What I hadn't anticipated was the size and number of hills we were to encounter.
When they say rolling hills, they mean rolllling HILLS!!
The four of us stayed together pretty much together whole ride and it was fun to catch up with friends along the way. We caught up with friends Donna and Treena and had a lunch break with them. We knew that some of the Wooo Hooo's were ahead of us and we would see them upon our arrival. It was a great feeling of comfort to know that we had our Sherpa Extraordinaire Jen with us too, THANKS JEN!
Carrying on along the route, the larger peletons who had left from Carleton University in downtown Ottawa were catching up with us and just listening to the whir of wheels coming up from behind is just too hard to describe, fantastic and almost unnerving at the same time.
I have to admit that getting close to Kingston I started to get leg cramps, not in the usual place you'd expect, like your calf or foot, no, I was getting leg cramps in my inner thigh. I actually couldn't clip out at one point because the cramping was so severe let alone pedal, luckily I did get clipped out and I'm not ashamed to say I walked one hill. As in any long distance event, there were a few crashes, ambulances, motorcyle police spotting us, flat tires, people bonking, a few not so nice cyclists, many, many fantastic cyclists and so many GREAT memories.
For some reason I had been billeted in the men's dorm, so needless to say there was some initial excitement in the shower-room...I figure if you haven't seen it by the time you reach my age you're in deep trouble, but once we all got over the coed arrangements, we shared some very funny moments and even funnier stories!
Part two to follow.....
Life's fun if you dont' weaken,
Lily
