Beaver Valley 400 – July 5th, 2025 – By Michael Charland
Route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/36938989
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/15020471742
Background
I first did this ride during devil week in 2022. About 10 of us started the ride. I road it on my Cervelo and it went really well. Funny I lost my Brevet card mid ride so I took pictures at the controls and Charles found my card on the Epping road climb. I finished in an elapsed time of 19:35. This became my longest ride in distance and time. I didn’t end up doing in 2023 because a had just completed a trail running race. In 2024 I road it again on my Cervelo with 2 other people. This was a completely different experience. I really struggled in the first half and took a bunch of side of the road breaks. My ass hurt so much. I knew I should be riding the Mariposa for a more comfortable ride. We got to Owen Sound and it started to rain and it didn’t stop for many hours. I got cold. I only had my light rain jacket. It wasn’t supposed to rain. I remember phoning my wife from a McDonalds in Hanover and she suggested I get tea. I did, it helped. But the ride out of town I was shivering as the rain was coming down more. I started pushing really hard to warmup and it worked and thankfully the rain died down. I eventually finished in 21:57.
Before the Start
2025 was looking great. I am prepping for London-Edinburgh-London and Beaver Valley is hilly, a favourite, and I was looking forward to it. 5 people had signed up for the ride. The weather was looking hot but nothing crazy. And a good friend Marc was riding it too and he slept over the night before. He drove us to the start saving me from riding 23km. Right before the ride it was brighter then I expected and went to grab my sunglasses and realized I grabbed my night time glasses making everything brighter. Thankfully, it wasn’t that bright yet and I knew there was gas station in Arthur that would hopefully have sunglasses, it did 😀
Start
With a usual calm and smooth roll out we left just after 6AM. We snaked our way through Waterloo. The boys on the road bikes pushing a little more watts then I liked on the hills, so gaps started to form early. The Mariposa doesn’t fly up hills. Eventually I was off the back, but I was pushing between 180 to 200 watts which was the goal for the day. It was such a beautiful morning, already warm, but everything was so lush and green and the roads were super quiet. I always love riding the stretch up Middlebrook remembering the days of riding with Waterloo Cycling Club. They ‘race’ down it on Thursdays.
First Stop – Arthur
I bought sunglasses, slathered on some sunscreen as it was warming up and was back on the bike. By luck as I left town Chris had made a wrong turn and I was able to help him get back on track. We road most of the way to Grand Valley together. Like last year we had a nice tailwind pushing us all the way.
Second Stop – Grand Valley
I didn’t want to get dehydrated as we were only 80km into the ride so I finished one my bottles and bought a bottle of Gatorade, more sunscreen, and I was off. I was trying too keep my stops short and focus on being efficient. At nearly the 100km my bike started feeling really spongy and I was bouncing up and down. I thought it was the road, but it got worse and I knew I had a flat tire. Flat change went well. I wish I was in a shadier spot, but that would’ve meant walking the bike for a while as it was farm fields all around.
First Control – Dundalk
As I pulled in Chris was there and mentioned he was going to the park to rest. I bought 3 bottles of Gatorade and Oreo cookies. I needed the calories and there wasn’t anything else I could find in the store with calorie density and ease of transport. Clif bars would’ve been a better option, but the store didn’t haven any. I didn’t back any Clif bars on bike, that was a mistake. I hung out at the control eating cookies and drinking the bottle Gatorade. It was getting hotter so more sunscreen, added more air to my back tire, and I was off.
I was excited to ride along Eugenia Lake. I remember riding this during the Centurion in the early 2010’s. Also the descent down to Kimerbley is a lot of fun. It’s a well paved road, wide turns, light traffic, and a nice roll through Kimberley at the end. Also you see the big climb of the day on the side of the valley. But I also had a high speed wobble on Cervelo S1 on a training ride in 2010, and unfortunately this happened again on the Mariposa. I was getting up to around 65km/h and the front handle bar started going back and forth. Not as bad as the Cervelo, but not good. I lightly tapped the brakes to keep the speed under 60 and thankfully it got better. After the descent you ride a bit of flat then you start the climb of the day. This climb is 6.15km long with 200m of climbing and is a category 3 climb. What made this extra fun was it was getting really hot and there isn’t any tree coverage on the climb. I had dreams that I would be able to push good watts and get in a good zone and push all the way to the top. Yup, that lasted for the first 500m, then I grinded it out. Just trying to stay consistent, the climb isn’t hard, it’s just long. It flattens out a couple of spots and it never gets too steep. After that I knew there was a small general store which I had planned to stop at.
Rocklyn General Store
I was getting roasted, it was getting really hot. The A/C in the store felt so nice. I bought a couple of Gatorade and a small Redbull. I sat outside in the shade sweating. It was still cooler then in the sun, but very hot. I drank one of the Gatorades and got another and was back on the road after waiting for some clouds to move in. The temperature dropped by at least 5 degrees when that happened. I knew from doing this before this next section was one of the hardest, headwind, and the biggest rollers of the days. What made it extra challenging this year was the sun broke out of the clouds and it was absolutely roasting. I took numerous breaks in the shade, hoping for more shade, but that would only last less then a minute. I could feel my ears and arms burning even though I had put on sunscreen numerous times.
Second Control – Owen Sound
Eventually I made it to Owen Sound and stopped at the Metro. Well past half at 218km. Excited to start heading south. But also the lowest elevation of the ride. So more climbing to come. I bought a couple more Gatorade and some raspberries to snack on. I knew the next store was 65km away so I knew I should have lots of liquids on the bike. But I didn’t buy extra to store on the bike. It was super hot. I really should’ve gone to a McDonalds or Tim Hortons and hung out inside for 30 minutes to cool down. The Metro is beside the river and there are some nice shady, quiet spots under the trees. I took my time here and eventually got going again. I felt OK, but still way too hot. The first kicker called Moores Hill I felt great and pushed way too hard, but I was frustrated with how the day was going and was hoping this would somehow make me feel better. It did! For a couple of minutes. Then I was dead tired. I was barely out of Owen Sound. I tried eating some dates and just spit them out. I definitely was having problems consuming calories. I tried the chocolate covered espresso beans. They had turned to mush. So I squeezed a bunch of that out hoping the caffeine boost would help, nope. I didn’t have any other sources of calories other then the bottles which I didn’t wan’t too drink too much too soon. So I slowly pedalled along. I got to Ingles falls and walked the climb, not having the energy to climb. I heard the water falling and saw a couple of park entrances I should’ve gone in and found some water to cool off in. So I kept slowly plodding along crawling up every climb and trying to coast as long as I could on the descents, but I just kept going slower and slower and feeling worse and worse.
Quitting Time
So after an hour I made the call to phone my Wife and ask for a ride home. I didn’t want this ride to talk 27 hours (max time). I had a family commitment on Sunday at lunch which was weighing on me. So she agreed to drive to the closest town of Hanover and phone me again to see how much closer I would be. I see still had 35km to go so more then likely she would get there before I did. Which she did and phoned me and the call dropped as there wasn’t any cell phone service. Thankfully it was only another couple of hundred meters before it connected again. I was able to use Google Maps to send my location to my wife and I promised here I would just keep biking on that same road going south while she drove north. After another 20 minutes she found me, I loaded the bike, we drove back to Hanover to grab some drinks and snacks and drove home.
Lessons Learned
- If you have multiple pairs of sunglasses in sunglass bags you will grab the wrong one.
- If it’s hot I can’t digest medjool dates which normally I eat a ton during a long ride I need to find another calorie source. Clif bars I’ve also had problems digesting, but I think that’s more pallet fatigue. Maybe a powder? Gels?
- The chocolate covered expresso beans melt in the heat. First time that has happened.
- This ride was gas stations and grocery stores which is great for speed, but you don’t get the opportunity to sit and cool off in the A/C.
- Take advantage of opportunities to go for a swim along the ride. It wasn’t supposed to be this hot, so I would’ve known too look this up before hand. After my wife picked me up there a couple of river crossing with beaches.
- The weather data from Epic Ride Weather is optimistic about the temperature high and humidex for the day. It predicted the max temperature with humidex was going to be 28 feels like 31, but Weather Network maxed at 31 feels like 38. Also it can say 80% cloud coverage and still sunny 90% of the time. I think I was reading this field wrong.
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