Somewhere out there, exists a place where weekend brevets are run in dry conditions.
That place is not Nova Scotia.
Once again, a small but dedicated group of individuals gathered at the appointed place and appointed time to take on a grey and troubling sky for a day of riding. This time it was John, Craig, Tim and Alan. For those that don’t know Tim, he has come out for a few long rides over the last year or so and rides his pace and makes a day of it.
The ride started out from Grahams Grove and we rolled out Waverley road, enjoying the early morning lack of traffic. The skies were grey, but holding, and a light tailwind pushed us along at a nice pace. The group got our first taste of climbing with a turn onto Oldham Road. Shortly after the turn from Oldham to Old Guysborough Rd, Alan got that telltale squishiness in his rear tire suggesting a brief stop to replace a tube might be a good idea. One extended thumb workout with a tight set of tires later, we were buttoned up and back on the road.
The run down to Elderbank is always a quick one and the light tailwind continued through to Middle Musquodoboit, marking our arrival less than 3 hours after departing Dartmouth and giving us time for a quick second breakfast. From there, we set off towards Alma. At about 100km, Alan and Craig made the decision to follow John ‘conceptually’ and more ‘from a distance’ and bid him farewell. It was not long afterward that the rain that had been holding off all morning started up in earnest. Fortunately, it remained relatively warm through the showers and we arrived at Whistleberry right around noon. John was still there and just getting ready to set off on a solo adventure towards home. After a couple of well-earned paninis and a bottle top-up, we set off for the main climbs of the day. Mt Thom and East Mountain are, more often than not, ridden into a blast furnace of a headwind, but today was a nice change of pace as we retained the SE wind that had been blowing all morning as a cross-tail wind that took us almost to Truro.
In Truro, at 90km to go, the work was really starting to bite. Staring down the barrel of a block headwind all the way home, both Craig and Alan needed a coffee. It’s a good thing the clever ride coordinator thought to choose the Superstore in Truro with the Starbucks as the final controle of the day. What a guy! Fortified with caffeine and Haribo, we took rotating 5-minute pulls into the wind and rain of the late May afternoon. A smarter pair might have chosen to make one final pitstop in Enfield, but both of our intrepid riders could smell the barn and just wanted to be home and warm and dry. The final push in through Waverley, while familiar, was a bit of a bonkfest. We finished up around 6:30pm tired and hungry, but mostly just wet!
Kudos to Tim who gutted out a solo ride behind us, but wisely decided to pull the plug in Elmsdale and avoid a dark and wet finish into Dartmouth . It was a long day all around. We’ll take a brief respite from the Silly SeasonTM and take a visit to Hollywood this coming weekend’s populaire before the 400km brevet on the weekend of the 14th. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming events!
