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News,
Aching limbs and long days fail to dampen
these cyclists
Group raising money for African cause reaches its destination after over 300 kilometres along trail.
MacKay, Mary
It was the best of times. It was the worst of
May weather.
Despite reams of rain and some nasty wind, as
the Tip to Tip for Africa team of cyclists
dashed or dribbled into the last pit stop of the four-day cross-Island
adventure, it all came down to these few words.
"OK, everybody,
to the point,'' shouted Martha Deacon, before the crew of Tip to Tip for Africa cyclists streamed out
from the end of the Confederation Trail at the Elmira Railway Museum site to
complete the final few kilometres to the East Point
Lighthouse.
This moment
was a long time coming for bikers of lesser leg power, namely me, who had tried
to get into some semblance of shape before this 300-plus kilometre
tip to tip ride to raise funds for the Townships Project, which provides small
loans to poor people in
True to
filled-out body form, on the second day I was first in line for the pancake
breakfast that was provided by the O'Leary Lions Club.
Fortunately my
keen stomach sense and fellow
"If
somebody jumped off a bridge I'd be right behind them,'' she said, laughing as
the pancakes were ladled out to the salivating crowd.
Carl Harper
could commiserate.
On the very
first day, the
"And I'm
with the trail police,'' Harper said, laughing at his directional distress.
Muscle
distress plagued some cyclists, including me, from the start.
On the first
day something inside my left knee started and quickly moved into a painful
stabbing clink every time I twisted my bike pedal around its metal cog. On our
second day, that clinking turned into clunking and my wincing turned to
whining.
Of course, favouring it with my right leg, I looked like Quasimodo on
wheels, lumbering along a one-sided pace so pitiful that Dan Steele and Mark
Creamer with the Brookvale Ski Patrol, Canadian Ski
Patrol Association, were compelled into aid action.
One of their
volunteer jobs on this spring stint was to shepherd the wayward of the Tip
to Tip for Africa flock like me back into the faster-moving fold.
"It looks
like your seat needs to be adjusted,'' Steele said and
promptly popped my bicycle's rear rest in another place and sent me on my way.
Ski patrol
volunteer Ron Hately was another of the many ski
patrol members who filled six ski patrol volunteer spots on the trail at all Tip
to Tip for Africa times, monitoring the group from the front of the rapid pack to
the stragglers like little old wounded-knee me.
As an avid
cyclist, Hately, who hails from St. Eleanor's, is
keenly interested in the trail but he does have a particular personal
connection. In the late 1980s he was working on the conversion of an abandoned
rail line to trails in the
"I really
liked the concept. I heard from my parents that CN was abandoning the rail
lines on P.E.I. I thought it was an awesome opportunity because that's what had
happened (in
Hately sent the information to CNR and provincial officials but nothing
came of it. When he returned home in the summer of 1989 he stopped at MacQueen's Bike shop in
"(Owner)
Gordon MacQueen and I got talking and I kind of
explained my concept to him,'' Hately said.
MacQueen and Hately shared the
information with Ian Scott who was with provincial Tourism.
"That was
on a Monday. On Tuesday we put an ad in The Guardian for a public meeting for
Thursday. It was standing room only,'' MacQueen
remembers.
The man who would
be known as "Poppa Trail'', the late Donald Deacon of Charlottetown,
immediately came onboard.
"He was
actually nominated that night as the president for Rails to Trails P.E.I.,'' Hately recalls.
"And the
rest is history.''
Back on the
trail, another historic moment was being made. Even with my serious seat
adjustment earlier in the day, I was the final biker of the shepherded flock to
end my day's ride in Summerside instead of the
plotted destination of Emerald.
Under the
extra stress, my right knee was going, going, and my left knee was gone. But
for a former couch potato and recently reformed pack-a-day-smoker, it was a
monumental moment.
It was my
first sports-related injury.
Category: Front Page; News
Uniform subject(s): Sports and leisure; Railways, railway stations and
related services
Length: Medium, 688 words
© 2005 The Guardian (