The Solstice Ride or The Legend of the Teenage Crow

When both our partners told us our idea was ridiculous, they were right. They just didn’t know how ridiculous it was. We knew.

The Solstice Ride idea is simple. Longest day, longest ride. You drop a few pins in Komoot, transfer that to the new Strava route builder. It tells you it can’t go somewhere, you force it manually to take that little line drawn in the forest, export a GPX file to your Garmin, and tell your brain that everything will be fine. You don’t sleep very well at night. Maybe it’s the heat.

It’s not.

The solstice is on the 20th in 2020, a Saturday. You have to beat the chalet traffic, 0200 start makes sense. O-Two-Hundred also makes sense when you wanna ride five hundred clicks in the day. So you fly out the door. Avocado Bacon Bagel in the pocket. All kinds of fat dripping down your back.

The loop goes NE through Laval to Terrebonne, then NW towards Morin Heights, gets snaky up around villages that all seem to be named Lacs des something, rides past Montpellier and down to the river, around to Ottawa then back to Montreal cutting through the Eastern farmlands of Ontario.

Flying up Giuseppe’s KOMs in Terrebonne and leaving the city traffic behind in the darkness is certainly a high. Seeing your shadow up in the trees beside the road as your buddy swings around to give you bit of draft puts a smile on your face. It’s romantic. Resting your elbows in the new ENVE pads, hands up high at the top of the antlers, chasing the smell of coffee at a friend’s place near a lake, four hours into the ride with a thousand meters of elevation done. You’ve just woken up.

Soundscapes are different. Frogs calling out to their mates. Rubber compound on asphalt. Breathing. Your meditation app rings, reminding you to focus on the app telling you to focus on your breath. Your phone drops out of your pocket at forty kilometres per hour.

Your conversations have become silent. You see. Friendship. Trust. Care. Love. Silence.

The happiest I have been in a while.

A teenage crow screams.

The scream changes pitch three or four times. It lasts too long. It’s full of questions about what it’s going to do with its life. It’s annoyed at its parents for living a boring life in the trees of the Laurentians. It could’ve been an eagle of some kind. With dreams.

Has it been attacked?

No, it’s finding its voice.

The sun’s starting to heat up the back of your neck, the crow makes you laugh. First to yourself. Then comes a second and a third scream. You can’t keep the laughter inside. Your riding buddy four five bike lengths in front (Watts per KG and commitment) bursts out laughing. You ride another kilometre crying with laughter.

No words. Just a screaming crow… The smell of coffee. A long eighty kilometres per hour descent.

Can’t be happier.

The conversations start again. The first stage of the ride is done. The second stage is full of unknowns. We’ve never been that way. It’s two hundred some kilometres long. It’s scary. It kept you up at night for the last week. Turtles live here. Dinosaurs.

It’s the best.

Amazing rolling hills, great pavement, turning to awesome gravel roads with views over lakes and forests and climbing crags. The groads turn to ATV trails.

Mountain bike territory. Motocross territory.

Sand pits. Rock gardens. Roots. Swamps & black flies. Hills. Fifteen percent grade hills.

Twenty-five mm FMB Tubulars with PARIS-ROUBAIX stamped on the side glued to tiny carbon rims.

Exactly what we signed up for. The best ride of our lives. NO FLATS EITHER.

There’s only one way to go and we still think we’re lost. Because we kinda are. My brother sends me a text:

“-How lost? Like… Sharpen a stick and build a fire to keep the bears away lost or befriend a wolf and figure out where you land in the pack kinda lost?”

“I don’t know Ben…” says Aaron.

I laugh. It’s a different laugh now. It took me about two weeks to finally think that this four hour, twenty kilometre detour on the ATV trail was a great moment. At that time, it felt like a terrible choice. We were slow. Turtles were more efficient.

There was another nineteen kilometres of ATV trail towards Duhamel that would’ve ended around nightfall, if we didn’t ask the four guys in the pickup trucks for a bit of help rerouting.

KM 184.

The Knees. The knees start to hurt. My longest ride since last year was seventy-five clicks long. I guess my preparation wasn’t perfect. I put it down to commitment. I have a hard time with self confidence, knowing and owning what I think. I have a hard time finishing things. I usually end up quietly putting them aside, hoping no one notices, hoping I can buy my way out of it later.

I have not seen this place before. In my own body. A place where I hurt so much that I stop.

Our reroute takes us down a backroad highway thingy with too much traffic. I don’t feel safe. I hurt. I’m scared a truck will hit me. I’m slowing Aaron down. Putting him in danger now… and later. I become a crow, a teenage crow, screaming with every pedal stroke. My voice changes, it breaks. I see all my choices, all my dreams. Who am I kidding?

We stop.

I cry uncontrollably on the side of the road. I could make myself a nest here like a turtle and wait to go extinct. I could stop cycling, I’m not a cyclist. I want to be home. I forget. I forget why I was there.

We get to KM 260. In Thurso. Guy Lafleur’s Thurso.

I’m done. I call my brother, he’s on the other side of the river. I quit. At that point, it could’ve been the last time. Aaron chugs down a red bull, we share a mango. He carries on. I feel really bad. I made him so late. The numbers, the hours, we meant to ride into Rigaud by sunset. That won’t be happening. It’s not safe. I’m a failure as a cyclist, an athlete and a friend. Great.

Between 184 and 260, I went dark. And I didn’t come out of there for two weeks. I’m sorry.

I had dinner at my brother’s, backyard BBQ ribs. I cried some more.

Got a ride back in the car with a dismembered bike in the back seat. Talking about performance, life, family, emotions, becoming older, dreams & friendships.

I get back to an empty apartment in Montreal. I didn’t expect to drive in though. I text Aaron to see where he’s at.

Behind a dumpster at a McDonald’s puking GMO’d fries wondering if he should sleep for a few hours.

I say it’s a good idea.

I fall asleep.

My partner and my daughter come home around midnight. My phone lights up. I’m still asleep. We don’t answer. Aaron was asking for help. We missed him.

He figures he might as well get going and starts riding home.

It’s a hot night. At 0300, Meghann & I wake up. I see Aaron’s text. SHIT. Missed him. FUCK FUCK FUCK. That was so unsafe, I should’ve been with him.

“Where are you mate?”

Nothing. FUCK.

I FUCKED UP. What am I gonna say?

That he died doing what he loved? That’s cheap.

My phone lights up.

“Laval” (He’s not in Laval, but he texted back. So he’s alive. That’s good.)

Meghann tells me to get in the car and go get him. She cuts up watermelon, puts ice in water bottles.

“GO” she says.

I put the wheels on my bike and bring it downstairs.

“What are you doing?” she says. “Here are the keys.”

“He’s almost done. He’ll be right. He’ll cross Laval in like 15 minutes. I’ll ride him home.”

I almost fall down the stairs on top of my bike.

We meet at the Saint-Denis bridge around 0400.

It took more than fifteen minutes.

I am relieved. So happy to see his face. So proud of him. FIVE HUNDRED AND EIGHT kilometres in TWENTY-SEVEN hours. CRAZY RIDICULOUS KILOMETRES. He still drops me at every acceleration coming up Saint-Denis. The left turn onto Jean-Talon is especially painful. Five hundred watts, I reckon.

He told me it wasn’t about the distance. It wasn’t about the time it took. At first I didn’t understand. I was still down in the dark.

I understand better now. I matured, I suppose. I changed. As one does.

My screams are stronger, more powerful, they still break, the pitch isn’t perfect. The timing is still definitely a bit late… Whatever. I’m not fast yet.

You are a legend my friend. I cannot thank you enough.

I have another idea.

Let’s have a coffee.