bronte creek provincial park, oakville to uxbridge
110 km (part two)
after lunch we headed out with the uxbridge bike club boys to a rendezvous somewhere in the middle of nowhere at which point we were to meet up with a group who had done a shorter "out-and-back" from uxbridge. you see, there were a whole series of fundraising rides attached to this day that left from uxbridge. you could choose a 100 km round-trip like the boys accompanying us did, a fifty km round trip like the crew we were to meet up with in the middle of nowhere did, or some shorter ones.
the group spread out as the hills and the heat took their toll.
i find that the real challenge with rolling countryside is that it's hard to set up a good pace, you grind up the side of a hill, race down the other side, do some flat stuff at a good clip and then slow down to nothing up the side of another hill and so on.
on a hot day those races down the other side are like the best gift, so no big complaints here!
when we arrived in uxbridge we had accumulated a fair number of riders and so we made our way to the park in the centre of town where we were going to be spending the evening.
surprisingly and amazingly an event had been planned that included live bands and barbequed food and the most wickedly good smoothies made right there with all sorts of fresh fruit! it was almost surreal. many of the riders had arranged to meet girlfriends or mums and dads or even children
so there was lots of hugging and congratulations.
it seemed strange to be with so many people and so we went off and set up our tents and we were part way through that when we heard that the local swimming pool was willing to let us use their showers if we could get up there, showered and outta there in half an hour.
the team grabbed towels changes of clothes and soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste etc. and biked quickly through the edge of town over to the big community swimming pool building. good showers. then biked back to be welcomed by the most vicious and bloodthirsty swarms of mosquitoes i've encountered in years outside of algonquin park. man they were hungry! i actually decided to use some deet based product even though i know that stuff'll shut your kidneys down as quickly as it'll scare off the bugs. it was worth it because it allowed me to join in a cut-throat game of monopoly!!!
cut-throat and monopoly would not normally be seen in the same sentence
but you have to see how some of these people play!!
lying in my tent i felt both happy and sad to be going home and ending my trip tomorrow.
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