Drumlins, delusions and Good Samaritans: Cycling 100 km in Peterborough County

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Never underestimate the power of the ego to inflict suffering, exhaustion and athletic humiliation upon its host. Last Sunday, I did the Shimano Route 2 bike ride, 100 km. My first century ride of the season. Today, I am still stiff, lethargic and oozing in profound reverence for my own stupidity. This ride goes north through Lakefield to Stoney Lake, east to Crowes Landing, south on Road 40, then west on Webster Road, then back to Peterborough. On a map, the route looks like a compressed square with a few short sides and one long side, the slog back home.

I thought I was ready. I had done a dozen 30 km rides. I had replaced the drive train on my elderly touring bike and had put on new tires. Like me, my bike's best days are now past, but I can still keep up with slow group rides. As a lifelong weekend warrior, I usually muddle through.

The countryside east of here is a drumlin plain; retreating glaciers left long hummocks of gravel. Cycling on a north-south axis through a drumlin plain, you ride a series of long gentle inclines, long summit plateaus then gradual declines on which you can fly downhill in top gear, feeling much fitter than you really are. When you cross a drumlin plain on an east-west axis, there are many more steep inclines and declines, albeit shorter. This was the long side of my route back home. Here is where I committed the Ultimate Cycling Sin: I walked up a few of these hills, only to fly down the other side and have to trudge up the next one. But I was alone. No one saw this shameful cowardice.

My map told me there were many "towns" along my route. But I assumed that the towns on the map, places like Galesburg, Gilchrist Bay, Clarina, Centre Dummer, Cottesloe and Guerin had at least a corner store. No. Many were just a few houses. It was odd to be biking through un"‹-populated mixed bush or farmland and not see any public land. The frequent NO TRESPASSING/PRIVATE LAND signs meant I had two options: stop on the shoulder to rest, or keep cycling.

At the 70-kilometre point, my bike began to feel like a torturer's rack. My neck was stiff, my hands ached, my tail bones stung, and my thighs burned."‹And I had run out of water. "‹Had I took on a ride I wasn't ready for?

I thought about stopping at a farmhouse for water, but I kept thinking that the next town would surely have a store. Wrong. Eventually, I stopped in the shade to lie down. A Good Samaritan stopped her car and asked if I was all right. After all, there I was, sprawled out at the side of the road like a flaccid jellyfish beached at high tide, helmet off, my bike flat on the ground. I said I was fine; then confessed that I was out of water but that I was close to Peterborough. She said I was still half an hour away; then she mercifully thrust a bottle of water on me. I thanked her profusely but did not think to pay her. She drove off. Only later did I think of taking a picture to somehow thank her.

Memo to self: Next year, before trying another 100-km ride, do a dozen or so 30 km rides, then do a few 50s, then a few 60s, then an 80-km ride or two. Or rest on my laurels, the last refuge of aging weekend warriors everywhere.

Bill Templeman is a local writer and consultant; he is still in denial about the passage of time upon his fading athletic prowess.