much faster, shorter, and more interesting. I let Laz zoom ahead while 2046-LM and I coasted on our bikes. I was reading off our speed to 2046-LM when some girl next to me was commenting how I probably won't be able to catch up. (I really didn't catch what she said, but she was an attractive blond so it didn't really matter.) We chatted a bit on wind resistance and speed before she tried to speed up by leaning forward and lifting off the seat..
I ended up being behind her and was very glad that I had my sunglasses on because for some reason, it looked like her pants were see through and she wasn't wearing much underneath. It was not like the faux see through skirts but.. it was weird. I personally think it was a trick of the lighting and positioning but I'll leave it at that.
So anyway, she started to pedal away and I bade my time until I hit bottom, and then started to pedal hard up hill. I caught up to Laz about two thirds of the way up. I think he was taking it easy after that quick run down and the two of us started speeding down the rest of the route. Laz let go of the handle bars now and then, so I raised the bar by "running" by him. He would then "run" past me, and I started "swimming" past him using the breaststroke. He caught up a front crawl and then continued with the butterfly but I couldn't stay stable with the front crawl too long. We were "running" and "swimming" down the highway giggling like schoolboys.
I'm pretty sure we got quite a number of strange stares, but it made that last leg go by very quickly.
There were barriers on the highway that were set up to direct bikers to exit ramps so that the total distance travelled for those following the directions would approach fifty kilometers (it was forty eight by my odometer), but there were a lot of people who bypassed the barriers and skipped out on several kilometers. Laz and I weren't two of them.
At the foot of the Don Valley, Laz and I were spouting off our usual nonsensical banter when I noticed a sign for the Toronto-Rochester ferry. I could have sworn that the ferry was canceled long ago and voiced my opinion aloud. I was surprised to hear someone respond,
"Nope."
I was even more surprised when I turned around to see 2046-LM! He had skipped one of the barriers and made very good time on us. (It also meant that we'd finish soon as a group.)
As we sped by, I was commenting on how surprised I was to see 2046-LM ahead of us, while Laz mentioned,
"I'd be even more surprised if we saw him again!"
He's got a point.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. There was virtually no wind, no sun, and no heat so the last leg was amazingly easy. I was feeling pretty good by the time we stopped, although my butt would've liked a softer seat. *rubs sore bum*
We grabbed some food and chowed down for a bit before heading back to our cars and going our separate ways. Another highly successful Ride for Heart! Pictures and video coming soon to a web site near you.
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[Wednesday, June 7, 2006: Second ride.]
I knew that Windelynn was planning to ride today, and from her cryptic message on the board, I had a funny feeling that the hot chick that she was talking about was the girl we met when I picked up my bike a month ago. So I left Windelynn a message and waited.
After a bit of a wait, I got a reply back from Windelynn confirming the parking lot date and that I was welcome to come up and join up with them. So I threw on my gear and zoomed up North. I rode around in circles in the area for a bit before Windelynn found me and dragged me down to the group.
At that point in time, WG, Durka, Windelynn, the girl, and a guy were there. The girl recognized me immediately (it must have been the suit) and did the usual "how do you do?" questions. (She seemed so giddy.) The bunch of us (minus the guy - I never got his name) headed to a parking lot where we met up with a couple of other riders from the group.
Some of us didn't want to putt around the parking lot all afternoon so only a few of us (Durka, Windelynn, the girl, and I) stayed behind in the parking lot. I did some practice with turns, and had a number of slow races with Windelynn and Durka, but for the most part watched the girl putt around the lot. We stayed for a couple of hours before we dropped the girl off at home and headed out for dinner.
The place we went to was some fancy posh looking, but not so tasty Chinese restauruant where there were a number of kids who were staring at our bikes (which we parked on the sidewalk). After that, I followed Windelynn down the highway before I took off on my own back home.
I had a couple of close calls with my bike. I had forgotten how to ride after the morning bike as I tended to stop by pulling both handles. I had to do two emergency stops and ended up sliding quite a bit. Fortunately I had plenty of space, but the first time I nearly dropped the bike. I'm amazed that the bike didn't hit the ground as it was at a very sharp angle..
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