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Zephyr

by Matt Smith

July 16, 2011 - Filed under: Company

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Well, it took five years to repeat the trip, but I finally made it back to Lake Simcoe last weekend. Knowing that the round trip to Jackson's Point is pretty close to 200 km, I have to make sure that I don't have any pressing work commitments before I undertake the adventure. The entire trip including breaks will generally take at least 8 hours depending on the who else is on the ride.

The first time I did the trip it was with Aaron, who was visiting from Australia, Gerard and Victor. If you have read the previous blogs on the Crazy Light project (http://crazylight.cc), you will know that riding with Victor is always an adventure.

When we did this ride back in June of 2006, his longest ride to date was around 70 km. Going to Lake Simcoe with Gerard, Aaron and myself, he really didn't know what he was in for. When we got to Zephyr, we stopped at the local gas station/convenience store. Zephyr is a typical country location with just four corners, two of which have stores. We were about 140 km into the ride and still some 60 km away from home at this point and Victor was already running on fumes. We all watched in amazement as Victor polished off a bag of potato chips and upon finishing proceeding to turn the bag inside out to only start licking the inside of the bag for the salt. Where were the camera phones when you needed one?

We finally hit the edges of civilization (not sure about that term as the countryside with no stop signs or lights every 20 feet seems must more civilized!!), we stop for a pee break at one of the malls. While we traded turns guarding the bikes, Victor goes into the Shoppers Drug Mart and exits with a tube of cream. Squirting huge gobs of this stuff into his hands, he immediately proceeds to smoother his legs with it. When we finally determine what he was using all over his legs, we couldn't contain ourselves in laughter. Victor had come back with a tube of BenGay and for the next 30 kms, whenever we were downwind of Victor, all we could smell was the BenGay and immediately we would all start giggling uncontrollably.

Fast forward to 2011. Alas, this trip to Lake Simcoe wouldn't be with Victor. Victor now knows his limits and sticks to them! This time it was with Scott, Brian and Bob. Scott is the husband of our previous credit manager, Christy and he organized the ride which meant we all would meet at his house. So that meant riding out east 30 km to the starting point (which also meant riding back 30 km from the finishing point, nice way to start and finish a ride!)

Initially, it looked like it would be just three of us until Bob showed up. That proved to be golden as Bob, being the youngest and a teacher with lots of recovery time on his hands, pulled us all the way up into a head wind to Lake Simcoe via Zephyr. To me, not stopping at Zephyr would have made the ride seem incomplete (Scott is the one in black outside the general store in Zephyr).

After stopping at the local Tim Horton's, which had a line up out the door and into the parking lot, we headed back down into the city. Going down 9^th Line, we passed through Musselman Lake where we stopped for ice cream. We had a tailwind coming back down from Lake Simcoe until we hit Stouffville were upon the wind switched 180°. It was at that point we started to drop Scott on the inclines reminding me of Victor who always would start going backwards on every hill. For me, that is ego boosting moment as Scott is in a profession where part of his day is intense training and this a man without a gram of body fat and also a least a decade younger.

When we got back to Scott's house, we trundled off to Victor's place, who is just down the street from Christy's. There we had a special presentation of a box of Ben Gay which made its way to Switzerland in 2007 where I was going to give it to Victor but forgot to give it to him each time we went out for a ride.

Better late than never.

Being the good sport he is, we all had a good laugh and great memories about that ride in 2006.

As for the R5ca build, we basically have all the parts. Well, we did momentarily. I was able to get the parts from the warehouse earlier this week and upon doing so, immediately shipped off the crank to be refinished. With the paint scheme of the R5ca, we have decided to strip down the FSA SLK Light and give it a simple coating of the same finish of the frame. We are using the same paint shop we send some of the frames to, Dekerf Cycles in Richmond British Columbia. Not quite sure when I will get it back, but at least it will not stick out like a sore thumb. So basically, the only color on the bike will be the logo on the head tube and the SRAM decals on the shifters. Everything else going on the bike, including the chain rides will match the paint scheme very nicely.

Also on order is the tracker trailer of Twinkies for the bike build itself. Have to keep the bike builder well fed.

You can receive instant updates on the Crazy Light project by following me at http://twitter.com/#!/cervelomatt

Also, to read the original blog series, you can check them out at http://crazylight.cc