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A Blast from the Past

Reprinted from the Club's Newsletter,

"Wheel Women: Volume 8 Issue 13 August 2001"

The Free Wheelin' Fun Run - A Rookie's Perspective by J.

C. and I hooked up as riding partners within the first couple of minutes of arriving at the designated starting point, the Bread garden in Guilford. We never really met before, but when I announced over coffee that I tend to get lost and that it would be unwise to pair me with anyone who gets aggravated easily, C. immediately volunteered to ride with me. Any pre-event performance anxiety I had been feeling vanished when C. acknowledged that unplanned side trips were not entirely foreign to her experience.

K. gave a pre-trip briefing, which saw participants receive a sealed envelope containing emergency directions to the destination (points would be lost for broken seals) and step-wise directions for the entire route. The route would be divided into two distinct sections separated by a 40 minute pit stop for lunch. Each participant blindly drew a small slip of pink paper containing a question linked to either part 1 or part 2 of the route. One sample route 1 question asked what year the town of Clayburn was founded; a sample part 2 question related to the two types of berries grown at a particular farm. Instead of a quick glance at a sign approaching a town or farm, my question, linked to part 2 of the route, would require a little longer attention span as it asked how many red and white silos do you see? I didn't give my question much thought during the first part of the route, but would be cursing my luck of the draw soon enough.

Prior to gathering for the staggered start, we were to assemble by our bikes. When I got to mine I could see K. several bikes away checking tire pressure. "Oh, we have a safety conscious ride coordinator", I thought. Good idea, I'll take out my gauge and check mine as well. It was only as K. got a little closer that I realized she was having riders guess their tire pressures; closest to actual would accumulate points toward the rider's overall total. What was I going to do when she got to me? There would be no guessing involved; observed or not, I had just taken a reading, I blurted out. (Better to come across as an idiot than a cheat.) At about three times over a standard reading for a motorcycle, K. would not have to bother checking my pressure. I wasn't going to come close to winning in this category.

As the post event bash would be held at D. and E's house, D. would have to leave in the first pairing. E. had left about 30 minutes before the start as he was transporting the potluck goodies back home in his truck. T. and D. left shortly after 10:00 am, and were followed five minutes later by S., D. and D.. Next out were the two graduates of the F.J. Noonan Memorial School of navigation. S. and C. were last out and would keep a lookout for any riders in trouble.

I did not want to lead as I was not familiar with Surrey and had required a map from my BCAA even to find Guilford. C. took the lead but only after I agreed to lead the second half. The directions for the 1st part of the route had 25 individual entries. We cover a little over 80 kms and take around two hours to complete this phase. With C. in the lead it took us just 16 km or 20 minutes into the ride to miss a turn; entry #4, @ 156 St. Another three missed turns later (the fourth occurred at the @ Echo Rd. - we caught up to S., D. and D. just before the first checkpoint which was along an industrial section of Mt. Lehman Rd., between Simpson and Progressive Way. After missing our Trivial Pursuit questions, (DuPont, not Dow, is the largest chemical company/ I don't know, did not compose Rhapsody in Blue - Gershwin did.) and just after C. and S. pulled in, at the urging of the aforementioned trio, we headed out first from the checkpoint.

I regretted not stopping at the General Store when we got to Clayburn - a quick glance through the huge windows revealed really cool looking candy jars, authentic and reproduction old canned goods, etc. Right after Clayburn we encountered some nice curves on Straiton Rd. Too bad we were stuck behind a beat-up old white Nissan truck. If we had snooped around the General Store we would now be taking those curves at speed, instead of crawling along behind somebody's old beater. Not sure if Nissan picked up on our hint (we had our right turn signals engaged way too early approaching the next turn at Sumas Mtn. Rd) but the Nissan obliged and turned left. Open road lay ahead once more.

Two more misses later, the checkpoint trio overtook us at entry #21, right - not left, turn onto Lower Sumas Mtn. Rd. The timing of the pass was excellent as the road ahead had some nice twisties through increasing elevation. With D. and D. keeping back just a tad there was enough separation to get a beautifully unobstructed view of both the Valley below and Baby Blue S. up ahead. (Kawasaki Drifter color and matching leather jacket.) From my vantage point, S. was carving, at a good speed, a seemingly perfect line through the curves ahead. With only a few kms to go in route 1 the five bikes stayed together before heading into the noon pit stop. We had only one minor glitch, where we developed a new signal - shape formed with back of thumb and forefinger on helmeted forehead - which means confused/just checking something out/will be right back so don't follow me.

Over lunch, C. was quite apologetic about the number of missed turns in the 1st part of the route. What an amateur! Missing a street here and there resulting in an occasional 25 foot U-turn is nothing - wait until she sees what I'm capable of when leading. After lunch I wasn't immediately forced to lead as we all followed the route the extra couple of kms from the gas bar to the Birchwood dairy parking lot, where we briefly meet up with K.

We had already passed a single red and white topped silo just before the LT into Nelles Rd leading to the Dairy. A pair of red and white silos were visible from the Dairy parking lot. Sensing that I would be calling on my rusty higher math skills, I inquired at the ice cream counter about the popularity of red and white silos. The clerk informed me that the green and white silos were way more popular. The dreaded 2nd part of the route, and my luck of the draw, really sunk in. We would be squarely in farm country for the next 100 km and 90 minutes. Was I supposed to scan the horizon for silos, identifying faded paint color for the entire period? Surely a limiting factor such as time or distance had been inadvertently clipped off my little pink slip of paper? Apparently not. Fortunately, C. had been riding two-up with I. on the back of her vintage 70- 4 cylinder Honda. I was grateful that I. had agreed to help me count silos.

Determined to render C.'s lunchtime apology moot, 10 km. out at direction #6, I missed the T onto Belrose/Old Yale and did a (now very familiar 25 ft.) U-turn. Once this mistake was corrected, after crossing the train tracks and heading up an incline, we had another nice view of the Valley and were treated to some pretty nice S-turns. Just past entry #12, RT@ Promontory Rd., at 34 minutes and 30 km. from the Dairy, we met up with S., D. and D. At K.'s request we had pulled into a parking lot adjacent to the Vedder Elementary School. D. and T., who had only stopped briefly at lunch and were now quite far ahead, had advised K. that the previous light rain was quite heavy up ahead and the numerous tight twisties towards Ryder Lake Rd. and Mount Thom were quite iffy. K. made a safety decision to cut steps 13 through the first part of 17 off the route. The heavier rain had caused us to clip approximately 21 km, 27 minutes, and numerous tight twisties on Elkview, Huston and Extrom off the route.

We executed entries 17-25 without incident. We were 50-plus km into the 2nd part of the route (all the time mildly cursing as we looked for red and white silos) when C. stopped trying to compete and conceded (after entry #26) that I am the reigning Queen of Lost Riders. We had just executed #25, a RT onto S. Parallel Rd, when I dragged C. and I. along for the longest U-turn of the event. This was no mere 25 feet. Round trip we went 25 km and added 23 minutes to our route. At approximately 0.3 km along S. Parallel , I was supposed to lead us into a LT@ Dixon Rd. When we finally reached the end of S. Parallel at Route 11 (Sumas Way) we checked a road map to verify that Dixon Rd. did exist on this route, and turned back. we had considered cutting our losses and turning down Route 11 to meet up with Vye Rd., which we'd be travelling on after entry #28, but decided against this action as there was a risk of missing a checkpoint. Besides, I was squarely in my better to be an idiot than a cheat

mode. It wasn't just the extra time and distance that had to be accounted for, we had to subtract out six red and white silos, five of which were not visible on the route we should have taken. To keep herself amused during our U-turn, I. subtracted out the three silos standing just East of Cole Rd., the two East of Whatcom Rd. and the single red and white silo almost directly behind Fraser Glen Public Golf. All the way to D.'s house I had a dreadful composite tune running through my head. To the tune of the Hokey Pokey. I couldn't stop singing the South Parallel Road Pokey, "You put six silos in, you take six silos out, miss your turn at Dixon and you turn yourself about." Stop! The rest of the trip to D.'s was without incident. We relaxed and enjoyed opening the throttles up on the newer asphalt surface on Vye Rd.

The food and drinks at D.'s were amazing. S., whose Beemer was in the shop and who thus had been unable to ride that day brought some great edibles and was at least able to join us for the post-ride festivities. We had great prizes donated by various bike shops around the lower mainland with everyone winning something. D. and T. picked up first prize and I won a prize for accumulating the most U-turn mileage. For next year's Fun Run I'm not really sure what to do. On the one hand, after my disastrous rookie season I have nowhere to go in the overall standings but up. On the other, I had way too much fun messing up royally with C. to aim for an error free ride - navigationally speaking - at the 2002 event. Perhaps I should think bigger and volunteer to help coordinate the ride for next year? With my hands partially on the reins the number of temporarily lost riders, most cursing me out/some having a blast could be quite staggering!

Free Wheelin' Canadian Women's Motorcycle Club