Return from a wknd at the cottage

Decided to get Fil and Chris together for a little debauchery on Friday and a cleansing ride on Saturday up at the Family cottage. Time couldn't go fast enough from me to load up after work and get to the cottage.

I stopped at Pig and Whistle, to pick up some BBQ fare, got pretty excited when i saw a scicillain salad, potato curry, and some cous cous......to go alongside the lamb, chicken and steak skewers..let me just say they looked smaller when I was pointing and stating...uhhhh three of these, and uhhh three of these......well, 120 bucks later.......all in all... GREAT GRUB.

I finally arrived at the cottage with time to spare, set up a little bike shop for last minute tinkers and cracked into my first beer...ahhhhh peaceful. The boys soon arrived and we did what all boys should do.....found a bed sometime throughout the night and awoke at around 8 am nursing a headache and the desire to stoke the head for our days ride.

Now, the ride.....pretty mellow....rail trail the whole way...enabling aerobic threshold training with an out and back from Otter Lake to Chaffey's locks. It began on a humerous note with Chris standing and cranking, SNAP, a chain broke...quick repair and off we went. Had some fun dropping some natural stone features, climbing and descending some interesting stairs, and managed to dissolve two teeth of my Race Face Evolve big ring into a stone....marked my territory...forgot...no rock ring on this rig.

We felt pretty happy with the 32 k out and played a bit before returning with a quick pause at a convenience store.....and then it happened......we got humbled when this, what had to be a 23 year or so whipper snapper rolling in on a full carbon Kestrel...what a thing of beauty...he was equipped with a power tap and shared his ride plans with us when i prompted him for details...yeah, he was clocking 145 k and was getting prepped for a criterium race tomorrow..Oh yeah, did I mention, this dude was also just shy of being an Adonis.....jerk :) This seemed to stoke our fires for the return trip..

Phil started to keep pulling...now this terrain was pretty flat...our tires were pumped up to 60 psi and every vibration was being felt...there were surges where silent battles would attain 35 to 40 k/hour intervals with bars locking as we tried to avoid puddles by moving both.heheheh..to the inside...Phil and Chris with about 15 k left, dropped the hammer, me fighting some dehydration and a residual headache, watched them for about 8 k battle it out...They paused, I caught up and off we were again...Chris making a charge on his 29'r...very impressed my 24 hr partner...we're ready....as Fil and I commented on what he fired down his throat to get this advantage, I said Fuck it, loosed up the upper body dropped it a few gears and began attacking the paved hills that were taking us back to the cottage road....success....caught, passed and carried up until the pump, plan was to just easy peddal in the last mile to cool down...Chris, decided he would get one last attack....gave him it....he looked strong.

Finished with some beers, bid them adios JUST as the wife and kids rolled in to spend the afternoon/evening with me for "Dad's Day".....

This time next week....will be cracking some beers and reviewing the trials and tribulations from the 24 hours of riding/racing that was just had.

Stats:
3 hr: 13 min
148 avg; 182 max HR
In Zone 2:07, above 1 hour 2 min....the silent racing hehehe
2315 Kcal
63.7 km
avg spd, 19 km/hr max 43.2

Plan....mellow ride tuesday and MAYBE thursday......Friday off....en route to Albion.