June 8, 2002

For the first time before any of these rides, I had a very rough night’s sleep and ended up with about 3 hours in total. At 1:30 am I got up and started to get ready for my 400 kilometer ride. Once again, I cycled the 5 kilometers to where I was meeting my ride to the start of the event. 10 of us met at the start and made the last minute preparations to set off on our journey. At 4:00 am we set off into the darkness. The weather was beautiful. There was no wind, the temperature was about 14 degrees (58F), and at about 5:20 am we were treated to a beautiful sunrise.

We divided into two groups immediately. 5 went ahead, riding hard, and 5 of us rode at a much more leisurely pace. We had 70 kilometers to our first control this time and made that distance in good time, averaging about 25km/h (15mph). On the way we narrowly avoided “disaster” when we came through a little town that was having a festival all weekend. The road was completely strewn with broken beer bottle glass! Amazingly we all came through that without a flat!

Our next stop was a campground about 60 kilometers further on where we had a secret control. That was a nice break because of the shade. The wind was remaining blissfully calm, but the temperature was starting to rise and I was starting to feel hot. I had also been feeling very tired for quite some time. Shortly after that we crossed the border into the United States, and not long after that, we were in Roseau, MN for lunch - the half way mark. Just before the border crossing I started to shake and feel very weak which surprised me because I had been eating very regularly all along. I ate again when we stopped there, but part way along the road to Roseau, I started shaking again, and stuffed an energy bar into my mouth. That got me to Roseau, where I had quite a large meal.

I’d like to say that I blasted out of the 200 km stop like I had done on previous rides, but I just did not have any energy this ride. When we started going north again, we had a little bit of a headwind, but it was not bad, and did not last long because we headed west again and the wind was behind us. That was good for me, because I still had no energy. Once again we came across the border and when we did, I soaked myself in their washroom sink. I found out later that the temperature did not go up terribly high (20 degrees), but I was incredibly hot most of the ride.

We made a supper stop at the 276 kilometer mark and I could have happily curled up and gone to sleep right there on the floor. However, knowing that I still had a fair distance to go, I decided to do something I don’t normally recommend. I had a cup of very sweet tea and a coke with the goal of suddenly raising my blood sugar and giving myself a caffeine boost. Even so I dragged myself into the next stop, 50 kilometers further on.

At that stop we got ready for the night riding - dressing in warmer clothes, and checking our lights. When we came out of that stop I began to feel better, and my energy levels started to improve. About half way to the next stop, I requested a stop in a tiny town so that I could put on my reflective stuff (which I had forgotten to do at the previous stop). As soon as we stopped, we were accosted by a whole pile of children who wanted to know who we were and what we were doing! We were surrounded! Evidently they were very impressed that we were doing such a distance. They even followed us for a little while as we left the town.

Just as we pulled into our next stop, it started to sprinkle, the wind started to pick up, and we could see lightening in the distance. We had beautiful weather up to that point, sunny, good temps (even if I did feel hot!), and light winds . . . but all that was about to change. That stop was a very brief one for us - just enough time to get our cards signed, to throw on a jacket, and we were off.

It wasn’t long before the rain started coming down quite heavily and the wind increased. I had the most energy of the whole ride at this point in the ride. I ended up taking the lead for the first time because the group was starting to lag and I wanted to be finished the ride and out of the rain. We pushed against the wind and rain for the last 50 kilometers. Right at the end of the ride, we had to ride for 2 or 3 kilometers along a main highway, and if we weren’t wet before, we were after that last bit! Besides the puddles, a couple of large trucks came by and soaked us with the spray they kicked up!

We made it in 21 hours and 11 minutes - 13 minutes slower than last year. I am very pleased with that time considering how lethargic I felt most of the way. All along the way we were filmed again like we were on the 300. I will be very interested to see the finished result of those! I wonder how dead I really looked!! All told I did 409 kilometers - 254 miles.

Epilogue:

Three days later, Roseau, MN and surrounding area were flooded ... bridges washed out, roads closed ...

The restaurant on the right is our traditional mid-400K stopping place.