Although there were two 200K brevets on the schedule for Red Deer, unfortunately we had to cancel the April 19th brevet because of snow. Hmmm ... this sounds like the way I started the story of my 2007 200K brevet. Snow on that weekend is getting to be a habit! So the May 3rd 200K was our first brevet for the season.

At 7:30 am, my father and I cycled to the start location - Tim Hortons - and waited around a bit to see if anyone else would show up. No one did, so we set off.

It was a brisk -2C, but the ride starts with a climb, and so we warmed up fairly quickly. The ride continued with another climb, and another climb and a fourth climb into Bentley, the first control. We stopped for a quick break and a snack at Bentley, and then tackled the Medicine Hills.

The Medicine Hills are a set of tall hills right in the middle of the prairie. At one time they were important hills to the aboriginals, now they are ski hills. The road through the Medicine Hills climbs three hills. The first is a long steep hill straight up out of Bentley, the second is more gradual and curves around to the left going over the shoulder of a hill. The third is another straight hill, but not quite as steep as the first. In addition to these three challenging hills, the Medicine Hills seem to have a lot of odd wind gusts. Huge gusts will blast you from one direction, and then from another direction.

The next control is Eckville which has excellent pizza ... the fuel of champions! :) I had one slice, and my father had two.

The section between Eckville and Leslieville doesn't have any major hills, just a few small rollers, but for some reason it's a bit of a slog every year. I think there's a series of gradual climbs in there, and there is usually a bit of a west wind around these parts.

Leslieville is a very small town out in the middle of nowhere but it has a lovely convenience store, very nicely kept, with lots of food choices including fruit and baked goods, and with the cleanest washroom known to convenience stores.

I was standing outside drinking my Orange Crush, when a man walked up, pointed at Machak, and said, "Nice bicycle ... Marinoni". I smiled and said, "Yes" ... a bit surprised that someone out in the middle of nowhere would know the Marinoni brand. Then he told me something else which surprised me even more ... he said he knew Giuseppe Marinoni (the man who started Marinoni Cycles) quite well, because that he grew up in the town where Marinonis are built!! Who would have thought!!

We continued on to Rocky Mountain House where we made a quick stop, and then began the final leg of the journey back, east. We had hoped we might have a tail wind because we had been dealing with a North and Northwest wind on the way out, but no such luck, the wind switched to Northeast. Fortunately it was never really strong ... just enough to be annoying at times.

On the plus side, the temperature reached +16C and was mainly sunny all day. That was nice. :)

Rocky Mountain House back to Red Deer is about 85 kms, and really started feeling long ... especially after we reached the century point (160 kms). It only took us a little over 4 hours, but still seemed to drag a bit for some reason. I think we were both feeling tired and a bit sore.

It was my longest ride since last August, but it was my father's first century (or 200K) in 2 years.

We rolled in after 11 hours and 20 minutes on the road ... not bad at all!!