Faster riders may have a different perspective, but from the back of the pack it looked like a scene out of Oliver ... "Please sir, may I have some more?" ... "MORE???" I believe I paid about $400 Canadian for an all-inclusive ride and was told I would not have to spend a cent on anything along the way.

We set off about 6 pm, and rode a few hours, then stopped at a convenience store because we all wanted to use the toilet. I bought a packet of salted almonds there. Then we continued to the first control and arrived there quite late at night. I was very glad I had the salted almonds (and the few energy bar I had brought with me) because all they had at the control was a small plate of apple slices and a large plate of peanut butter sandwiches, all nicely made up. Well, I can't eat peanut butter ... I get sick. So I asked them if there were some bread and jam or something and they told me that they had used it all making the sandwiches because ALL cyclists love peanut butter sandwiches. Great. So I ate my salted almonds and several apple slices and continued.

About 6 am, we rolled into the next control. I was on the brink of starvation by this point. My energy bars were gone and the fuel from those apple slices and little packet of salted almonds was long gone. At this control I was given a tiny bowl of those cheap oriental noodles. I devoured it, and returned to the kitchen for some more ... and was given about a tablespoon more very reluctantly. My other option was some dried out bread, which didn't appeal to me, and the crumbs from the bottom of a large bowl which contained potato chips. I ate those.

An hour or two later, we were all (I was riding with a group of me and 3 guys) still very hungry so we stopped at a little place by the side of the road and had large sandwiches. Those were great! I definitely wouldn't have made it as far as I did without that sandwich! But we had to pay for it out of our own pockets.

At the next control, we rolled in between lunch and supper. We were informed that they had just cleared away the lunch food and wouldn't get around to making supper for a few hours yet. We complained and so they finally asked us what we would like, and they would try to get it from the store. We all wanted pasta. Plain pasta. The head lady walked away muttering, "The things these cyclists want to eat. Plain pasta? How odd!" Odd?? It's odd that cyclists would want pasta???

Nevertheless, some time later they finally produced plain pasta, but we were at that control for about 2 hours waiting for it.

I ended up stopping at the next control and staying there a while, and ended up having to prompt the people working there to always have food out for the cyclists ... they'd put everything away after every "meal" and have nothing on the table for cyclists who arrived in between "meals" ... and that it didn't matter what it was, they didn't have to serve breakfast in the morning, lunch at noon, and supper at night ... they could serve plain pasta 24 hours a day. That seemed like a very novel and odd idea to them.

Aside from the food, they provided us with outdated instructions. I came into the town were I stopped and was standing there staring at street signs, my map, and my cue sheet and couldn't make head nor tails of it. Finally someone pulled up and asked me if I needed help. The person looked at my information, and told me it was at least 4 years old and that they had redone all the streets in that area ages ago. Great. Nice to have that information.

And ... there was the guy they lost. He was sort of riding in my vicinity and I could see he was struggling. But at the pasta control, they let him go even though he could barely stand upright and it was getting dark. He ended up collapsing on the side of the road and some campers found him and gave him a blanket. Meanwhile, his wife called the control I was at asking about him because he hadn't checked in with her at all. They told her not to worry, he was there at the control ..... and they didn't even check the list, or the sleeping room, or send a sweep vehicle out to look. The guy could have died or been very sick by the side of the road and no one would have known. It wasn't till morning that they bothered to send anyone to look for him.

It was just NOT a well organized event.