The day before a race, one should ride easy.  In my case, a Friday morning ride from Derby, Vermont and north into Canada by bicycle.  44 kilometres of planned goodness, with lots of gravel.

Crossing the border on a back road

Crossing the Canadian border at a lesser traversed immigration station can be a cool experience, especially on a bicycle.  The Canadian immigration officer took care of my passport check, and told me about the sweet cycling in the area.  In between the few incoming vehicles into Canada, we spent about half an hour chatting about cycling, culture and life in general.  A really nice welcome.  My return trip into the USA wasn’t as in depth, but the folks there were interested in hearing about my Canadian ride, and the Dirty 40 race.

The Great White North

This was my first trip to Canada.  What better way to do it, than drive across the US / Canadian border from Northern Vermont, into the province of Quebec.  Having a .00001% grasp of the French language, what could go wrong?  Thankfully, I had my little smart phone, with the Google Translator application installed, and the French language saved offline.  No data plan for outside of the USA means I had to think ahead a little bit.

Riding Around

I found a fantastic 65 kilometre urban route around Montreal, courtesy of a nice gentleman who shared his ride details on the ridewithgps.com website.  The route profile was very flat, perfect recovery considering I pre-rode the entire Dirty 40 course in Vermont yesterday.  I researched where to park the car, and chose a grocery store parking lot.  Thank you Google Street View!

Another Long Road Ride
Picture a hot and humid Sunday morning, in Gainesville, Florida.  Seventy eight miles were planned, from the agreed meeting place, but more if you rode to the start.  That’s what I did.  Weather forecast called for showers around 1pm, which is pretty typical in Florida for this time of year.

Note to self: prepare for the ride by wearing not your best kit, not your best shoes, and riding not your best bike, aka the “rain bike”, “frog bike”, etc.  If you’ve only got one bike, well, that’s a bugger.  The route was carefully chosen; I have a nice library of rides I have prepared over the years, and rotate them in and out on any given weekend day.

This is the conundrum our grupetto faced during today’s 86 mile training ride.  “Next right”, or “right”?  First world problems abound here.

Setting the Scene
Imagine a two by two group of riders, 12 in all, chugging along on serene Florida back roads.  The bloke leading the ride, yours truly, was calling out the turns to whomever was on the front.  A few of the riders were ignoring me, as they had swiped a copy of my awesome course file, and loaded onto their little Garmin 705’s and 800’s.  The purple line can rule your life.  Lemmings.

The group was heading South along a paved road (at left).  Yours truly, a row or two from the front, calls out “next right”, not once, not twice, but thrice, each time increasing in volume.