Today was Clark’s funeral and I learned a few things about the man.  The place was standing-room only with vehicles lined up and down the streets for blocks.  It would seem the lasting impression he left with me, he left with many, many people.  A man devoted to family and to achieving excellence at work and at home.  The world was a better place with him in it.

Attending the funeral in the middle of the morning meant some time off work.  This translated to an extra half-hour on the bike in what has to be some of the coldest weather I’ve ridden yet.  The ride started out at 4 degrees and slowly dropped to 2 before climbing back up again by the end of the ride.  I know it’s just the end of April (as I write) and we’re just as likely to see snow as sun but I could use a few days of warm morning riding.

The biggest drawback to the cold temperature is the requirement for gloves to keep my hands from going numb with cold.  Of course thanks to a combination of hand position, seating position, bike size and good old fashioned biology, when I ride with gloves, my hands go to sleep instead – especially my thumbs.  There are two pads on the heel of your hand and the nerves run between them.  Using a padded (read “insulated) glove and positioning myself the way I do means that padding puts pressure on the nerves and the next thing you know I’m shifting gears instead of gripping the bars.  It’s rather annoying and occasionally problematic but it beats the typical cycling gripe (you know, the seat-related one that’s not a problem with your seat).

I managed to put on just shy of 50 kilometers this morning and found all sorts of new ways to torture myself with hills.  Newsflash – the only way I can avoid riding up hill to get home is to start out climbing up hill towards Nose Hill park.  The problem with doing that is it doesn’t get me anywhere near work and rather obviously – I’m still climbing hills.  In fairness to my progress, climbing hills is – I was going to say getting easier, but that’s misleading – getting less death-like.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say something ridiculous like I pulled out all the stops (ridiculous because I didn’t pull out all the stops – I stopped often and am stopped now) or even I gave it everything I have, because I haven’t done that either – I’m still quite spoiled in fact.  I did however learn one very important thing this weekend – if I don’t do it (it being whatever it is I’m doing) first thing in the morning, it probably isn’t going to get done and that (the not getting done bit) will make me short-tempered and agitated and pure pleasure to be around.

As I tried to catch up to Adam and Alberto, I’ve ridden as many miles as I could get away with without putting a strain on things at home.  I’ve been getting out a few minutes earlier in the morning and riding a few minutes longer in the evenings while keeping the home-front semi-stable.  This weekend I managed a 2 solid rides and an outing with the eldest for a bonus 7km (A quick topic-drift here – the eldest was amazing this weekend, pushing his Canadian Tire 40-pound bike up the steep, grass face to the top of Nose Hill because he wanted to ride around up there.  That’s determination.)

All of the effort was rewarded with a jump from 3rd to 1st place this (Monday) morning.  I leapt up to 473km.  Adam, thankfully, took the weekend off, I suspect to put some competition back into the competition, so is sitting at a solid 456km (as of 9:00 am) with Alberto, despite a huge 80+km effort on the weekend, sliding into 3rd, 150km behind 1st.  In fairness to him, he rides exclusively in the evening and I see he’s put up another 47km ride tonight so as long as I don’t ride for two more days (and he continues), he’ll almost be caught up.  Of course Adam will have continued riding so all that means is we’ll both be well behind him.  So – I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep riding.  Chris is having trouble with his electronic gadgets so updates are manual – I have no idea where he’s at now but he was a solid 115km on Friday.  Late entry Johan the Accountant was sitting at 110km and Jon the Safety Dude a solid 0.

By this time next week, this is anybody’s game however there’s a really big problem lurking.  Despite my attempts at having Adam shipped away on business for a few days, it is I who is heading off for 3 days next week.  That’s 3 days without riding.  That could put Alberto 50km in front of me (and Adam 105km if all he does is commute!).  I need a strategy.

I should take this opportunity to say I believe I am crushing all comers on the elevation race.  The First to 10,000 meters that I instituted last week – seems I neglected to directly inform (though I must say it was published publicly, accessible from pretty much anywhere in the world…) the rest.  They think it’s cheating, I think it’s clearly and obviously not.  And I’m winning.