Hello all...I didn't see too many comments about the Vermont
tour this year. I guess everyone is busy, even me since it
is two weeks after now. Jeff Roth and Bob Hicks did a great
job, as usual. This year it was in Johnson, Vermont. This
was my third time to Johnson. If I recall correctly, Jeff
said there were about 140 weekend cyclists this year.
A new young OBCer, Matthew Ladd, asked me for a lift and we
departed Ottawa around noon on Friday, 3 Aug and arrived
around 5 PM. There was more construction on the 417 than I
expected and the traffic was quite heavy through Montreal.
After checking in, Matthew and I decided to go into the
grocery store for some beer. Matthew brought his passport
and was real keen on using it to prove he was old enough to
drink in Vermont - indeed he would need it. Unfortunately, I
got "ID'd" too, although I can't quite understand the
cashier's logic since I am 38 years old. She decided to call
the manager to decide whether an Ontario driver's licence
was satisfactory "proof" I was over 21. Well, at least I can
brag that I "got ID'd" at 38. He didn't look at my ID, he
just looked at me and said "ok". I bet I don't look a day
over 37. Good thing that place is equipped with barcode
readers because if she couldn't see that I was over 21 she'd
probably have a terrible time reading price stickers.
On Saturday, Jeff Roth, Perry McKenna, Dave Shields, Mary
Ajersch and Jose Furtado and I and a seventh fellow whose
name I cannot recall (unfortunately) did a century ride -
160 kms. I call it a Jay Peak Loop - via Waterville -
Belvidere - Eden - Westfield - Jay - Montgomery - Enosburg
Falls - Bakersfield - Jeffersonville. The weather was dry
but a little warmer than ideal, although there was little
humidity which made it tolerable if you kept drinking lots
of fluids, which we did. The winds where light too. Our
first stop was at Long Pond where Jeff took a picture of us
standing in front of the water which looked like a mirror.
Our next stop was in Eden for water. We stopped again in Jay
to water up before tackling Jay Peak. We all struggled up
and enjoyed a smokin' ride down - four of us hit personal
best speeds - I hit 88 km/h, as did Jeff, and I think Dave
hit at least 80 km/h. Perry McKenna hit an awesome 94 km/h.
Heehaw! We stopped in Montgomery Centre for lunch at JR's.
After lunch, we pressed on to Enosburg Falls, which was a
little bit farther than we intended to go, but it made it a
century. By this time it was getting quite warm and we
stopped for a good water stop in Bakersfield before pressing
on back to Johnson. It was a long day but we had a lot of
fun. Here are my stats for the trip: time 6:00:43 avs
26.7 max 88.0 dx 160.60.
On Sunday, 5 Aug, Jeff Roth, Perry McKenna, Tim Aubin, Avery
Burdett (enough for a quorum?) Janet Capling, Dave Shields
and several others decided to tackle Smugglers Notch from
the Stowe side and then the Underhill Loop. Our route was
from Johnson to Hyde Park - Morristown - Stowe -
Jeffersonville - Pleasant Valley - Underhill Flats -
Cambridge - Jeffersonville. I found the Stowe side of
Smugglers very difficult, especially since the smallest gear
I had on my Cannondale was a 23. Anyhow, I struggled all the
way up, and only had to stop once to catch my breath for the
"final assault". I wisely took my helmet off before starting
the ascent, figuring I would be travelling so slowly that
the helmet would not help me if I fell anyhow. I had to
weigh the risk of falling against the risk of overheating. I
had always worn a helmet ever since I got run off the road
by a dump truck back in 1991 and went for a little ride over
the handle bars after hitting some gravel....sorry for
rambling... Anyhow, we enjoyed the long long descent from
the Notch into Jeffersonville. Avery had some trouble on the
way down - his Eclipse frame started to shimmy and he had to
stop. He told us he was picking out a soft spot for landing
but luckily did not fall. He said he thought he had blown a
tire and that it was the first time he had encountered frame
shimmying. This topic dominated the discussion the rest of
the way to Jeffersonville. None of us broke our personal
bests from the day before on the way down.
We stopped for water in Jeffersonville before heading out on
the Pleasant Valley-Underhill Flats loop. Several of our
group decided to head back to Johnson as it was getting hot
and they wanted to call it a day. By this time it was
getting quite warm - if it wasn't 30C it was darn close. We
hit several uphills on the way and one particular stretch
had brand-new asphalt on it. The blackness of the new
asphalt drove the temperature even higher. At this point I
was feeling quite overheated and was concerned I was going
to get heat exhaustion. I was almost out of water too. I
decided to take my helmet off again otherwise I was risking
heat exhaustion. I drank what fluids I had, down to about a
1/4 bottle reserve and pressed on to Underhill Centre where
I caught up with my group. Curiously, none of them had
helmets on and did not have the overheating problems I did.
I drank at least two litres of fluids there and re-filled my
bottles and we headed back. I had recovered quite nicely - I
pulled for a good stretch after Tim had pulled us for quite
a while and my chain never left my large chain ring between
Underhill Flats and Cambridge.
We stopped in Jeffersonville for lunch, and this is where we
encountered our worst and best experience of the weekend. At
first we stopped at "Dinner Dunn's" restaurant, which has a
front porch and some flower pots on it. One of the guys was
carrying his bike up onto the porch when a young bearded
fellow came out of the restaurant and said words to the
effect "don't park your bikes on the porch - the porch is
for people not bikes - put 'em around the side". He was so
rude that it took us about 2 nanoseconds to change our minds
about eating there. Perry McKenna, who works in the
restaurant business, decided to speak to the fellow to make
sure he realized what he had done. Perry went in and
politely told him that what he had said just cost him our
business. Needless to say, Perry was surprised when he
replied that he didn't "give a damn - you Canadians are
always parking your bikes on my porch and ruining my
flowers." So, we went off on a quest for another restaurant,
intent on never patronizing that place again. We have no
idea what he has against Canadians. Maybe we're lousy
tippers because our dollar is almost worthless, but as a
businessman, you'd think he'd be aware of that. Maybe I'll
send him a letter suggesting he put a sign up on his porch
saying "No Bicycles"; however, given this guy's track
record, we might see a sign that says "No Canadians". We
were nonetheless a cosmopolitan lot - one was from Brazil,
one from the UK and one from Germany, but all Canadians and
all insulted. This topic dominated the discussion at the
restaurant we did go to - it was on the main highway (15),
and our experience was the complete opposite. The food was
good, inexpensive, big portions, fast and the waitress was a
sweety with lots of smiles. We were getting a lot of looks
from the other patrons in the place, probably from our
cycling duds, and we were loudly discussing how insulted we
were by the comment about "you Canadians". My stats for this
trip were: time 4:42:04 avs 25.2 max 80.0 dx
118.49
On Monday, 6 Aug, Brahm Moerhman, Perry McKenna, Dave
Shields, Avery, Janet and Pierre did the Belvidere Loop via
Waterville - Belvidere - Eden - North Hyde Park and East
Johnson. We really hammered and it was quite warm, but fun
as usual. It was a short ride which we did before heading
back to our home and native land. Stats: time 1:56:18
avs 28.4 max 74.0 dx 55.00 We must have seen about
a dozen other OBCers along the way on the 401 - everyone was
avoiding Montreal and the 417 construction on the way home.
We did it in about the same amount of time too.
Cheers for now.
-Rod Plunkett
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