A Day for Brad!

It's officially Brad Marsh Day today in Ottawa! Brad rode into Ottawa this afternoon and literally rode right into Scotiabank Place for a warm welcome! Stay tuned for media updates.

Old Man Strength

Erik, Brad and the wind.

Every sport has this guy. He looks to be about a hundred yet somehow manages to make you look like a complete novice while your jaw drops to the floor in disbelief. Whether it’s a cyclist on an old steel bike with panniers effortlessly blowing past you while you suck wind on a hard ascent or the Grandpa that hits every fairway and green on the course to destroy you by ten strokes, Old Man Strength is real. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in sports where endurance and intelligence are rewarded.

I seem to see it every time I’m out for a weekend ride. How can these old guys, more than double my age, just keep going and going while my legs scream at me to stop pedaling? Maybe they’ve tuned out their pain receptors the same as they can tune out a bunch of kids making too much racket or a nagging spouse. Maybe the beer belly and sagging skin is perfect insulation for the super-muscles they have hiding beneath the surface. Whatever the answer is, it’s no less frustrating every time one of these guys leaves me looking at his rear end as he rides away into the distance.

Isn’t everything supposed to be cyclical: The young boy grows up emulating his Dad, then comes the day he can finally best him only for his own son to overtake him when that fateful day comes? Why then am I finding it so tough to hang on to Dad’s wheel? Sure he put in more training hours than me but I’m young and full of vigor! Shouldn’t he be the one asking me to slow down? Realizing I won’t play in the NHL like Dad was disappointing but discovering he also has the rare genetic predisposition that is Old Man Strength might just be too much.

Erik Marsh (Co-pilot & Son) 

The Awe of the Wind

Wind

In our vast country we are blessed to experience many different climates, diverse environments and a variety of different weather. We’ve already seen the Pacific coast, mountains, prairies, desert, and the boreal forest of the Canadian Shield. Of all the different things Mother Nature has thrown at us, wind presents the biggest challenge by far.

A little reminder of Mother Nature and her wind here as told by Brad

Must always be ready for Mother Nature!

Whereas a mountain looms high above you, its imposing stature striking fear into your heart, it has a summit. Get to the summit and your legs stop burning and you can bask in your accomplishment on the descent down the hill. Wind, on the other hand, does not give you a preview of what’s to come. There is no summit to strive for, not an indication of gradient to tell how hard the next section will be, just a brutal soul-crushing force working against you, making every pedal stroke a battle. Imagine balancing all your weight on two points of contact no bigger than a few square inches and then trying to get where you’re going and there is an invisible force pushing and pulling you at over 70 km/h. A headwind can make it feel like you’re towing a tractor trailer behind you and crosswinds feel as if an invisible team of strongmen are having a tug of war and you are the flag in the middle of the rope.

As with many physically demanding feats, when battling wind the rider must look within to have the strength to succeed. There are a few techniques that may help get a rider where they need to go while in the grips of a gale:

1.    The Lieutenant Dan: Remember that scene in Forrest Gump when Lieutenant Dan “makes his peace with God?” Yelling and screaming with each torrent thrown their way, Lt. Dan Taylor begs for more, insisting that the storm isn’t that that bad. In riding terms it translates to refusing to shift to a lower gear, gritting your teeth and attacking into the wind as if you’re trying to catch Mother Nature herself to give her a piece of your mind. Swearing and yelling may accompany this technique as well, though passing motorists may alert the authorities that a crazy man is on the loose.

2.    The Little Engine That Could: Let the power of positive thinking wash over you. Click into a gear you can spin in comfortably, don’t let the lack of speed get you down and push play on the imaginary reel of inspirational movie quotes in you head. It may be hard riding and it may take you a while but you set a goal and through positive determination you’re going to make it.

3.    I Doubt I Will But I Might: This technique usually rears its desperate head towards the end of a long ride. You’ve eaten all your bars, your bottles are almost empty, you have no money and you’re feeling so fatigued you’re seeing spots. At this point you’re considering ALL your options to get you to the end of your ride: I could fake a mechanical breakdown, I could knock on a stranger’s door (despite his mean looking dogs), I could rob a convenience store for sustenance, I could call a cab, hop on a bus, call my roommate or friend or even a hated enemy. In the midst of weighing all these options, you’ve fought the wind the entire time and you now find yourself close enough to your destination and you’ve made it, barely.

4.    The Quitter: You’ll never need to know any of these techniques because as soon as you see the wind blowing, you aren’t leaving your house. You will certainly have a great excuse like, “I had a big day yesterday,” or “I won’t be able to train in my appropriate zone in that wind,” but everyone knows you’re too chicken to willingly put yourself into that kind of difficulty.

Anything you can do to get you through the wind is a good thing. Every day you fight the wind should bring you closer to the exhilaration of a tailwind. For all the times you can hate the wind with every ounce of your being, they all seem to fade away when you turn that corner and the wind is at your back. With that glorious blessing at your back, you can fly faster than your legs alone could ever take you. Whether you’re 10 years old or 50 years old, you can’t beat the feeling of pedaling your bike and going fast.

Erik Marsh (Co-Pilot) 

From the Ferry and More

Team Marsh recently entered Brad's home province of Ontario and as he heads toward his hometown of London Ontario, also the home of the London Knights Junior Hockey Club where Brad played out his junior career, Brad shares an update from the Chi-Cheemaun Ferry to Tobermory here 

Brad Marsh as a London Knight

Brad made a stop in Durham, Ontario, hometown of best friend Dean Hopkins. Brad and Dean played junior hockey together with the London Knights and have remained best buddies. Dean's mom hosted Team Marsh for the night! Shouting out a big thank you for the great hospitality! Watch here

Team Marsh

Sault Ste. Marie and the Power of Lake Superior

'Friends' along the way!

We had initially pegged this section of our tour as 1500 km of boredom and we couldn’t have been more wrong. This rugged part of the Canadian Shield has been difficult and challenging but above all, beautiful. Our ride yesterday took us through the scenic Lake Superior Provincial Park and up and down a lot of rugged climbs. As we rolled into town with my legs burning from all the climbing, my thoughts turned to our days in the Rockies. Were those days this hard? Have we climbed like this before?

As soon as we got in I checked my trusty Strava cycling app and learned that in 135km I had climbed over 1 200 meters. After some clicking around I discovered that’s not far off the amount of climbing Pat and Dad had covered from Revelstoke to Golden in BC over the infamous Rogers Pass. I was surprised yet it did seem appropriate. Rogers Pass was the final and most difficult section of the Trans Continental Railway to be completed and the ground we just covered near Lake Superior was the final and most difficult section of the Trans Canada Highway to be finished. Crews had such trouble forging the way through the dense forest and rock that the final stretch of highway wasn’t even paved until 1967. For all its hardships however, cyclists are rewarded with breathtaking views of Lake Superior and the various coves and bays along the shoreline.

The storied Lake Superior is massive. The world’s largest lake by surface area, biggest of the Great Lakes, it stretches on beyond the horizon as if you’re looking across the ocean. I passed the Chippewa River and for the rest of the day I had Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in my head. While I tucked into the breathtaking descents that seemed to go right into the lake before turning at the waters edge I kept hearing the line, “Superior, its said, never gives up her dead.” Needless to say, I took extra care to keep my tires on the road and the bike upright at those spots. I learned later that the reason they say the lake “never gives up her dead” is because the natural water temperature is so cold that a body in the water sinks as opposed to eventually floating as would happen in most other bodies of water.

New friends Matt & Berny are biking & camping. Check them out at
 www.berny-matt-velocanada.blogspot.ca

The big lake they call Gitchee Gumee has served as an incredible backdrop to our riding in Northern Ontario. As we’ve travelled west and south on Highway 17, one look to the right over the blue water glistening in the sun or lush forest growing atop the rugged rock faces is a great reminder of the natural beauty of our country. It can be enough to put that little extra into your legs to get you over the rolling hills or that little push you need to throw it into a bigger gear to race around the corner to see what vista might be there to greet you. Northern Ontario has truly been a highlight of our trip so far and I won’t soon forget the unbelievable rides we’ve had in this great part of our country. 

Erik (Team Marsh Co-pilot)