by Roberta Terzolo with Denis Grey
Friday - Harvesting the Cycloners
People began arriving at Brock in St. Catharine's as early as possible to get started on the 16th Annual Cyclon weekend. The fabulous facilities at Brock U. included the homey Kenmore Centre that was the hub for registration, meeting and greeting beginning early in the afternoon to past 11:00 p.m. on Friday night. Participants arrived by car, bus and boat to pick up their registration packages and take advantage of complimentary soft drinks and the cash bar to mingle and catch up on news. Many headed out to grab a quick bite to eat before returning for the Official Opening at 9:00 o'clock.
Shortly after nine, Cyclon emcee Denis Grey welcomed everyone to Cyclon 2002, and introduced the Cyclon Committee and other key volunteers who were helping for the weekend. Fresh fruit and enough cheese to make a Guinness World Book of Records omelette were served. To break the ice an engineering contest was organized to try and build the tallest freestanding structure possible in 15 minutes - the only catch was that it had to be done with masking tape and drinking straws. It was pretty hilarious and quite an eye-opener to some very ingenious creativity. The winning team was awarded $50.00 gift certificates from Bayview Cycle and some new modern art was born!
Saturday - Pressing the Pedals!
People actually were up and dressed for the 7:00 a.m. breakfast call! Now that's dedication. Starting times for the various rides for the day ranged from 8:30 to 9:30 and soon everyone was off, roaring through the St. Catharine's countryside in a rush for the much anticipated lunch stop at Rockway Glen Golf Course (and Estate Winery). Would you like to know what 200 hungry cyclists look like? Well, come to Cyclon and find out! We are a pretty hungry bunch! After a hot ride, we all relaxed in the exclusive dining lounge reserved just for us, eating great food and taking in a beautiful view of the golf club. In fact, it was so relaxing that no one wanted to leave. Alas, we all had to head back to Brock to get ready for the evening events.
Saturday featured two evening options. One group headed out for a family-style dinner at Joe Pepe's Restaurant and then toured downtown St. Catherine's or headed to bed early. Another group cruised down to Niagara Falls to enjoy "O Canada, Eh!?" a musical dinner theatre revue featuring all Canadian songs, stories and cuisine. It was a bit corny but the music was excellent and the food was great. The waiters and waitresses doubled as actors and actresses throughout the show. After the show many Cycloners took advantage of the opportunity to check out the Falls at night while visiting the Tourism Capital of Canada.
Sunday - Squeezing the Last Drop
Sunday was a Cyclon Experiment with no lunches provided just like a regular Sunday ride. As it turned out this was the perfect excuse to linger at a few wineries along the way. Judging by the stories I heard many did take advantage of that, including this writer!! This day's ride(s) was absolutely beautiful. We started along the Welland Canal and ended up cycling on the Niagara River Parkway. I wonder if anyone cycled over to the Falls? The thought did cross our little group's mind but then decided that stopping at wineries was better time spent! Many of us returned to Brock between 4-5pm, tired but quite happy. Hmmm, I wonder why?
Cocktail hour started at 5:30 p.m. but many of us had our own impromptu cocktail hour around the picnic tables at our dorms sampling all that great Ontario wine we picked up. We all made it to dinner for 6:30 p.m. Our guest speaker was none other than Canadian Olympic Silver Medallist Steve Bauer who told us some fascinating stories and gave us some insight on just what it takes to cycle the Tour de France. Very interesting! Cyclon Director Anne Nikkel thanked all of the volunteers again singling out Doug Innes, Master Mapmaker who helped create and document over sixteen new rides for the weekend and Eileen Harbinson, Volunteer Co-ordinator. Eileen was prevented from attending Cyclon at the last minute due to illness and was sorely missed by all involved.
After dinner (and a quite bit of furniture shuffling) the dancing started and went until well after midnight. I think quite a few of us hit the sack in the wee hours of Monday morning!
Monday - Savouring a Fine Weekend
As people were just a bit worn out by this point the organizers wisely delayed the start of the day's rides to give people some precious extra winks. It seemed to this writer that most people cycled just a bit slower along the way. The day's routes took us south through wooded back roads towards Welland near Short Hills Provincial Park. Our group met some members of the Tour of America that was skipping through southern Ontario on their way from Oregon to Baltimore. They were averaging 120 kilometres a day and were scheduled to ride for 50 days altogether. Fortunately we had only another 8 kilometres to go until we reached our destination - Lunch! Monday's buffet at Peninsula Lakes Golf Club was both stupendous and abundant. Of course no good meal goes unpunished on a bicycle trip. Let's just say that the post-lunch hill was a bit of a struggle!
We all made it back to Brock in time to shower, change and pack up to go home. Sadly, Cyclon was over for another year but we will all carry the great memories of making new friends and catching up with old friends and hope that Cyclon 2003 will be equally if not better. Hope to see you all there.