Powered by Eggtato Salad.

Jen pulled off a Canada Masters Nationals hat trick! She won the Time Trial, Road Race, and Criterium!

*fan girl screaming*

We haven’t ridden together since my accident. The last person I rode with was someone I rode with once, in France, in 2018: Chris. (And Yann.)

A few months ago, Chris reached out to Yann and me (who also met him while cycling touring in France), saying his friend was having a destination wedding in BC and that he was planning on making a stop in Victoria. Yann couldn’t figure out who would have a bike in Chris’ size, but I work at a shop that also rents out bikes. I bestowed my employee perks upon Chris with a discounted two-day rental of a Trek Domane.

Chris touched base at the start of the month to confirm he’d be in town on the 21st. That’s when I broke the news that I’d been in an accident and hadn’t been on a bike since. My participation was looking iffy.

A few days before Chris’ arrival, Yann proposed a 75km ride. The best I’d done since the accident was a 46km club ride that got my heart racing! Even before my accident, I wasn’t doing many rides over 60km. “I’ll do my best,”  I declared.

We started along the waterfront, where Chris excitedly spotted the ubiquitous deer. A few minutes later, there were more deer. The assimilated deer of Victoria use the crosswalks:

We found the road barricaded around the Legislative. I hadn’t registered that it was the day of the Masters Nationals Criterium (yes, the one Jen won) or that it was happening around the Legislative. As long as we didn’t blink, we caught the Masters men zoom by for a few laps before we moved on, walking our bikes on the sidewalk along the inner harbour.

Yann hooked me up with three energy gels, which were meant to sustain me for the 75km ride. We ended up stopping at the East Sooke General Store. I was already down to my last energy gel, and Yann wanted to take Chris to the end of East Sooke, ie., West East Sooke.

My primary challenge was finishing the ride. My second challenge was finding something I could eat. It had to be soft enough and lactose-free. These two challenges go hand in hand.

Processed potato and egg salad it is! 🤌

I took the photo while Chris took this one:

Yann had a more balanced snack choice: a sandwich, a bag of pickles, and a cone of gummies.

For the “One person takes a photo while another person takes a photo in the background” theme, we also have these:

How good do I look, though?

If you’d ridden with us, you’d have witnessed my apprehensiveness when turning right into a painted bike lane. I can’t trust motorists to stay clear of the cycling lane if they believe it’s not in use.

My gilet doesn’t have back pockets, so I have to pull it up to access the back pockets of my jersey. Hence, the best photo I took was of an eggtato salad. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I shall have to compensate with a thousand words.

Except, I can’t compete; the guys took some fantastic photos. That eggtato salad sustained me for the 115km ride. On the way back into town, Yann quipped about the ride being easy for Chris. The man has done numerous brevets, including the London-Edinburgh-London, the Paris-Brest-Paris, the Inverness 1200, and many more! While Yann was fuelling on bagged pickles, he and Chris discussed how ultra-distance cyclists dump the worst foods down their gullets. (See Lael Wilcox stuff her top tube bag with McDonalds fries, then dump extra salt on it at 2:31).

Sunday’s ride didn’t warrant that kind of fuelling-up. I have the feeling eggtato salad is going to become my go-to mid-ride snack. I have no further photos of the delectable yellow mush, just more pictures of myself:

I certainly do not look like someone who got hit by a car and landed on her mouth last month. Less so after this afternoon’s dentist appointment: my lower teeth have been fixed! Forget 1 Hour Photofinishing: we are now in the era of 1 Hour Tooth. I went into this appointment, assuming it was the first of a series of appointments to get crowns for my lower teeth, and emerged from the dentist’s office with a new crown bonded to one of my lower teeth.

Yep, that’s a gif of my new tooth. I am being rebuilt one tooth at a time!