The latest e-mail from the Tour des Lakes says that PDF versions of
the map are available, which means that I might be able to pinpoint
the location of Checkpoint 2, which means that I can go on the ride.

I plan to drop out of the ride when it passes my house, and the only
way I could get to checkpoint 3 before four o'clock would be to start
the day before, so I absolutely have to check out at checkpoint 2.

I downloaded the PDF, but all it shows is a blank page. That might be
a glitch they'll find and remove in the next few days, and it might be
that I can read the file on Dave's computer.

The bad news is that none of this matters. By the time the current
rainy spell ends, I'll be back down to twenty-mile rides, without
enough time to work up to forty before the Tour. It's warm enough
that getting wet wouldn't be an undue risk, but I don't want to go on
the Tour enough to ride in the rain. I might ride in the rain on the
actual day -- it would beat the ninety-degree heat of my previous
attempt -- but training is supposed to be *fun*.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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On 6/25/2021 12:34 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:

The latest e-mail from the Tour des Lakes says that PDF versions of
the map are available, which means that I might be able to pinpoint
the location of Checkpoint 2, which means that I can go on the ride.

I plan to drop out of the ride when it passes my house, and the only
way I could get to checkpoint 3 before four o'clock would be to start
the day before, so I absolutely have to check out at checkpoint 2.

I downloaded the PDF, but all it shows is a blank page. ...

We don't do many invitational, pay-a-fee rides. But at the last one we attended, we were told we could download the route on Strava or Map My
Ride or some other service I never intend to use.

When we got to the registration site, I expected to just pick up a paper
map. But they had no paper maps. Well, they had one, taped to a
tabletop. They suggested we take a photo of the map with our cell phone.

Thank goodness that Dan Henry arrows have not yet gone completely out of fashion. We were able to follow those, although there were times I had
to reassure myself and my mates that we had to be OK based on the
compass I had along.

Apparently, we're moving into an age where helmets, daytime taillights
and smart phones will all become mandatory. :-/


--
- Frank Krygowski

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On Fri, 25 Jun 2021 13:02:58 -0400, Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Apparently, we're moving into an age where helmets, daytime taillights
and smart phones will all become mandatory. :-/

When I made my first attempt, I was horrified to learn that the map
handed out was useless -- it was merely a decoration on the brochure.
It did serve to tell me whether the lake was supposed to be on my left
or right.

I had printed out some screen shots of the more-detailed map on the
web site just in case, but, certain that I would recieve a map at the
start, I hadn't annotated it with street names. (I had brought a
county map, and could annotate at rest stops.)

But who-ever stuck the arrows on the pavement -- one improvement is
that route marks now come as rolls of tape that have been cut
dovetail, so that each piece has a point on one end and a notch on the
other -- had done such a magnificent job that I got into trouble only
when I decided to cut a loop off the marked route.

The only glitch I found was that a right turn was directed down a
short road that cut off the corner, and there was no arrow at the
right turn at the end of the cut off, and no confirmation arrow on the
road one was supposed to turn onto. It was fairly obvious that one
was supposed to turn right, but not so obvious that I didn't go back
to look at the previous mark.

But I didn't know *precisely* where to look for check-point two, and
by the time I was certain that I had missed it, I'd gone too far to go
back to Pizza King for my intended fuel-up and rest in the cool, and
the rest of the ride was all out in the country, so I ended up under a magnificent oak tree waiting for Dave to come for me in the pick-up
truck. (Maybe that is why they call them pick-ups.)

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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