Riding In The Wind !!

Today was one of the most challenging rides I have ever experienced in the 5 years Pedal For Hope has been in existence.

We started off at 7:30am leaving Omemee and were expected at Fenelon Township P.S in Cameron at 9:00am. That meant we had to travel 37 km's in 90 minutes. Now normally this would not have been a problem at all, the team is used to averaging a speed of 27km-35km per hour, unfortunately mother nature decided to turn the winds up on this cold drizzly morning. So 37 km's riding directly into the wind is very challenging, if you are not sure what I mean, get your bike, put a parachute on your back and then try to ride to the end of your street. At times it felt as if I was riding while holding on to a sheet of plywood.

Never the less, it did take us 30 minutes longer than we had anticipated but we did make it and never gave up the entire time.

We arrived in Cameron and the party was on. The students were pumped and the hair was dropping to the floor.

Our second ride of the day wasn't as bad as the first, we started into the wind but after about 10 km's we made a right turn for Fenelon Falls and the wind changed in our favour. What a difference a little wind pushing you will make. Earlier in the day reaching a speed of 30 km/hr was a challenge, now with the wind at our backs we were cruising at 40 km-45 km/hr and hardly working.

We cut through Fenelon Falls on our way to Bobcaygeon P.S arriving there to a reception designed for rock stars. Students outside waving and cheering. No matter how challenging the ride, no matter how wet and cold the clothes, there is no better feeling than riding into a school to the sound of kids cheering and clapping. You can't get better motivation than that. Another piece of the puzzle that keeps us going was standing outside the school to greet us, one of our special friends Vicky, a little bundle of happiness and smiles. Just to see that she is doing well tells us we are doing something right.

From Bobcaygeon we had to detour from our normal 1000km route to Curve Lake. Due to scheduling conflicts we had to trailer the team to just outside Curve Lake where we rode into Curve Lake P.S. Now I know what your thinking and don't worry, we are going to ride those kilometers at a later point of the tour, we still need to visit Buckhorn P.S and Young's Point, so don't worry the team never shortens the kilometers, we just needed to visit Curve Lake and this was the only time we could do it.

And Boy Oh Boy, was it worth it, as we rode into Curve Lake it was awesome, families running out of their homes to the end of their driveways to cheer us on. As we arrived at the school you would have thought the cheers were coming from 200 kids, but that was not the case, you see Curve Lake P.S is home to a mere 45 students from kindergarten to grade 3. We had so much fun spending the afternoon with these students. The entire community rallied around these students and as a result they presented us with a cheque for $9,100. !!!!! Unbelievable !!!!!

When we left Curve lake the sun was shining and the wind had calmed down so we decided to ride 20 km's to make up some lost distance. At the end of the day we had covered 91 km's and visited 3 schools.

John