As has become tradition, I’m looking at a Canada Day Gravel ride, and it will of course be 154 km to match with Canada’s age.
Watch the Ride Planning/Signup category for details. I haven’t posted or even made a route yet, but should have something hopefully Tuesday night or Wednesday during the day. This link should bring you to the category:
https://forum.waterloocyclingclub.ca/c/members-only/ride-planning-signup/41
Are you thinking of Canada day itself for the ride? I am asking a bit selfishly under the pretence of working Thursday as they shifted our holiday to Friday.
Hmmm, trouble is I booked my second vaccine Friday afternoon. But I could totally do 154 km Thursday then do something a little shorter Friday?
That’s exactly what my place of work did!
I’m potentially in for a bit of it.
would love to join this but my endurance isn’t quite up to it yet! have a good one!
Despite the weather predictions for some afternoon rain, we ended up having prefect weather Thursday. Eight of us started from the Outlet Mall, heading north. We managed to hit some fun trails through Elmira, and then we did the Woolwich reservoir loop, this time going to the north section of the trail that we seem to often skip on our usual routes.
As we continued North and tacked some No Winter Maintenance (i.e rough) roads close to Alma, three of our group split off to head south on Sideroad 19 back towards town.
The five of us pressed on, heading through Alma, then north some more all the way up to the rail trail that connects Arthur to Grand Valley. This is a really nice trail, and as far as I know, has been fixed up quite nicely in the past few years.
Naturally though, we left the rail trail early to try out an unopened road allowance that I had seen from satellite view. That was pretty fun, a little rough, but it was only a kilometer or two.
The return home from Arthur didn’t disappoint, as it was mostly tailwind and cross-tailwinds back, with a few little blips west into the wind here and there.
When I first thought of the idea of 150 km of gravel back in 2017, I really was unsure of if I could do it or not. Five years in and it’s usually a highlight of the season for me. I have learned a few things over the years - adding kilometers of trail really adds to the duration, and can make the distance hard to do, especially on a really hot day. And starting early is also a bonus if it’s going to be a hot day.
Also, @sean_Tait mentioned this was his third year in a row, so I figured I’d see who else is up there for participation. Turns out we’ve got 3 more people who have done the Canada Day ride 3 times. @rwgrigg, @RustyHacksaw , and @karihueber are all in the three-peat club.
Next year we add 1 more km, to go for 155!
