Newsletter - 2000 Archive

BC Randonneurs Cycling Club

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Where was everyone on September 9 & 10? Where you should have been was in 100 Mile House to enjoy the superb hospitality and organizational skills of Adrian Messner. Every year Adrian and his wife host the Cariboo on/off-road 200. Adrian and his sons are all cyclists and really enjoy showing people the wonderful countryside of the Cariboo region. And 100 Mile House gets behind this event with articles in the local newspaper and a photographer on the course!

The ride starts and finishes at The Hills Resort where Adrian's son works as a chef. From there we head just a little north and do a loop around the lake (the first bit of off-road). John Bates and I were on tandem (a regular road tandem - Santana Visa - outfitted with bigger tires) and this was a tandem first for the ride and for us. There were a few spots of sand that had me clipping out and John shouting - stay on board - but otherwise, it was very do-able. And that stretch was only a little over 9 km anyway. Adrian positioned himself at every point where he thought we might go wrong, so we hardly even needed a route sheet.

The next section was south through 100 Mile and over to the Little Fort turn-off. Adrian also staffed all the controls and was waiting for us at Lone Butte. When we pointed out that the times he had put down for the controls were a little off, he just sat down and fixed them - how's that for service! On the next little section south towards Green Lake, we had a moose crash across the road in front of us and other than about 3 other cars and one other tandem!, that was all the traffic we encountered the entire day. The tandem was a Dutch couple on holiday and they were going in the opposite direction so we didn't really have a chance to speak to them.

After doing the gravel road section around Green Lake we stopped for lunch with Adrian at the 140 km (approx.) mark. We had had a little bit of rain, but nothing too terrible. Just enough to make the gravel road muddy and a little slippery - good practice on the tandem. From the lunch stop, the route continues north to rejoin the road to Lone Butte and then it is the reverse of the first bit of the route. It was at this point we noticed this guy taking pictures on the side of the road - the local press was out. By this time the sun was also out and we were having a great time flying down the hill into 100 Mile and stopping to collect our bathing suits before finishing the ride as Adrian had invited us back to his place to enjoy the hot tub.

One more loop around the lake to finish off the ride and back to the Hills - for our final interview and photographs - we felt like celebrities!

And boy, were we lucky with the weather. By the time we got back to Adrian's house, met the dogs (Adrian's hobby is dog sledding and he has a complete team), and got ready for the hot tub, the heavens had opened and it poured rain all night.

Adrian has suggested that we look into having a bunch of people come up on the train, do the ride and go back on the train for next year - what a great idea! If anyone is interested - give me a call, and I will look into it - Danelle 737-0043.

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