8/20/09: Off segment around Cape Breton Highlands National Park from the Ingonish Campground south to Englishtown, Nova Scotia. Then on Rt 105 east to North Sydney, Nova Scotia. 62 miles.
Check out Barney’s blog on http://www.nwpassage2.blogspot.com/
Start with a Reset from yesterday, to finish off last evening. We went to the pub about 5 miles up the road to the north – by hitchhiking. Yup, haven’t done that in a very long time. And we commented joked around 30 min in when we still didn’t have a ride, that if we’d of had Ryan on hand he’d have sweet talked someone in the campground into taking us up and picking us back up at this pub and bringing us home again. Well, not more than 5 min later we did get a ride to the pub, by a tourist who frequents this area from Montreal very often. Nice guy, and he was picking up dinner from the notorious “Crap” restaurant. Said that his wife would kill him if she found out he picked up hitchhikers. So deal done, we arrived at the restaurant/pub for our dinner and festivities.
The restaurant was quite nice, and we both got the same seafood meal of salmon, some tiger shrimp and scallops with rice. It was very very good. Then downstairs to the pub to listen to Fran, Barney’s bud from the Keltic Lodge, belt out Irish and Newfie songs. Unfortunately they ran out of Richard’s Red right from the gun, about half way through our first 10-dollar pitcher special. Then we had to go with this wheaty stuff that just didn’t sit well with me. But old Fran was just singing up a storm, and when he’d get the Newfie stuff going, you just couldn’t even make out the words – sounded like a foreign language. But we clapped along at points and got some good belly laughs when he coerced those who were not clapping in synch, to chug beers. Not me, I was not in on the clapping in synch thing. Nope, especially if I had to go up in front of the pub and chug a beer that I don’t even like! But we had fun nonetheless. I was almost tempted to get a pub burger or something in there as the dinner really didn’t fill me like I’m accustomed to. But I held back…….in anticipation for the breakfast buffet again at the Keltic Lodge!
While we were in the pub a thunderstorm moved in and put down a ton of rain. Didn’t even hear it. Inside we were seated next to a man, his son and mother who all hailed from Rhode Island. And let me tell you, this dude was just so obnoxious. Had to let us know about his second home there in Nova Scotia, his relatives in Gates Mills, Ohio – a very, very wealthy suburb of Cleveland - and then tried to tell us everything that he thought we didn’t know about the area, about Irish music, about life, about Newfoundland, you name it. He asked me a few questions about our cycling and I pretty much blew him off with very short answers. I was like: “Dude just shut the piehole, listen to the music, we’re not impressed.” Barney made a feeble attempt at being cordial with this ass, but I could see even he wanted little to do with the dude. Finally I think he got the message and just listened to the music.
We saw some flashes of lightning, but no thunder or rain while down in the pub listening to Fran. It was only when we got a taxi ride back to our tents – yea, taxi to the tent camping ground – that we saw all the massive puddles on the roads and in the campground. It must have rained like hell. Got back to the campground just before midnight. Hit the hay and BAM. OUT. Woke up to the tender words of Barney again: “Pete, a beautiful day.” Ouch………for the umpteenth time in the morning. “Ok, buffet time, “ that’s what I was thinking. And I convinced Barney to just ride up to the Lodge and eat, then come back and tear down, that so my tent could dry off from all the rain. So that’s what we did. And that ride up to the Lodge was not easy. The legs really felt stiff. Couple that with the massive Buda Belly I was going to have post buffet, and it had the makings for a long ride to North Sidney today.
Got to the lodge, and it was a reset from yesterday morning: Barney gets the healthy stuff to start the day, I get the scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, fish cakes. But on the second plate Barney gets the unhealthy. So we fill up and just eat, drink coffee, and people watch in “The Lodge.” It was actually kind of fun looking at all the getups and shapes and sizes of people in there. Like I noticed this one dude, and I pointed him out to Barney, a guy who was wearing his cammo jungle hat in the buffet. Now the brim of this hat was set downward such that the dude had to tilt his head up to see where he was going, like he was looking at a fly up on the ceiling. It was hilarious. And he wouldn’t change it. He’d just muddle around the buffet, looking up but trying to look down at the foods. Then you had Suzie the jogger, who just got done with the morning run, but looked like she spent an hour getting ready for the breakfast, and Suzie’s husband who was hearding the kids around behind Suzie the taskmaster. And you had the golf guys getting stuffed on goodies to go out and smack a few balls around, and you had the hiker couple with the hiking boots on ready to attack the Cape Breton Trail, an then you had us, the two biker dudes who probably smelled of old “fairly clean” cloths, Barney dressed in his bike kit, and me dressed in my same stinky old pair of underarmor shorts and the rancid black Summa top. Yup all kinds in there! We finished the game of people watching and then back to camp to pack.
Finally got packed and ready to go at our now standard time of 10am. We knew we had two fairly big climbs today – Smokey Mt, just outside of the park boundary, and a climb after exiting the Englishtown ferry, on Rt 105 east. We had told our server this morning that we were riding to North Sydney today, and he acted as if this were a major undertaking. Same with the guy from yesterday’s breakfast buffet, the once who was astounded that we were riding to North Sydney. So the uninitiated though that this was a massive day we had ahead of us. And it got me to thinking: “just how dag gone hard are these climbs anyway?” Well, twenty min into the ride we got an answer to the first climb – Smokey Mt. It started off with a pretty steep little cookie pitch that ramped up about 500 meters, but then it mellowed out, more and more, until I was able to go to the middle ring. Then it pitched up again, and I just stood on it the rest of the way in the middle ring. It was actually a pretty fun climb, one where you could keep a very good rhythm to it and not go redline. Topped out in 25 min. Barney was just behind me, having done an excellent job of climbing this first beast.
Then came the descent, and the downside, the east side was WAY steeper. Thank God we were going in a clockwise direction because this thing was crazy steep on the descent. It was switchbacking back and forth for a couple of miles, and the ocean lay WAY WAY down below us. Again, bless those hydraulic disk brakes, as I was able to really have a comfortable ride down. We hit the bottom and commented on how nice the climb was on the climb side for us, and how bad it would be on the descent side if you were going in the opposite direction. From there it was just a series of mellow ups and downs as the road rolled along the ocean. Nothing really hard, and nothing really stellar scenic here on this section of the Cabot Trail. We ended up stopping at the Keltic Tea Room at about 2.5 hours in. The temp had to be in the high 80’s by this time and I was pretty parched. Barney got a freaking hot tea and crumpets? Englishman all the way! While I got two ice cold cokes and a waterbottle full of ice cold water. Back again on the road.
Went another 8K to the Englishtown Ferry. This thing is about a five min ferry trip across this tidal channel. The ferry is pulled on both sides by this massive iron cable, and you can actually see the cable in the water, bowed out by the incredible tidal surge as it’s pulling the ferry back and forth across this channel. We were on and off in an instant, and then back to riding up Rt 312 to the junction with Rt 105. This was really a long gradual climb, stairstepping up every K or so, and went for about 8-10K up to the junction with 105. Once on 105 we were right in the middle of the second big climb of the day, and I was just out of the saddle the whole way up, about 1.5 miles in the middle ring just feeling really good. I must sound like the boy crying wolf, because I usually start the day say how tired I am, and how I’m just going to try to survive the day. And then I get like an hour in and I feel so much better. Well, today was such a day. When we were riding to breakfast I was still torched from Tuesday’s climbing. And during the start, when Barney surged on the little cookie section to the Smokey Mt climb, my legs were just gassed. But once I got into a rhythm in the middle ring, especially OTS, I really felt good. And such was the case on our second climb.
And Barney did a bang up job himself, really climbing strong and steady. So we were both a bit concerned early today, and very pleased as the day wore on. We stopped at a vist just a tad from the top of the Rt 105 climb, as it was a fabulous view of the Englishtown Ferryand the St. Anns Bay area. Then on to the top and a long descent down to the channel areas west of North Sydney. We crossed several bridges over the channes and by that time I saw a sign for North Sydney that read 20K away. Awesome! That put us 12 miles shorter than we thought for the day – probably had to do with the ferry crossing knocking off about that much from Barney’s mapping program’s mileage. We had a great tailwind, and just flew! Made North Sydney by 3:30pm, what I thought was well ahead of Judy, Bill and Ryan in my van. We went straight to Subway, where I devoured a 12-inch sub and 2 21-oz cokes in no time. Barney on the other hand, had a Jones for a milkshake, so he rode up to Micky D’s. I joined him and I had a large Chocolate shake as well. Then this dude has another large chocolate shake! Barney’s got the gremlin!!!
Still no word from the gang on Barney’s cell. So I got my computer out and got Bill’s cell, and checked my emails. No word from them. Barney called and left a message. We got a call back from Bill at the end of Barney’s second shake. They were in New Glasgow, and running a bit late due to traffic jams back in the states. So we decide to try to change the fery crossing to NFLD from tomorrow at 11pm to today at 11pm. That would save us all a day, not to mention moteling in the pretty drearly place called North Sydney. So Barney and I rode down to the ferry station to try to change. DONE. So that’s the story. I’m here blogging, and we’re waiting for the crew to arrive. Then we’ll repack our bikes onto my van and arrive in NFLD tomorrow at about 7 in the morning. Then, the last leg of the journey coming up.
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