All Uphill

I’m losing perspective: all roads that aren’t dramatically downhill are starting to look like big climbs.  Yoy.

Another night shift for RV2 and we’re totally rockin’ it. We’re still averaging 25km/hr even with these nasty up-hills.  The Sault area is nasty on a bike, but so much more amazing on a bike because you can take in the scenery.

We had a pit stop in Wawa for the RV change where we found out that the other team totally knocked down a high speed of 71.8 on the tandem.  Way cool…but way making Kerry and I want to destroy it!

We paced ourselves on a bunch of ascents and easy downs until, around 11pm, Kerry and I found our hill.  We got into top gear and were totally blasting the descent.  There was one big dip left in the road and we found another gear, pumping our legs as hard as we could, lungs burning, heart racing…and then we blew a pedal with 150 meters to go on the hill.  So disappointing!

There was a bit of panic going on…not too sure what order things happened in because we were going too fast to look down and figure out what was going on.  It was too dark.  I caught 69.8 km/hr on the bike computer, but we’d lost a little bit already.  We certainly didn’t bust through the 71.8, but we had at least 70km/hr, if not 71!

The threads on the crank were completely stripped.  The pedal was still clipped in on my shoe…pretty crazy.  It was a shaky moment, but luckily I was in the drops and Kerry is a real steady rider.  I didn’t need to move my hands to reach the breaks, so we just had to shake off a wobble and slow down.

We’ll get it tomorrow, Kerry, tomorrow. ;o)

Got into camp and Canadian Olympic rower Chris Jarvis had made the most amazing campfire-cooked banana bread with walnuts and chocolate chips.  Dude actually cooked it on the campfire in foil.  Made the batter from scratch.  Epic.

Really hoping to get some internet access soon…have some video we NEED to get up here and lots of pictures.

I’m also thinking of my beautiful wife, who is officially going to celebrate her birthday without her husband.  Love you baby…tomorrow we’ll be in Thunder Bay and I’m hoping Rogers has their act together for cell phone reception…

Big Night of Riding – And LOTS of Rain

We rode all through the night last night into Mississauga and had one heck of a ride.

As we took the RV to start the all-nighter – Willie, Kim, Mark, Joanne, Jen and I – we looked up into the most amazing clear sky…crazy awesome stars and a nice cool night.

There was one cloud in the sky.  One cloud. Willie looked up and had the nerve to say, “There’s one cloud, there is no way we can get screwed!”

20 minutes later he and Kim were hunched under a gas station shelter while gallons and gallons of water poured off the roof of the building.  We couldn’t see them for a couple of minutes before they pulled over.  It was insane…and I have video to show it!

Mark and I rode together as the second tandem, J & J rocked shift three.  We rotated through the night until we busted a couple flats in a row and switched over to singles.

Willie rode all the way through Toronto.  When I say he ‘rode’ through Toronto I mean he totally destroyed that city.

On the last 20km stretch to Mississauga he came back to the RV and said, “James, it’s your Beemer.  Do you want to take it in with me?” 

It was the most incredible ride of my life.  Willie let me draft pretty much the whole way and we rocked that last strip of road at 40-50km/hr the whole way, and got into the community event in M-Town at about 7:30 AM. 

As I got off the bike, Googs came up and asked if I could help with the event.  I was feeling pretty high so I was like, “Hell ya!”   Then she told me I was doing the 30km ride.  Nice. hehehe.

It turned out to be awesome and I got to ride with Patti for most of the shift…what a great morning, too.  It is so incredibly lifting to share with other parents about D-Day, about the changes in life and what our hopes and aspirations for our kids and their life with this disease.

Googs totally rocked the event – for her first event where she had to write the entire script, it was incredible – and there was a strong group leading the team out of the city while she and I went to return a bunch of gear.  We met up at the team change event (ON East to ON West) and had to say some good-byes to a great group of people while we got rolling with the next.

What a blast…so fortunate to be riding with a group of people that want so badly to totally lick this disease.

Broke in on the Tandem

Kim Hexter is a ROCK STAR. If you’re ever going to do your first ride on a tandem in the dark, this is the lady you want riding the stokes is Kim.  Thank you so much for an amazing first ride.

We’re doing a wild downhill right now with tandem needed some serious love.  It’s lived through a hurricane, several thousand kms and a serious rain storm. Getting some big help tomorrow after the community ride in Mississauga.

Today my wife joined with Cyclebetes Manitoba team mates Jannessa Phillips and James Juliak went down to do a benefit BBQ for the team.  Murray Chev Olds hosted the event and covered the expenses, allowing us to collect over $600 for the JDRF! Too awesome.

Drove for three hours and am about 3.5 hours away from my next cycling shift.  Joanne and Jen rockin’ the tandem now and we’re about to do a change.

Looks like a great night of riding ahead of us!

Ride hard!

We Just Rocked Laval

from Aug 28…

I just rode with the tandem and we took the team out of Montreal the hard way…with a big fat detour u-turn that by no means suggests we got lost.  Seriously.

Riding in the pace van now with Carey and Kara in front of the tandem.  It’s 6:06 PM and I’m not sure when I will get internet, but I wanted to capture some of what we got to experience again.

Megan picked us up at 8AM…which is waaaaay too early if you stay up until 3AM looking for a place to find crepes.  Yeah, uh…totally Kara’s fault.

Team Food (that’s us) made our way down to Loblaws and grabbed a bunch of grub.  Man, the looks on their faces when we bought six bags of apples and a billion bananas.

We met up with the convoy, got the bikes tuned up and then hit the road with the team to make our way to Roche’s head office and were promptly blown off our seats.

5 year old Sammy and 8 year old Liam totally funked out a solid 5kms and as the dozen or so of us on bikes rolled into Accu-Chek HQ, we were met by 150+ volunteers, Roche staff, JDRF Quebec representatives, stilt-walking clowns and families living with Type 1 Diabetes.  They were cheering us through to this awesome event they were hosting for us, complete with buffet, drinks, some brief talks from JDRF, Cyclebetes, Roche and a truly endearing family.

Nathalie and her daughter drew more than a few tears as they shared how T1 affected their lives.  Both mom and daughter were phenomenal and drew much applause.

Next up was our very own Nathalie and her son Liam, who are team members of Cyclebetes.  Nathalie grabbed that mic and rocked it for 8 minutes and brought a great personal touch from our team to the event.

I then broke my legs in with a great shift behind the tandem and got to spend some time riding with Canadian Olympic medallist Chris Jarvis!  Sooooo cooool!

I have about an hour before I get on the tandem for the first shift and I’ll be knocking off some big KMs with Kim Hexter.  I am so pumped.

I’m thinking huge about my wife, my two man cubs and really wishing they could be here.  I can’t wait to see you guys in 7 sleeps!

With the Team!!!

I am so pumped.

We are sitting in the parking log of Resaurant Le Bordelais and chillin' while we prepare for our big event in Montreal with Accu-Chek. Refresh on the decals on the RV and we're tuning up the bikes.

It's been a blast so far and I'm not even 12 hours in!

Everyone here is great...Kara, Grant and I started the day at just after midnight when I got in (I had my own greeting party at the airport!) and we went on the hunt for crepes (FAIL).

Megan picked us up at 8AM and we headed to the local Loblaws. I TOTALLY BLEW my attempt to navigate, but I'm blaming it all on poor signage, a non-detailed map, and Kara. I don't know why, but Kara is at least partly to blame.

Getting ready to roll now...RIDE HARD!

My First Leg of Cyclebetes Complete!

I averaged an amazing 96km/hr on my first leg. 

Of course, this wasn’t on a bike; rather it was in my van, but nonetheless, the start of this adventure has come and gone.

Next up…getting to Montreal.  There’s apparently nasty weather right now in the area and 8 out of 13 flights were late, are late or were cancelled.

That’s me at the bottom…West Jet flight WS208, currently still on time, but there are quite the crowds forming here and equipment is late in all directions right now.

There is one more thing…I’m at the wrong gate.  The friendly people at West Jet think my boarding pass is right, but I need to wait until they get the mess cleaned up a bit first.

Having a little trouble connecting to the internet.  Ironically (though not that uncommon) I need to download a driver update.  But, I’m not connected to the internet…which makes downloading a little tricky…

Some People Shave Their Head for Cancer…

…and I shaved my legs for Juvenile Diabetes.  Yeah, apparently it’s a cycling thing. heh.

I leave for Montreal today and will be in Calgary 13 days later...riding my bike...and I'm so PUMPED to be part of Cyclebetes.  A cure for my son will be so incredible...and it's going to be one heckuva bike ride!  There are dozens of people from all walks of life taking part in the relay.

Thank you to everyone who has already pledged me.  If you haven't already and would like to, here's the online address:

http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=580144&LangPref=en-CA

If you know of anyone else who would like to donate to help find a cure, please forward this message along.

Thanks again everyone for caring so passionately about making a difference for our son and the 200,000 people in Canada who live with Type 1 Diabetes.

Wherever you are in Canada, I hope to see you along the way!