This was not the brightest ride ever. I started with a little nutritional pre-planning Friday night. Just before I went to bed I made myself a full cup (uncooked) of rice. I love carbs. Rice, bread, pasta... everything else I eat is just to make those go down easier. I ate much more than I normally would, but it was okay, I had the Scugog Century the next day. I needed the nourishment for the 160k.

Saturday morning I woke up in a panic. I slept in a little late (I only slept four hours). I was a little excited to say the least. I quickly got everything together, threw the bike in the car and left. I figured if I was too late to start the century I'd at least get to get a decent 100k ride in.

Along the way I passed Jason driving his race Civic to assumedly a Solo 2 event. That was a little freaky, I've been away from that whole scene for so long it's almost surprising it's still going on. Kinda like the rave scene. Very odd, yet comforting to see people I used to know still active. I don't think it's a coincidence that those are the among the few people in the scene who didn't have the same bad habits as most other people I knew.

I got off at Durham College, but the special skills campus. Oops. I used to race in that parking lot, so I just assumed it was that. It wasn't, it was at the main one. It didn't take too long to get there, but I figured I'd just ride on my own if I couldn't join the main ride. When I got there I didn't see anybody looking like they had anything to do with a ride. I drove through all the parking lots and found nothing.

It was the wrong day. The ride was on Sunday, not Saturday.

I was pretty pissed that I mixed it up. This isn't the first time I've done anything like this before. The first time was actually for a bicycle rodeo when I was probably about 10. I qualified for it one year in school, and showed up at the event on Sunday when the event happened on the Saturday. I showed up for a lapping day near Kingston last year on Saturday for an event which was on the Sunday. When will I learn?

I figured I'd make the best of it, so I drove down toward Darlington Provincial Park to park the car and take a little trip along the waterfront trail. I also knew Dave was racing and/or qualifying for a pretty big race at Mosport. I figured I could ride east for 50k, ride north 25k, the backtrack 50k back to Mosport, then make a 25k trip back to the car. If I felt really daring I could make it a century and go for back to backs. It would also give me a chance to see how my knee is feeling with some mileage on it.

Oh yeah, my knee. Not my knee exactly, but when I added the aero bars and moved my seat around I started getting pain on the outside of my left knee. From what I got off this thread on Beginner Triathlete is that it's probably my IT Band. Not good. It can be a pretty chronic issue. I made some adjustments to my seat so I was hoping it would help. Maybe it was an isolated incident.

The ride was nice, but really hard to follow. Because I had to pay to park at the park, I went to the nuclear plant instead. Nuclear plants kinda creep me out. I know they're safe. I know there's nothing to worry about. It's not even so much the radiation I'm worried about, it's more about the electrical equipment all around.

I've never admitted this, but during my raving days I used to actually be freaked out by electricity. I wouldn't say scared of it, but kinda. I think I can trace it back to this show on CTV where they showed the most common fatal household accidents. It was meant as a helpful warning, but it scared the hell out of me. I especially remember the woman poking her knife in a toaster and getting zapped. I've been afraid of toasters since.

All the high powered lines, and especially the buzzing sounds coming from them I just don't like. So I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. I rode east a bit, but I had a lot of trouble following the trail. I could see places where the Bike Rally people had stenciled red arrows in the pavement. More echoes. At least I assumed they're the ones who did it. You can find them all around the area.

I turned north a little early. There were a lot of hills, but the roads were quite quiet. I think I'm going to spend more time riding out that way. It really is nice. The GPS told me to turn left to get to Mosport, but I had a lot of time. I figured I'd go the opposite way for a while and see how far I'd go before turning around. I went straight up a big hill. I'm so happy that big hills like that don't seem like all that big of a deal anymore.

I made it up to the Ganaraska Forest Centre. It's where you buy passes to use the different trails through the forest. They have a bunch of different people using the trails. There are sections for mountain bikers, hikers, dirt bike and quad riders, and even horses.

Looking at the GPS, the road I was on continued just past the gate where you pay. I rode up to read the pricing and thought there was no way I was going to pay the $5 mountain biking fee when I was just there to ride 20 metres to get to the road. Or at least I thought that's what I was going to do. As I pulled to a stop I had my first fall. Yeah, I forgot to clip out of the pedals. First time that's happened this year. I've gone mountain biking with the pedals and rode well over a thousand kilometers and never fallen. It was embarrassing even though I don't think anyone saw.

I figured I'd just take the road a little further east and find another route north. Might as well make a ride out of it. The road kept getting smaller and smaller. The GPS said it was a road. It had a name and everything. I figured it was just temporary and it would just open up again. It was still a road.

There was a clearing beside the road which apparently was where people are supposed to take out their horses. The GPS was showing that there was a road behind it, so I took it. I figured I've made it this far, why not? I'd hop on this little trail which should take me back to the extension of the road I was traveling on. I figured I'd maybe have to walk for 400 metres or so. No biggie.

It was actually really pleasant. I was thinking that maybe when I get too old for being as hardcore as I am now that maybe I'd take up hiking. It's a pretty low stress thing to do, and I've always loved being outside. It was one of my favourite things to do on class trips to the forest. I thought it was hilarious that this was showing up on the GPS as a main road, no different than the main paved throughfare that I came up on.



There was one section with a little pond. There were these little docks, I presume they were there for fishing or something. They were right in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn't even find a route to get to them without getting wet. I'm not a fan of leeches, and it wasn't stupid hot out, so I opted not to. But it was a really nice place to chill out and eat another Clif bar.


Things started getting stupid here. I got to where the road was supposed to be, but it was just another trail. I somehow got off the horseback trails and was now in motorcycle land. Bikes would come out of nowhere, buzzing and sliding around. It looks like a hell of a lot of fun, but I know if I picked up another hobby I'd go right back to where I used to be. Can't do it. I kept walking.

I made it to another intersection. These trails were laid out just like real roads. They were all straight and intersected into Ts. Still no road. I was close to a small town. I saw a car pass me, and he seemed to be heading toward it. I figured I could follow him and get to some paved roads quickly. But I listened to the GPS. It told me I was right at Baseline Road, which I had actually heard of before. I figured it couldn't be too long until it becomes a major road. It didn't.

I ended up walking through the forest for an hour and a half. It wasn't so fun. For a while I was alternating between walking, running and riding. It was too hard to ride the whole way though, as most of the ground was sand. A car drove up from behind, and when they passed the driver yelled out in this strong Newfoundland accent "you're a long ways from a road, eh?" I laughed out loud and said "seriously!"

Eventually the road opened up, right around highway 115. I was running out of time to get to the track to see Dave and Ken do some driving, so I went straight there. I walked about 10k through the forest in about an hour and a half. Next time I'm going to listen to my instinct before jumping in with the GPS.

It was really nice to get to Mosport. I found Dave and the Kensai Racing crew, as well as Rick and Kristie from HADA. Rick and Kristie just sold their S2000. It was the same year and the same colour as mine. It was a little crazy. But not only that, but they also have a yellow Type R and a Civic that they race with (different colour than mine though, ugh). I found out that they used to be into riding a lot too. Rick has a Giant OCR too, and his mountain bike is a Giant like mine as well. That was really freaky!

Kristie had done a ride in New Zealand with a few people from the TBN, which is really getting me excited to do a long tour like that. Hopefully my knee will hold up on something like that though.

I didn't have time to stick around to watch the full race, but I caught Dave and Ken split the qualifying session.




The ride back was very fast. I went from 1100 ft. to 300 in only 20k. Needless to say I averaged 32 km/h. There are a lot of hills in the area. I can see why the Oshawa Cycling Club does a lot of rides up there. I think I'm going to ride in the area a lot more. The hills seem to be so much easier to ride up lately, and the scenery is really nice.

You can get the stats on the first part of the ride here, and the second part here.