7/12/09: Parts of Segments 49 and 50 http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment49.html http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment50.html Montreal River, Ontario to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario; 70 miles.
First, check out the new photos on the photo page. It will take you to my photo website and its photoplayer. Then once on excelphotoadventure, click on the Canada trip tab. Enjoy
I swear that old Gitchi Gummi lulled us to sleep last night, cast a spell, and then did not let us wake until far too late in the morning. I could hear those lullaby of those waves on and off all night long. It was total bliss. So I woke up and it’s 7am, over an hour later than we normally roust. So I jumped up, hit the campground chuck wagon for a coffee and two of his famous western omelet sandwiches and settled into my usual morning food and coffee coma for a half hour. By then Ryan and his folks had made it up, and were close to hitting up the chuck wagon for their breakfasts.
Peopl, our Quebec bud who was camped next to us was off and on the road by the time the steam was lifting off of my coffee cup. BUT…….the good thing was that we are going to ride the next several days with bikes only, as Cheryl and Neil were going to ferry our massive amounts of gear and yaks in the car. We were naked, and by God I was looking forward to getting on a bare bike – this after 3200 miles of pulling the most ridiculous load of crap up and down mountains for nearly two months. So late start – no biggie, cuz we were going to be making some time today, in a huge way.
So we loaded all that gear, som 150 pounds of it, into the back seat of his parent’s rental. I left a handlebar bag and rear manbag on. Ryan just used his rear manbag. I loaded a camera in each bag, plus my wallet, and I was good to go. We finally hit the road at 9:20am – yuk start time, but hell, I was planning on getting er up to 15-16 mph for the average today, and we still had some significant climbing to do before we leveled out to the Soo. And off we went. I hit the first climb like I was racing the Tour, out of the saddle, the bike rocking back and forth, and just pulling up on the pedals as if I were trying to rip them out of the crank arms. It felt wonderful – and at the top it felt as if I was going to retaste my breakfast sandwiches! Ryan to. Damn, we hit that first climb like it was a Euro start to a race. Middle ringed it at about 10 mph the whole way up.
Then we hit a false flat, and same thing…..out of the saddle acceleration and then just hammering up once seated. So we do this for about 5-8 miles, and I feel the acid building up in my legs like filling a balloon with water. So we both backed off a bit. This no gear thing was fun, but I was definitely on a bonzi mission at that pace. I still had to take it easy on the descents because of the trashed rim, so I had Ryan go ahead of me on the descents, as I needed to keep my speed under 30 mph. I mean, you look down and back at that rear wheel when I’m descending and I just hold my breath. That wobble is just going insanely fast, and at 30+ I start to get a vibration that comes from the wheel, and up through the seat stays. So, mellow is still the word on the descents.
Stopped several times to take shots along the rocky, craggy coastline of Superior. We waves were just crashing today as if we were riding along the Pacific Ocean. Add to that a wind that would sometimes be cross, headwind, or tailwind. It just depended on which way the road meandered. Two hours in and our average was at 15.5. So I do the old math thing in my head and figure that if we get up around 17 we could knock off our 70-miler in just over 4 hours. Game plan on. So on the next several climbs we just big ringed it, and it felt glorious, wonderful, stupendous, and out of this world. I felt as if I were dancing on those pedals, just going out of the saddle 1, even 2 miles up on the climb, just pushing and pulling up and up.
Then we settled out a bit, as the rocky coastline gave way to flat, sandy beach, for miles on end, and we were able to get the rhythm going with a nice steady 19-21 mph. It was just beautiful beach area for picnicking, and sunning. And we just kept it rolling. This lasted for about 1.5 hours. By the time we officially left Superior, we had gotten our average up to 16.6. Now when Rt 17 leaves the shores of Superior, it has to go up over a small range so as to descend back down to the city of the Soo, and the junction of Superior and Huron. So we know we’d have some more climbing to do. Just a matter of how much and how steep. We did hit a climb that I thought could be the biggie, but we were both killing it in the big ring, so there was a little bit of doubt there.
We ended up stopping at about 3.5 hrs in, at a Can-Op for cokes and candy bars to finish the ride. I guzzled two cokes and had some maplenut tarts. Got back on the bike, loosened the legs up and then up in front of us with this big stairway to heaven. THE hill. This was it, and we launched into it with gusto, though about a quarter mile in I was in the middle ring. Just stayed out of the saddle the whole way, probably 1.5-2 miles straight up, with no turns, no switchbacks, just straight as an arrow up. This would have been a ^%$@ buster with the yaks fully loaded. But naked, this was fun, fun, fun. Once we topped out we just put it down hard for the next half hour. And we slowly began the long descent down to the Soo.
We had passed a sign for the KOA campground, and Ryan had said that he was pretty sure his parents would want to stay there. Matter of fact he said he wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t out there waiting for us at the turn-off to the campground. And sure enough, we round a bend and there they are, waving to us. We clicked back up and slowed down to greet them. We’d done our 70 miles in 4:12, with 5 big climbs and some rollers and power climbs. It felt absolutely wonderful to hammer it with no weight on the bikes. Wow, was I going to be spoiled after a couple days of this!
So we all went into the place, and on the wall is a map of Canada, and I looked at the distance between Vancouver Island and Sault Ste. Marie, and I was just blown away by the distance we’ve covered thus far. I showed Ryan and his folks. We were all pretty amazed at how far that was. I’m still rather blown away by what you can accomplish just one day at a time. So we got a nice site with a gazebo and some seats within it, set up tents and then devoured the two halves of two subs that Cheryl and Neil had bought for lunch. Then we munched on cookies. A subway run was definitely in order. But first, wifi and a swim in the campground swimming pool. It was sooooo relaxing to just lay on a beach chair, air dry, and soak in the warm summer sun having ridding 70 miles for the day, and having 3200 miles under our belts.
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