7/8/09: Part of segment 45 and 46; http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment45.html http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment46.html Terrace Bay, Ontario to Marathon, Ontario; 50 miles.
Let me recap last eve to finish that day. I checked my rim once we got to camp (in back of the Canadian Legion Hall) and the crack had widened slightly, but not grown in length, so I kind of felt a bit better – maybe! But I was conscious that the spoke could totally pull out at any minute. I had called a bike shop in Soo, Velorution, and they have a wheel for my 29’er with a Shwalbe 36c tire. So I’m was hoping I could nurse this bugger for the duration.
We ate again, this time at a local place, and had the all you can eat pasta Tuesday night special. We both had the alfredo pasta, with tons of bread and a soup/salad. Now for two all-you-can-eaters like us, we thought we’d buzz saw through the pasta, but they gave us such a large helping that neither of us could handle a second bowl. I was stuffed to the gills. So we filled our water bottles there with ice water, and headed off to our little patch of woods next to the Legion Hall. Ryan had checked with the folks inside, and they were fine with us pitching our tents behind the hall.
Ryan had already put his tent up prior to using the wifi at the library yesterday, but I had not, and the mosquitoes were just horrible. Add to that the black flies and no-see-ums, and it was a total “bug dance” that I was doing as I struggled to get my tent up. Once up I had all my gear next to the vestibule door. I quickly opened the vestibule, threw the gear inside, and then zipped myself in. Then next stage was to move the gear from the vestibule to inside the tent via the tent zippered doors. Again, I threw the gear inside and then followed. By doing this I avoided getting tons of bugs in my sleeping area. Only one black fly made it in.
Now Ryan, bless his soul, had set up his tent up earlier to dry (him not being a Felix and wiping the tent down in the morning), so he kept the vestibule door open. When he came back there were a zillion black flies and no-see-ums in the vestibule. And open the tent door from the vestibule……..and tons of bugs follow you into the tent. So I could hear Ryan slapping bugs for at least an hour last night. He was amazed at the sheer volume of bugs out here. And he ain’t seen nothing yet! Wait until it’s warm at night and in the morning, then we’ll be enveloped in a massive swarm.
So I get in the tent and peel my sticky cycling garb off. It was like pulling a layer of your skin off. The stuff is so sweat enriched and salt stained that it’s sticky. And we’re going on three days in the same gear and without a shower. For a while I just lay on the thermarest without a sleeping bag due to the sun coming out and warming up the inside of my tent, and it was already 8:30pm. Then, as soon as the sun began to sink, the cold crept in, and the sleeping bag went over me. I listened to the CBC radio for a bit, in addition to Ryan slapping bugs in his tent. By 10pm I was ready to crash, so shut down the radio and listened to the trucks…….for what seemed to be hours. Finally, I lay my head to one side and put a finger in my ear on the other side and must have drifted to sleep. But these trucks, man, they were so blooming loud coming up the hill by the Legion Hall, that I must have stayed awake another 2 hours. It was terrible. Next door……..Ryan’s sawing logs like a lumber jack! You could have a jackhammer going and that dude is sleeping like a log.
We had intended on doing 100 miles today, riding from Terrace Bay to White River, so we got up at 6:30am and furiously loaded gear in order to make an early start. We rode up to a local bakery for coffee and breakfast. I got a min loaf of carrot cake, and it was great. Got on the road at 7:30am, with me wondering if that rim was going to go nearly ever step of the way. Now this is supposed to be another really tough section of riding, and within 10 min we confirmed that………with a 20 minute climb out of Terrace Bay. I stopped at the top and shot Ryan climbing up towards me. Again, my strategy on the rim was to climb in much easier gears so as to not put a lot of pressure on the rear wheel while out of the saddle, so it was little cookie way more than I’d normally ride. Second tactic was to brake frequently during the descents, so as to not get a harmonic distortion thing going with the wobble in the rear wheel. So these things I did.
And we climbed, and we descended, over and over and over. It was 50 solid miles of long climbs, moderate climbs, steep climbs, and many, many power climbs. There was NEVER a flat stretch of road. It went up, or it went down. Nothing in the middle. The scenery was spectacular as the climbs took us way up over Lake Superior, and the descents took us down to woodland lakes and streams. Never really a dull moment landscape wise.
But after about 2.5 hrs in, all this power climbing was really beginning to take it’s toll on the legs. The spring I had during the first hour or so was replaced with a slower, more deliberate in and out of the saddle climbing style. And I was shifting out of the big ring much quicker than the first portion of the ride, even with my rim problem, it was also a matter of tired legs with easier gears.
And the power climbing went on and on. It was very reminiscent of the power climbing out in the Black Forest on Rt 44, but these climbs were of the length of say, Everett Rd, and continuous. Top out, descend, climb, top out, descent, climb. Never a flats to ride along at the top. And I would eventually just laugh out loud to myself as I descended, went around a curve, and then saw the highway just ribbon back up the side of the next bluff. Again and again. It was at this point, about 3 hrs in, that I realized that putting another 50 miles on once we made Marathon, would be a pretty tough proposition. And my average was hovering at the 12 mph range. Could never get it higher because I could not hammer the descents with my rim cracked. So I’d just soft pedal the descents and then take less momentum into the next climb. It was frustrating, but hey, what other choice do I have?
And the K’s slowly tick by 40K to go, 20K to go, and then 14K to go. The terrain us here is very challenging to say the least, and it can humble a person very quickly who is pulling or carrying a lot of gear on the bike. And that was us! So I finally get to the “Welcome to Marathon” sign, and I pull into the first gas station I come to. The first thing I do is check the rim, and the crack had not opened up any more. Next I check the bead on the tire, because Ryan and I both had the walls above the tire beads blow out, and all I needed was for the tire to blow what with the bad rim. So I’m looking on both sides and I see a bulge……..right next to the crack in the rim. Bingo. This was a catastrophe waiting to happen. I yanked the yak off, pulled the rear wheel, took the tire off and there it was, another failure in the tire wall just above the bead, and RIGHT next to the crack.
Now I’m sure that this problem is related to pulling 85 lbs of gear, and putting amazing stresses on the tire………and rim to! So I really cannot fault Michelin for the tire issues. But I did catch this puppy right in time, for that’s what nailed my outside of Saskatoon during the deluge. I put a new tire on, my last, and the thing looked much better. This should get me to the Soo if the rim holds. Then I’ll buy some of the Shwalbe tires as spares.
Ryan finally pulled in as I was finishing the tire change, and he was just amazed at how we’d been toasted with all the climbing. And I could see that he was very tentative on making the next 50 to White River. And he asked a lady who worked at the gas station about the next 50 miles of road. She said that there were two more big hill just outside of town, and then it was pretty mellow all the way to Wawa, some 110 miles away. Then she saide, it gets really hilly from Wawa to just below Lake Superior Provincial Park.
And Ryan asked me what I wanted to do. “I’m good either way, “ I told him. “It wont’ be pretty, but I thnk I can do the next 50, but if you want to chill here, that’s fine with me.” I could see that he was pretty toasted from all the power climbing, so staying as I think was the best choice, rather than go through a death march, that was the best decision to be made. So we decided to stay here, and then shoot for a fairly moderate terrain and 110 miles tomorrow. Then a 60 mile day followed by another 60 to the Soo. We got my yak back on and then rode the final 5 miles down to Marathon, down on the lake. It’s a nice little town with a dynamite café – Rumor’s. I got a wonderful sub sandwich and a home made muffin while Ryan got the lodging situation taken care of. He came back saying that a very nice lady at a local church said we could camp in the back.
So I rolled over here, at the public library and shazam, they have wifi. I’ll have to admit, that most all of these places have wifi access now. If you have your own computer as I do, then you’re golden because there are no time stipulations on the computer. So we can sit here for the whole afternoon if need be. It’s about 3pm now, and I have to work on workouts for a bit, and then I’ll go out and explore a bit with the bike and camera. Ryan got all of his computer work done about a half hr ago, and is doing the Tour De Marathon right now.
I’m definitely going back to Rumor’s for dinner tonight, and sampling more of their home made goodies. Tomorrow…….forecast is for 60% chance of rain, so it could be a wet on. I’ll jut hope the temps keep going up so we’re not chilled to the bone. We have a timeline for this week as we’re meeting Ryan’s parents in Sault Ste. Marie on Saturday. So we have to keep it moving so as to not have them drive north on 17. There is a camping area in the Soo at the bike shop I mentioned, and they welcome Thru Canada riders for free, so that will be nice when we get there.
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