Surprising Women (and Loop #1)

The bike path behind the Canadian parliament
buildings - our route to and from the park.

Joy here...Generally in the past this blog has featured entries on epic bike loops through our local park, Gatineau Park.  Back in the summer of 2010 I first started riding loops (65kms door-to-door) of the park as part of my training for my first ever 1/2 marathon.  My first loop that year was at the end of July, and I was only goaded into doing it because my friend (Power Penna) was game to do so while pulling her 3 year old daughter behind her bike.  That year I think I managed about four full loops of the park, which was a tremendous triumph.

Then last year, as my full marathon goals began to wane, I found myself on my bike more and more than in my running shoes, and in the 2011 summer cycling season I managed a whopping 22 loops of the park before it got too cold for outdoor riding, with my first loop of the park in early July.

There's a really good description of this ride up to the Champlain Lookout (approx 400m above sea level) on this webpage:  GoBiking.  The take-home point in all this lead up is that the park serves as a kind of cycling touchstone for me and my friends.  The first hurdle is the climb up Pink Lake:  it's steep; it's hard; and generally in the early and late season we usually only ride up to Pink Lake and then back again rather than aiming for a full loop.  The full loop involves the more intense climb all the way up to the Champlain Lookout and back again.

The road in the park, still closed to vehicular traffic until
mid-May.

So when Good Friday rolled around and the temperature was -8C with the windchill my friends and I were having some serious second thoughts about heading out to ride.  The spinning instructor had said she was bringing her dad along - a 68 year old retiree who cycles 100kms just "for fun" on a regular basis - and he was game to ride all the way up to Champlain Lookout.  The rest of us figured that we weren't super keen on being outdone by a 68 year old, so we made sure to load up our pockets with enough food to last beyond Pink Lake should we feel so inclined (and in the case of the Sashinator, that food is stored in a big, giant cycling bag that dangles from the back of her seat and could probably carry a whole roast chicken if she felt like bringing one).

My bike, Cross Eye, taking a well-earned
break up at the Champlain Lookout.

That said, with the crisp wind blowing relentlessly against us - even though we were all bundled in our ski gear - we weren't overly ambitious or sure that we'd make it all the way up to the Champlain Lookout.  In fact, once we reached the top of the Pink Lake climb and high fived and whoo hooed each other, The Professor said, "well, I'm not going to keep going, because I just don't have the fitness this early in the year."  And the Sashinator said, "well, I'll ride a little further, but then I'll turn back."  But the spinning instructor's dad was game to go and cheer on his daughter the whole way, so she looked at me and said, "C'mon, slow and steady wins the race."  So I figured that I'd ride a little further and see what happens.  And so the four of us ladies, led by a super dad, rolled away from the Pink Lake hill and up up up towards the Champlain Lookout.

And as we started climbing, we just never stopped!  We rode and we rode.  And then we rode and rode some more.  The Sashinator up ahead with the retiree, showing the rest of us that she had the best legs out of the four of us.  But The Professor surprised herself by having much more fitness than she had given herself credit for, and the spinning instructor and I rode along, cheering each other on and urging ourselves to avoid our easiest gears (aka the granny gear!).  Then, before you know it, we saw the turn into the Champlain Lookout and started hooting and hollering before pulling over to eat, take some pictures and generally reflect on just how surprised we were to have made it to the top in APRIL...April for goodness sake!

We surprised ourselves; we surprised each other, and we all felt good (albeit a little cold in the toes) as we rode rip-roaringly fast down from the heights of the climb and back to our starting point.  All-in-all, my bike ride was 60kms door-to-door, my surprising longest ride of the season by far!

The view from the Champlain Lookout.  I've never
seen it in April before!

Then I went home and had a well-earned Good Friday nap.

Over and out,
Joy