Day 44 - Hudson

The day started with a beautiful ride along the canal and on to Sussex Drive in Ottawa.

At 8 am on Saturday, there were hardly any cars on the roads.

I rode with the three musketeers, taking the ferry across the river into Quebec. Finally, we're out of Ontario!

Just like the transition from the prairies, the transition from English to French speaking Canada was sudden. It's a shock to suddenly feel like a foreigner in your own country.

We stopped for some food, and I ordered in half-francais: "Bonjour... Uhhhh.. club sandwich si vous plais" Since I have no idea whether "club sandwich" is masculine or feminine, "uhhhh" would have to do for "un/une". We finished the transaction mostly en englais.

Later on, Ilan and Owen caught up to us and, feeling good, I continued with them. We made good time along the river but it was getting really hot. Eventually, we stopped to get some drinks. Here, I had to do something more complicated than order off a menu (I needed change... changer ca?), so I resorted to "parlez vous Englais?" I'm sure it won't be the last time.

It was a long ride: 164 km in the hot sun, and our last century of the tour.It's all "easier" days from now on.

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Ottawa Rest Day

I did nothing in O-town except sleep and visit with family and friends. Bro-in-law Mark picked me up a huge stash of energy bars, so I probably have enough to last to the end of the trip now. Awesome! It was great to see everyone.

We stayed at a nice modern residence at Carleton (Leeds House) and had complimentary all-you-can-eat breakfasts both mornings. These were my favorite accommodations of the trip so far.

Ottawa is a milestone for me because I've driven this far from Halifax before. From now on, it's charted territory.

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The culinary journey, continued

Lunch (10:30)

A foot long tuna sub with all the fixins, Doritos and Fruitopia;


On the bike, I had the sandwiches and a granola bar. Sorry, no pic of the bar.

Three chocolate chip cookies were waiting for me in the Carleton dorm room. Thanks, Chelsea and Nieka!

Supper (18:00)

Cafeteria food. All you can eat for $11!



That was a pretty typical day, although I was getting by with less lunch and more snacks in Northern Ontario where services were sparse. Fortunately, I don't think we'll have any more long days without services on the trip.

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Day 43 - Ottawa (a culinary journey)

I thought I'd try something different today, documenting every bit of food I consumed. I had to split this into two parts because of all the pictures. Sit back and enjoy!

Breakfast (7:00)

Oatmeal covered with yoghurt and (powdered) milk;

A banana;
Three pancakes with berries;

Two peanut butter and nutella sandwiches (for the road) and an apple;

(to be continued...)

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Day 42 - Elgin (the night away...)

I could swear I heard rain coming down on my tent this morning but I guess it was just the wind. It's always nice to open the tent to dry grass.

I left on my own this morning well after the others. Since it was to be a short (110 km) day, I didn't see the point in rushing. The route continued along the loyalist parkway, with the lake on the right and more vineyards and a few cool industrial things on the left. By the (nuclear?) power plant was this post-apocalyptic looking streetlight.

I breezed through Kingston, pushed along by the call of nature. It's easier to heed the call outside of cities where I can use the bushes, as opposed to running into a store and leaving the bike out of sight for precious minutes. Just outside of Kingston, the sky looked like this:

And soon after that, the rain started. It wasn't so bad riding in the rain today. It was reasonably warm and wasn't coming down too hard. I was comfortable enough to take a side trip to Jones Falls, where some of the old locks of the Rideau Canal system are still operated by hand, 180 years after they were first built.

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Day 41 - Adolphustown

Today, Isabel and I rode together through the Prince Edward region of Ontario, following route 33, the Loyalist Parkway, most of the way. This is where a lot of American loyalists settled and this heritage is shown by the Union Jack hanging outside some of the buildings. It was a nice road passing by many vineyards and towns like Wellington with nice old homes that have been converted to bed and breakfasts.

I'm short on pictures today, despite my new camera. Believe it or not, this is the best one I have.

This is Graham and Rick taking a picture of Owen taking a picture of himself at the campground. Fun times.

That's all I've got for today. I had a bit too much pasta and pie and I hope that sleeping will help with the digestion process.

Today's track

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Day 40 - Gra(ndpa's a )f(as)t-on(e)

We escaped from our hotel in North York at around 8:15, at which time it was already 25 degrees. Luckily it is a holiday so traffic was very light and this allowed us to take as more direct route out of the city. I left with Torontonian Ilan, who led the way, and Owen. We ended up lopping 25 km off the suggested route and that was much appreciated on a hot day like today. I still went through more water than on any other day so far.

In general, I was feeling tired and after we were finally into rural land, I let Ilan and Owen continue ahead.

I may be getting better at listening to my body. There are some times when I could push on at a faster pace, and on a training ride I probably would, but I now realize that this can have repercussions in the days ahead.

Ego wise, it is a bit of a downer slowing down. In the Toronto area, I've been passed on two occasions by guys who looked to be well into their 70s. One of those guys must have been a competitive cyclist for a while because he had the smoothest pedal stroke I've seen. As you've been cycling for a while, I guess you pick up on these things - some people have real style on the bike. Nonetheless, I have this feeling that I'm getting slower as the trip goes on so it's a bit harder to stay upbeat on the bike. Hopefully I can just put that out of my mind and concentrate more on the scenery I'm (slowly) riding through.

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Toronto Rest Day

On the rest day, Torontonian Katie helped me find a new camera to use on the bike:

It's waterproof and shockproof, so I can also use it to take underwater video - handy for swimming practice. We also checked out Woody Allen's latest flick, Midnight in Paris. It was so nice to sit in a comfortable chair in a dark, air conditioned room and be entertained. The movie itself was about escaping reality, which I suppose is what I'm doing this summer.

The riders all met at Ilan and Gay's beautiful townhouse for supper. We ate a lot, as usual, and compared our weight loss using the scale. I unfortunately have lost about 9 pounds since Regina, and everyone has lost at least 10 pounds since the trip started. Anyone looking to lose weight should really consider a trip like this. As for me, I'm going to have to start eating more... though it's hard to imagine how that is possible.

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Day 39 - To(u)r-on-to (the east)

It was a good day for GPS. If you look at my route into Toronto, you'll see that it was by no means direct. Without studying the route the day before, it was a challenge to follow all the twists and turns. Early on I missed a turn that wasn't marked properly on the cue sheet and it was probably another 40 km before I got back in sync. Running into two closed roads didn't help.


This didn't matter a whole lot though because the weather was beautiful and I had lots of time (it was only an 80 km ride, even with my mishaps). Also, there was a nice moment on one of these seldom traveled back roads when I ran into a group of girls operating a lemonade stand. I picked up a gatorade (substitute) for $1.50. They said they had made $14 the day before... not sure if that's net or gross.

In Toronto, I had my much anticipated bike fit with Rick Choy at Blacksmith Cycles.


He had me ride my bike on the trainer and immediately had a look of dismay at my position. Turns out I have a pretty significant discrepancy in the length of my legs and was compensating for that in wierd and wonderful ways. I was afraid I would need some exotic equipment to fix this, but he simply moved my saddle up and forward to fix my hip angle and got me to use some wider handlebars to eliminate my "rolled in" shoulders. The next step would have been to try a shorter stem, but at that point it looked like we had resolved the issues that would affect my knees and I didn't want to rack up my bill any more. The prognosis is that my knees probably won't be completely better until I have some time to rest them, but I could feel a difference on the trainer so I'm optimistic that there will be a noticeable improvement.

Today's track

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