Met last night at 5:45PM at the Plaza of Nations across from BC Place Stadium for our first ride of the bike escorts for the Vancouver Marathon - there were 18 of us with is a large number for so early in the season - perhaps the fact that the sun was shining albeit the wind was gusting to 60 KPH - help bring out so many people - there were about 12 returnees and 6 new riders + a couple of the race organizers who occasionally ride with us.
We didn't get our radios as the person supplying us got hung up in traffic so we will have to wait til Thursday to get them.
Usually we try to get underway by 6PM so that we can be finished the 20+ KM in time for pizza at 7:30PM but as we didn't get going til 6:30PM we only rode to the entrance of the Park and then through at Lost Lagoon and returned in time for the pizza.
There are a couple of the regular who don't look to be joining us this year - one is a new mother so the baby is her focus right now and one of the over 60+ crowd is retiring - wants to spend more time at his retirement place on Pender Island.
All of the newbies seemed to be committed to doing the full training - you don't have to make a decision until after the second ride.
Of course as this ride was taking place the Canucks were playing - tried to follow the results on my Blackberry when we got a break in the riding but didn't get the final score until I reached the Pizza place.
There are some minor changes to the route this year because of either road construction or the fact that the start and finish line have been moved slightly - we will get to do the changes once we get our radio.
The one other thing that I need to get for the bike is a bell - we use them to alert people ahead of us that we are stopped at a traffic light etc and on race day to let people know that we following them on the course.
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Later I joined Jim for a late night snack - he had played bridge earlier so was wanting to have a bite to eat.
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Today I woke up to SNOW which provided a good excuse to rediscover my apartment - got laundry and some cleaning done then headed out for lunch and onto the gym and then some grocery shopping - it is still raining lightly this afternoon and it is cool.
We are supposed to be celebrating the Cherry Blossom festival over the next two weeks but so far they are few and far between in blooming.
More later
Cheers
Dennis
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