I guess this gets Rod gets the 'youngest 38 year old' award at the
Club Dinner this year, unless there are any 60 year old who can better him.
My congrats go out to Bob, Jeff and all who helped make this one
such a super weekend. If the number of empty bottles is anything to go by,
even those of us who didn't make it to Smugglers must have found the weekend
a very thirsty one.
I'm certainly glad that things were not as warm in Vermont as they
were in the Ottawa Valley. Riding back with Mike Lau and Dan Montag, I was
very glad of the rag top after crossing the Seaway Bridge.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rod Plunkett [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 9:48 PM
> To: OBC List
> Subject: [obc] OBC Vermont Tour
>
> 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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