The Cross Canada Cycle Tour Society        September  2020,  Volume 37, Issue #9

 Report from George Zorn, Hub and Spoke Director

George and Jeanetta Zorn

 

See the graph above for the Geographic Distribution of our tours.

 

CCCTS – Powered by Volunteers! Appreciating and Celebrating 38 Years of Club Cycling Adventures

Our Club provides us with opportunities to enjoy some amazing cycling experiences both here at home and in other countries. What are your favourite club rides? As CCCTS members since 2013 Jeanetta and I have appreciated over a dozen cycling adventures with fellow cyclists, led and organized by Club Ride Leader volunteers.

Here are three of those amazing rides that come to mind:

 

Seeing the diverse vegetation zones, ancient ways of agriculture, friendly people and new bridge and road building projects of southern Yunnan Province, China with Ride Leaders Max McClanahan and Judy Delogne led by Larry Adamson, Yangyang Chen and Larry’s dog, Peggy of Bike China Adventures in February – March 2019.

 

 

Cycling into the town of Cres

On a hot June afternoon, on the Croatian island of Cres in the Adriatic’s Gulf of Kvarner past low stone walls and thousand year old olive orchards: Hosted by Ride Leader Delores Franz-Los led by Alen Augustin of SITNICA and co-Leaders Damir and Gorin in June 2015.

 

Exploring the quiet paved back roads of the Cowichan Valley:

Read the tour report above by Annemieke Quinn.

Vineyards, ocean views, Cowichan First Nations heritage, funky restaurants and tasty bakeries led and organized by Dave Charles, John Pringle, Glen White and Brian Collier in late August 2015

 

 

Since 1982 CCCTS volunteers have organized and hosted over 360 ride events! (Click the link “360 ride events” to see a complete list of all the rides we have hosted). That’s something to celebrate! This year only two of the fifteen planned CCCTS rides were completed due to COVID-19. Oceanside 1, was led by Holly Evans and Ken Levine and Oceanside 2, was led by Paddy Kirk. Both were Hub & Spokes rides held in early – mid January. Several 2020 Ride Leaders have offered to postpone their rides to hopefully occur in 2021. Over this 38-year period Club rides have taken place on all seven continents…, except Antarctica! See the graph above showing the geographic distribution of CCCTS rides (both Tours and Hub & Spoke rides) since 1983. What a gift CCCTS Ride Leaders and Board members have given to fellow Club members: planning ride events, registering members and ensuring high quality, safe and enjoyable cycle touring experiences.

Do you have an idea for a future CCCTS Hub & Spoke or Tour adventure that you’d like to discuss, develop and then share with fellow members? Our Club is powered by Volunteers. Please contact Doris Maron (Club Tours Director) or George Zorn (Club Hub & Spoke Director) to discuss your ideas. Contact information is posted on the Club’s website here.

Your CCCTS Board members will soon review the final draft of the 2020 CCCTS Ride Guidelines to replace the website posted 2014 CCCTS Tour Guidelines for Leaders & Participants. Watch for an announcement of the web posting of these updated Ride Guidelines this fall. Thank you to CCCTS Board members Doris Maron, Paul Hough, Bruce Daykin and John Pringle and Club members Glen Evans, Jeanetta Zorn and Colleen MacDonald for their thoughtful review comments on various drafts.

It seems that COVID-19 has brought us to a slower more savouring pace of life. That is something that we touring cyclists are good at. We are all adapting. Let’s continue to enjoy the simple pleasures of bike rides near where we live. Volunteers with four CCCTS Chapters: National Capital Region, Fraser Valley, Victoria and Comox Valley offer ride events that are adapted to current safety requirements. See details on our Club’s website under “Local Chapters”.

Looking for new local cycling routes? Check out CCCTS Club member Colleen MacDonald’s “Let’s Go Biking – Easy Rides, Walks & Runs around Vancouver”, 2018 and “Let’s Go Biking – Okanagan and Beyond” June, 2020. Details here.

George Zorn
gjzorn@shaw.ca, 250-832-9335

 

Marketplace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Friends in Ottawa may have found a method to hold events in these uncertain times.

Please read the article below by Peter Wood with a Covid forward by Marg Hurley.

 

CCCTS August 9 – 14, 2020 Tweed Pannier Trip

Planning the Tweed Pannier Trip during Covid-19 required more work than normal for the organizers, Linda Graupner and Geoff Kennedy. Many questions were up in the air until mid-July when our leaders made a decision to go ahead with the trip. The turning point was the successful flattening of the curve in Ontario and the Government’s introduction of Phase 3 openings, allowing for 100 people at outdoor gatherings.

However, in the early planning stages, there were many unanswered questions:

• •  

Would it be possible to even run the trip?

• •  

Would the hotels be open and would they be serving breakfasts as normal?

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Would there be any restaurants available, especially in busy tourists spots like Picton with higher demand and lower capacity? Additional advanced planning helped us know where we needed to pick food up at grocery stores along the way, or make advance reservations.

• •  

Would splitting the participants into two groups, with the second group leaving a day after the first group make it easier to comply with Covid-19 protocols.

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Should the trip be scaled back a day?

All of these questions required more research for our leaders in coming to the decision to proceed with the trip. They believed that with everyone’s cooperation in following Ontario’s recommended Covid 19 guidelines, we could have a safe and pleasant trip. In addition, these additional Covid-19 Guidelines were sent to all participants prior to departure:

CCCTS COVID-19 Pannier Trip Guidelines

Prepared for August 2020 Tweed Pannier Trip

Personal Responsibility

• •  

Each participant is expected to evaluate their health and state of mind prior to the start of the trip. Only ride if you are healthy, take extra care and pay attention to your surroundings.

• •  

Each participant in the pannier trip is responsible for adhering to the following guidelines, and will encourage all other members of the tour to do likewise.

General Guidelines

• •  

If you have any symptoms of COVID-19 (fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, headache, or shortness of breath), you should NOT participate in the pannier trip. If these symptoms begin during the trip, you must leave immediately and arrange your own transportation to seek medical treatment and/or to return to the starting point of the tour.

• •  

Cover your mouth and nose with a disposable tissue or the crease of your elbow when you sneeze or cough.

• •  

Wear a mask as required by local authorities

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Do not touch your face, eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands.

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Be self-sufficient on the bike – leave prepared for nutrition, hydration and mechanicals. Bring your own hand sanitizer.

• •  

Do not share equipment, food, drinks, water bottles, etc.

• •  

Do not shake hands, hug, or high-five to celebrate.

• •  

No carpooling or sharing of taxis or other transportation

Guidelines for riding

• •  

Riding groups should not exceed 6 people (**up to 9 on an exceptional basis, if required) and will have staggered start times.

• •  

All cyclists must practice recommended safe distancing by keeping a minimum of 2 meters apart on and off the bike. Each cyclist can choose to be further than 2 meters away from the cyclist in front of them. Respect each other’s choice.

Guidelines for meals and other gatherings

• •  

Groups of participants may choose to eat together, preferably outdoors.

• •  

Group size for meals should not exceed 6, and social distancing should be practiced where possible.

• •  

There will be no sharing of food, such as end of ride or “happy hour” celebrations.

• •  

Group briefings should take place outdoors where possible, with social distancing. Masks must be worn where social distancing is not possible.

Participants were able to comply with the Covid-19 protocols. This was particularly easy for breakfast, as most people shopped for breakfast supplies at a local grocery store the night before and ate in their rooms. Only two hotels provided breakfast options. The Trenton Comfort Inn’s breakfast room was closed but they offered a coffee bar in the lobby where you helped yourself to a coffee, muffins and fruit, all the while respecting the 2 metre distancing from other guests. The Best Western in Belleville provided a breakfast menu to each guest to pre-order their breakfast with a requirement to specify a precise time for pick-up. They accepted the lists from 5 rooms every 15 minutes. At the appropriate time, one person from the room queued to receive their tray and take it back to their room.

Lunch consisted of outdoor picnics where social distancing was easy. On two occasions, 2-3 people ate at an outdoor patio. For the evening meal, groupings at individual tables were 6 at the most, and even if we had to compromise on the 6 ft rule for some of the seating arrangements, all of our dinners were outside where air-born contamination risk was less.

 

Day 1: Tweed – Napanee

Seventeen members of CCCTS arrived at the Tweed Ontario Community Centre in the pouring rain to start their unsupported pannier trip. Was the rain a foreshadow of the week to follow? We held off departing for Napanee for one hour as the rain passed through (this isn’t BC rain which lasts for 24 or more hours). In the era of COVID 19, welcomes were at a social distance. Riders were divided into three groups of six, six, and five riders respectively. The first day’s ride was 70 kilometres and the riding got better and better as we covered the route. A little gravel of a kilometre here and there on normally paved very quiet backroads added to the spice. Wayne Lumsden had mechanical troubles with his new chain which was diagnosed as a chain pin not being properly seated. Using his chain buster the pin was driven into the link and he was on the road. At the end of the ride the Fox Motor Inn in Napanee was a welcome sight especially due to the swimming pool.

Day 2: Napanee – Picton

Again the morning started with a rain shower which was over by 10:00 am thus delaying our start. Today’s ride was along the shore of Hay Bay and the heat and humidity kicked in early. By 11:30 am we were going through our water supplies like we are crossing the Sahara desert. A quick stop at the Hay Bay church, whose history goes back to 1792 made us realize that others were here well before us. We continued down to the Glenora Ferry and caught a boat for the short ride across the Bay of Quinte to Prince Edward County.

The County is bicycle tourist country. The heat got to Geoff Kennedy so he and his bike took a taxi to our accommodation at the Picton Harbour Inn. The rest of us climbed the hill to the Lake at the top of the mountain for a picnic lunch. The place was bumper to bumper with tourists. Some folks wisely took the shorter route to our accommodations in Picton while others soldered on to complete the full 80 kilometres in the searing heat. A reprieve occurred when we stopped at the Black River Cheese factory for humungous cones/dishes of ice cream (called small by the locals). Dinner was at the Lighthouse Restaurant outdoor waterfront patio attached to the hotel. This was followed by a walk down Picton’s Main Street to indulge in local homemade ice cream at Slickers County Ice Cream Parlour.

Day 3: Picton – Prince Edward County – Free Day

No pannier day. As we were staying in the same accommodation for two nights we could ride without taking our worldly possessions. Three choices were offered short, medium or long rides. Again the heat and humidity kicked in so it was unbearably hot by 11:00 am. Some riders enjoyed Sandbanks Provincial Park.

Wayne Lumsden was still experiencing shifting problems so he visited the bike shop in Bloomington where the receptionist/cashier-owner tells every customer they have a dirty chain and need to take better care of their bikes. Well he got the rear cluster replaced and was soon on the road. By noon he had found the long ride group and joined them.

In the late afternoon the wind kicked in from the southwest so those riders west of Picton had an easy ride back into town.

Day 4: Picton – Trenton

The shorter group got off to an earlier start while the longer group had Crepes for breakfast. The routes were basically the same except the longer route riders cycled around “Big Island”. The route took us across the County and along the Bay of Quinte. This area has far fewer tourists than the Picton, Bloomfield, Wellington corridor and has mainly paved country lanes through farm fields. A stop at an outdoor fruit & vegetable market provided an ideal location to pick up some treats and ponder the local bikes.

As we got closer to the Murray Canal we viewed the lovely waterfront homes of ex-Torontonians. A picnic lunch was enjoyed beside the canal, followed by the ride into Trenton along a busy section of Highway 33. After a stop at the LCBO for supplies we headed to the Comfort Inn on the north edge of Trenton. Pizza dinner was organized by Lori Henley, who commandeered the hotel to provided picnic tables to allow us to social distance outside.

Day 5: Trenton – Belleville

Although the distance between Trenton and Belleville is only about 25 kilometres as the crow flies, it was much longer via the tour leader’s route. Choices were a short ride of 65 kilometres and 450 meters of climbing or a long ride of 83 kilometres and 635 meters of climbing. Both rides headed up the west side of the Trent River with the long rides heading into the hills first. The roads were like country lanes in Europe, paved with twists and hills both up and down. There was little traffic on most of the route. The longer distance group had lunch and a swim in Oak Lake. Almost the whole gang enjoyed a stop at the scenic Signal Brewery beside the Moira River in the former Corby Distillery building in Corbyville. From the pub it was a short ride into Belleville to our accommodations at the Best Western. To celebrate our last night on the road, we gathered for a group dinner at Chuck’s Roadhouse.

Day 6: Belleville – Tweed

The final ride. The three groups departed with staggered starts before 9:00 am. The ride out of Belleville took us through the industrial north side of town with very light traffic. Once we cleared town we were on quiet paved country roads passing farms while riding up and down rolling terrain. Everyone arrived safely in Tweed after a great six days on the bicycle seat without a drop of rain while riding!

Final thoughts and Thank You to the organizers

• •  

Linda Graupner & Geoff Kennedy organized a great trip, completely hassle free

• •  

The routes, previously driven by Linda and Geoff, were super and offered varying lengths to accommodate all riders. The area was well suited for a Pannier trip.

• •  

Accommodation met expectations

• •  

Anna Lenk did a great job researching meal options at each of our destinations

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Gear problems were minimal with only one flat tire and one chain issue which was resolved

• •  

Elizabeth Buckingham won the prize for carrying the heaviest panniers

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Dale Featherstonhaugh won the prize for the lightest panniers (they were nowhere to be seen)

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Dave Featherstonhaugh won the prize for the most gallant husband, carrying all of Dale’s possessions

• •  

Everyone respected distancing and COVID19 protocols

Videos

I have decided to start posting cycling tour videos since none of us can actually go anywhere.  

Last Fall my wife and I toured Puglia in Italy.  This is not us but is a pretty good idea of what the area is like.

YouTube cycling in Puglia

A very funny tour of Amsterdam.

Cycling  in Amsterdam

Tours and

Hub and Spokes

All Tours and Hub and Spokes are now cancelled for 2020.

 

New Members