Notes

I continue to transform from cyclist to volunteer. Today I didn’t even wander into the truck to hug my bike. I settled for intense and longing looks at other people’s bikes instead. Le sigh.

Our job today was to be the Lead RV. We headed out in front of the riders, and scouted out the route for a) construction delays, detours or other route changes b) poutineries and c) donut shops. We were doing an extremely good job of being in front of the riders and were at the Sears store an hour early - winning! And then in the spirit of “you can’t make this up” the riders turned out to be 30km away from us on the other side of town after a small navigational mishap. So we drove the RV like we stole it (but gently, Mike, gently) and caught up to the team at lunch.

This lunch stop was one of my favorites from last year - the Sears Catalog outlet/Flower Shop/Gift store that served us homemade apple crumble … I still think about that apple crumble to this day. When we arrived - I told the store owner how much I loved that apple crumble and when she told me that she had some for us I gave her a big hug. Let’s just say it was even better than yesterday’s epic poutine.

From there, we were on to our next rest stop - a Porsche restoration shop. It was like we had come to Porsche heaven - every possible variety of Porsche you could imagine in varying states of repair and restoration. A little distracting for a few of our riders to say the least.

Finally, our day ended at Louis Garneau, where we were treated to a fantastic meal, some goodie bags, and shopping at the Louis Garneau outlet. If you ever want to surround yourself with an unfathomable amount of spandex, this is the place for you (and most items are 40% off). I made it out alive without having to re-mortgage my house (much like bikes, I also believe that you can never have too much cycling clothing or accessories) and off we went to start our shuttle for Levis.

Some of the best moments of this whole adventure happen on the bike, but some of the funniest ones are captured in the post-ride conversations that go on in the RV in the shuttle or during “story time” (i.e. blog time). Some very deep and insightful questions lead to even deeper and more insightful conversations. Sometimes you learn things, sometimes you laugh, or sometimes if you’re lucky - both things happen. Tonight, one such question was posed to fellow New Brunswicker Chris Collins by the esteemed and wise Ron Mitchell: "How do you spell Yabba Dabba Doo?“ and Chris answered this question more seriously than I suspect he has ever answered a question in the legislature. I know I will sleep better knowing the answer.

Tomorrow, I am pretty sure our RV will be in charge of doing laundry for 30 people. I am looking forward to taking on the role of benevolent dictator as we will likely occupy all of the machines in whatever laundromat we find in the morning.