I worked last Saturday until 5:00 and when I got out I headed for casa del Flaherty to see what the plan was. Chris had his bike loaded up and the canoe was on top of the car. As he finished tying it down we decided that it might be best if I took my bike in my car to the launch site as well.
In hind sight it would have made sense to take the precaution of leaving one car at the launch site and the other at the finish (canoeing) site but being the sporting pioneers that we were we threw caution to the wind. The plan was to load the bikes in the canoe and then paddle a couple miles down the reservoir, lock up the canoe and ride the bikes back to the car. Simple, right?
This is not a venture you want to take on without fuel so we picked up some fried chicken and bread on the way and planned to eat while on the water. I already had a cold 12 pack of canned beer in the cooler (cans to keep the weight down) so we loaded everything in the boat and pushed off around 7:00pm. From all the maps and charts and satellite photos Chris figured about an hour or so paddling and about the same to peddle back.
The first minor obstacle was eating in the boat. The paddles worked well in passing the food and beer back and forth between the bikes but we didn't plan on the chicken being so greasy. Greasy fingers made it hard to hold onto my beer (my kingdom for a can coosie!) We persevered with little loss of beer. The park around the reservoir forbade alcoholic beverages but I figured we were in international waters so what the hell.
We made pretty good time and although neither one of us had ever been in the reservoir before (above the dam)without much trouble we found the site where we would dock the canoe for the second leg of our journey. We did get a few funny looks from the people on shore when we grounded the boat and got out the bikes. I told people we were looking for the Tour De France and only got blank stares.
The only other obstacle was what to do with the cooler (which we weren't even supposed to have) while we rode the bikes back to the car. Of course there was a cop car sitting in the lot when we landed, but he took off as we were preparing to ride. Chris was going to carry the leftover beer back in his backpack but after the cop was gone we decided to just hide the cooler under the canoe with the life vests and paddles and hope for the best.
We were starting to lose light and Chris had a problem with the gear shifter on his bike but the actual ride back to the cars went off with out a hitch. These are some narrow roads with next to no shoulders but thankfully traffic was light. There was one hill where even my granny gear couldn't help me and I had to walk the last bit, then it was down hill to the car. We drove both cars back to the canoe pick up point and we each remarked that it felt like the drive took longer than the bike ride. Weird.
Now that we have completed the first biathlon of it's kind it's time to raise the bar. We need to add one more event to turn this into a triathlon. We're opened to suggestions but I'm leaning towards either skeet shooting (from the canoe of course) or maybe setting up a beer pong course between the bikes on the canoe. Ping pong balls float, right?
Were you wearing shabby clothes?
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