Either way we signed up. My son and I for the 20K ride. We arrived at the start line in time to fight with the tandem bike from the time we got there until almost seconds before the ride. Fortunately the left side tentioner held up through the whole ride. Was a stressful start.
From there the awesome happened, conversations with my Son about everything he liked about the race plus the hockey stats that he knows better than me.
My absolute favorite was this moment on a long and gradual climb. "Dad you are really breathing hard, I am not breathing hard" me: "Good job buddy!" Little man: "Are we almost to the top?" Me - still exhausting the lungs "Not too much further" and this continued a few more times. I could not keep the smile off my face through this as I did my damndest to chat at full effort. Then the rest stop - Little man grabs 2 cookies and I gasp for water. We down our choices and I give him water as that is probably a good idea and on we go.
Downhill reveals rail trail and the hardest part is riding through the safety stalls on a tandem with my son on the back. Rail trail went by in no time, possibly more because of our chat than anything. and out of nowhere 2.2kms to go yells an on-looker. Felt like no time had passed at all.
Now onto Martin road, Little man and I had chatted about what was coming and how big the hill was. We had made it up every hill to this point and even had hecklers saying the only way we made it up the hills was the motor on the back.
I do not disagree with this statement, he pushed hard the whole ride! And then we heard as from nowhere "EVAN!!" as Krista had made her way down the mtb trail along side Martin hill and was pushing us to make it up at least a little further.
We fought through for a bit but eventually gave in.
I don't think the smile came off of either of our faces for quite some time after the ride/race/etc...
See you again next year P2A
