The 100 km version of this year's Pacific Populaire organized by the BC Randonneurs. Since it is fashioned after a Randonnee or Brevet to give cyclist a taste of this type of cycling, it was not a fully supported ride, but the group and volunteers did a great job of organization. I am also grateful to the sweeps who followed up with me to insure I was okay. I also met up with a co-worker, Dave Jeffrey on the ride who I have also cycled with on a number of occasions. I told him to ride as he wanted too and not wait for me as I knew he had an appointment later. It started out a pretty good day, but no sunshine as was predicted. It at least stayed dry for the duration and hundreds of cyclists registered for the ride. I suffered a little mechanical difficulty about 5-10 km into the ride when a retaining ring separated on my Shimano Alfine 8 Internally Geared Hub which first caused the hub to go into 'freewheel' mode both forward and backward. It then shifted and locked in 4th. It took me a little while to resolve the issue and then I still had to stop several times in the next 10 km as I was hearing a disturbing sound coming from the rear wheel. I discovered that the removal and re-install of the wheel had affected my rear fender clearance which was causing the noise. I had stopped the Garmin recording while fixing it as it took me a while and a couple of tries to fix the retaining ring issue and forgot to restart the recording for 7 km which is why the trip shows less than 100 km. There were no further problems with the bike after that, but all the climbing on the hills back to Riley park were killing my knees. With the delays and knee problems late in the ride I ended up at the back of the pack finishing with an official time of 6:38. A hot soak in the tub and some food after getting home resolved the knee problems but I seemed a lot more tired than the last time I did this ride. Maybe the gout attack of just over a week ago took more out of me than I thought.