The Hills Are Alive

Centurion Cycling - Horseshoe Valley


“I’m having such a good time,” I said to the volunteer at the aid station at 75k, “I’ll be sorry when it ends!”

Such was the euphoria generated by cycling a beautiful course on a beautiful morning—also of knowing that it was only another 25 kilometres to the finish of the inaugural Centurion 100k Cycling event in Horseshoe Valley, Ontario.

Of course I hadn’t felt euphoric all day. From the time I woke up at 4:00am to travel to the race, I was asking myself the usual questions: Why in Heaven’s name am I doing this? Why did I pay good money to drive for 90 minutes before dawn after three hours of sleep to ride for four hours with a crowd of people all of whom are better than I am? I should be in bed.

I was still wondering what I was doing as I stood with about 700 other cyclists and their bikes in the starting corral at the Horseshoe Valley Resort. Since I have only one goal race this year—the 70.3 in Muskoka in September—I am using all other events as training opportunities. Therefore I scolded my truculence by grumbling, “You came out here to train…so TRAIN!”

So I trained.

Like its older brother, the Blue Mountains Centurion, the Horseshoe Valley event is beautifully organized and expertly run by Graham Fraser and his team. In fact the whole affair is so slick it’s hard to believe that the entry fee isn’t higher (but don’t raise it, Graham). The concept of hosting a race that is 100 kilometres, rather than a true century, is smart. Not only would this route get repetitively tiresome if it were any longer, but the shorter distance is bound to attract many riders—novice and experienced—for whom a metric century is exactly the right distance at this point in the season.




Some days you love hills, some days you  don't

After a parade start up and out of the valley itself, the race course travels over terrain created when the glaciers pushed and shoved their way across the continent in the last Ice Age. This makes for lots of hills and lots of valleys. The hills are not endless, grueling thigh-burners though, and the up-and-down topography is great for holding your interest during the ride. Most riders would agree that there is very little chance to get bored. Honestly, it is one of the most uniformly beautiful routes I have ever ridden.

The second half of the route is (or seems) tougher, with more hills, but this is where I found my legs. Pumping up the hills, I reveled in the strain of my muscles and ligaments; I savoured the clean morning air moving in and out of my lungs. I loved this ride.

For the most part the road surface is terrific, although there is one bone-shaking section between about 70 and 80 kilometres that made me think of what Paris-Roubaix and its cobblestones must be like. I was grateful for the ancestry of my Cervélo R5; my new bike handled the rough road like an all-terrain vehicle.


I would like it if the race directors could do more to educate less experienced cyclists in the etiquette of keeping to the right while riding along the road. I encountered many people who were riding three and four abreast, thus forcing me over the far side of the road (and illegally over the centre line) so that I could pass them on the left, as any cyclist should do. I also watched as cars driven by local inhabitants patiently waited to pass these groups, who seemed too immersed in their conversations even to notice that anyone else was trying to use the road. I admire the way that Centurion is trying to bring cycling to a wider populace, but the generally accepted cycling rules of the road should be more rigorously enforced by the marshals. Equipped with cattle prods if necessary.

I finished the ride toward the back of the pack as usual, but with the feeling that I had pushed myself and my bike hard, and that both had risen to the occasion. I had come out to train, and I trained.

The road bike now goes away for a while as I get my P3 out of mothballs for some triathlon work. It will be a quick transition, as I have entered the Muskoka 5150 Olympic distance race next weekend. And yes, today I am wondering—as I will at 4:00am next Sunday morning—why in Heaven’s name I said I would do it.