The Class of 1966 entered the Old Brigade this year.
Eight of them and one spouse took the occasion like they did five years ago to get in the spirit of the weekend by cycling from Ottawa to Kingston, a trek of 190.5 km. The nine left at 0830 on Wednesday arrived through the Arch at RMCC, Thursday at 1415 about one hour prior to the “paddlers” who had been on the Rideau Canal for the best part of a week.
Like the 15 Ex cadets who made up the 2011 The Chasse-Galerie crew this bike ride was all about raising funds for the RMCC program. And raise funds they did! Although they did not have the high profile and publicity machine like the paddlers, they still managed to raise $30,000. Not bad for two days on the road.
Day one saw them cover about half the distance. 93.5 Km to be exact. They spent the night near Smiths Falls – on The Big Rideau – at the cottage of Dave Campbell, one of the bikers.
Day two they departed 0900 to start the 97 Ks to the finish line. About five hours later they were on the grounds of the college.
Members of the group: (L-R) – Nigel Griffin, Yvon Cote, Tim Sparling, John van Haastrecht, Ric Potter, Harry Hamilton, Nicole Hamilton, Roy Thomas, and Dave Campbell.
Logistics is of vital importance for any operation of this magnitude. Without it, operations could not be carried out and sustained. Riders get tired, hungry, thirsty and generally need a break from time to time. Also the constant threat of severe weather is also a concern.
For this operation the person responsible for the SAG Wagon (readers will have to check with one of the riders to get the definition of SAG) was Beth van Haastrecht who along with the family Yellow Lab dog Breeze, took care of all the logistics details.