OOooh Canada, eh
That expression, eh, doesn't just live in lore folks. It took all of eight minutes of standing within the friendly border confines of our neighbor to the north before someone dropped an "eh" into casual use. I immediately felt welcomed.I was also warmly welcomed with a visit to the local convenient store around the corner from our hotel because it conveniently vends America's favorite canned meat'ish product, SPAM. Oooh... wait. Hmm, SPAM is spelled with an S isn't it? ...umm, yeah that's just bizarre.
Street sprints ensued in which I got smoked. This is a great way to open up the legs, but it also takes a bit out of you about 18 hours before the start of 200 really tough kilometers of Canadian racing. So I wasn't "all-in" so to speak, regardless it was a ton of fun with a huge crowd turn out.Honestly I think this sort of event stands to flourish in America. Look, we love our NASCAR-like criteriums in this continent and it is therefore fitting that like fast action quickly. This is the country that demands immediacy and therefore has a remote control for virtually everything. We want results and we want results now. So what better discipline of cycling than one that takes mere seconds from start to finish? (Trackies are jumping out of their seats to claim that track racing offers all that, but that also requires a track. Comparatively, a street is much more prevalent than a track since America loves its inefficient modes of long-distance travel as much as we love immediacy.)
Although I didn't win, I certainly looked good in the process. Photo poached from the world wide web. I think Casey Gibson shooting for V'news.Fastforward 24 hours later and I have now completed the Quebec City Grand Prix. With the act of racing through city streets, despite the sun shining and pristine weather, comes road grime. This is what my legs looked like after the race. No, I didn't use any embrocation. I nearly applied a sheen of maple syrup embro' but quickly realized that would be nasty. That's pure and simple Canadian road dirt adhering to my legs with ample sweat. Gross.
And in entirely unrelated news, you all will recall the 200-on-100 with great fondness. First, I recommend watching it again right now because I said so. Second, you recall it with fondness, because it still is as brutally real as it is hilarious. You will also recall that Ryan was run down by a dumptruck full of awesome somewhere approaching hour 8 into this ride. People took kindly to that phrase and our friend Phillip of Cutaway Clothing used his creative and artistic genius to create this fine article of clothing, the official 200-on-100 Dumptruck Full of Awesome t-shirt.Moreover, after Vermont offered us so much with her rich heritage and regal natural beauty on that fine July day, we decided to donate 100% of the profits to help rebuild the flood ravaged state of Vermont. Buy yours here to save the Green Mountain State.
Don't be fooled by competitors' imitation threads, folks. THIS is a genuine t-shirt.