7/19/09: Off route for the remainder of Ontario; Bancroft, Ontario to just west of Renfrew, Ontario; 90 miles.
Now this is how you ought to feel. Wow. It’s as if I took a banned drug or something. Man did I have some legs today. Ok let’s start from the start. Last night I left you with the family reunion going on just below us. And this puppy never stopped. Went out to the head when I was done blogging and working on my workout material, and then mozied down to the reunion. The music was your typical wedding, top 40 crap, and it was way over the top too loud. I think I stayed for 3 or 4 swigs of my beer and then it was back the Hotel Hillie for R&R. I did get some tp from the head and stuff it so far into my ears that I was fearful of breaking an eardrum – that’s how loud the music was. I even pulled out my little short wave radio and listened to it by my ears so it might drown out the dance fever junk from down below.
Now I’ve been hitting WTAM 1100 in Cleveland on my AM dial every time I turn on the radio since we’ve been listening back in BC. And last night was the very first time I was able to pick up the station and listen to the home-town news and weather. THAT was pretty cool. Kind of shows how long I’ve been on the road when I’m stoked to hear local programming from Cleveland. I guess I finally dozed off near 11pm or so, with these great big gobs of tp in my ears.
Got up at 7am to Ryan who brought me a coffee from his Tim Horton’s coffee run earlier. That was a nice touch for sure. I just relaxed in the tent with my coffee and turned on CBC radio and listened to the Sunday morning news. Then broke things down and ambled over to Neil and Cheryl’s cabin. They to had been kept up by the reunion party, and what’s more, once the party broke up a totally inebriated young man went to his car next to their cabin, climbed in, and then cranked up the volume on the car stereo……..and passed out. Neil had to go out to the car, open the door, go in and turn the stereo off. Yup, they had it way worse than we did.
I had a couple of bananas, a half a peanut butter sandwich, and a granola bar and I was good to go for the ride today. It was looking like we had anywhere from 70-90 miles to put in today – with a S-load of power climbing. The weather forecast was good, calling for clouds and about 70-degrees. Perfect for me from a comfort standpoint. So we got it rolling about 8:30am. And surprising my dead stumps from yesterday, I refer to as legs, they felt pretty good. Actually they felt great. I bet it was the Chinese pan-fried noodles from last night!! So I go up the first series of power climbs and kind of stopped at the top to wait for Ryan, taking off my long sleeve jersey, and yielding to the call of Mother Nature, and noticed that he was taking a bit of time to get to the top.
So I just kept it rolling on my own. The wind was again out of the southwest, so we had a nice little tailwind or cross tail at the very worst. Continued on Rt 28, on Canadian Shield with the power climbing seminar, but these were much longer than yesterday, and I had to drop into the middle cookie for a climb not long after the start of the ride. Made it to McArthur Mills in pretty good time, about 16 mph over the first 15K, and then hit Hardwood Lake, about 41K, and had upped the average up to 16.5. Climb after climb, and if you looked off into the distance from the tops of some of these climbs, it looked as though we were in the mountains, albeit smaller mountains. I mean there were definite highlands in this area, and we were ascending and descending these buggers left and right. Some of this stuff was as challenging as the section between Terrace Bay and Marathon back when we were riding along the north shore of Superior.
Continued the climbathon towards the town of Denbigh, and it was in this stretch that I hit a mother of a climb. This pup jacked up into the sky like something our of BC. I middle cookied it, but I was inching my way up to that big pie plate back there by the end of this thing. At the top I stopped and took some shots of a car going down, and it looked as though the car was at the top of a roller coaster, about to plunge down hundreds of feet into an abyss. Once I descended into Denbigh I had to switch to Rt 41 north. Now at this point I was a good 2:30-2:45 hrs into the ride, and riding fast and strong. So I got the map out and looked to see how far into the ride I was……….shwoooooooooooowww. Still had a good two thirds of the ride ahead of me. It was there that I knew we’d be in for a 90-mile day.
So got on 41 and started cranking. I felt really good, and decided to not stop in Denbigh for coke and candy, but rather go to the 4-hour mark and then look at my mileage and where I was at with respect to the today’s route. Now the first several miles of 41 were fairly flat and fast, but then I noticed that I was pedaling harder to keep my speed – the false flat syndrome! And then it just kind of pitched up………and up……..and up. This thing just kept going and going, with one false summit after another for miles and miles it went. Got to the top and descended to the town of Grifith, with more false flat climbing after that, and then every now and then I hit a little power climb just to keep me honest. Cranked through Khartum and then Dacre on Rt 41. Now at Dacre was the sign I needed to see: Renfrew – 33K. There it was. Just over 18 miles. So you go through this mental check list: how thirst am I, how hungry am I, can I do this without stopping? Not, Not, Yes. Game on. Time to put the hammer down.
I put it into third gear and just began to churn out the rpms and mileage, and this last stretch had a few power climbs on it, but nothing like what I’d encountered for the previous 3.5 hours of cycling, so it was easy to keep the effort consistent and the miles per hour high. I wanted to average 20 for that 18+ miles. I mean it all just kind of fit: felt good, last long ride before a recovery day or two, and the road just kind of flattened out for the remainder. Did that 18+ in 50 minutes, and actually had to slow down considerably when I got into Renfrew, more like a softpedal. And then I began to wonder…….Subway or no Subway? If there was a Subway should I stop or just ride to the KOA that Neal and Cheryl had told us they would be at? Couple more miles and there it was, and I rode past it for about 15 meters and then turned around. Had to hit the Subway for at least one foot long. My odometer read 82 miles at 18 mph average. Yup, it was Subway time for sure.
Did the footer and a 32oz fountain drink with 3 refills. Waited for Ryan for about a half hour and then I decided to get it rolling before my legs seized up from lack of motion. The KOA they had secured was supposed to be about 3 miles west on Rt 17, so that’s the direction that I pedaled. Go to 17, no KOA sign, and taking a left to go west………was down a big hill and then what looked to be a big climb back up. Kind of debated for a minute on that, but finally just went left, descended and then climbed. At an intersection at the top of the climb was the road they had told us about earlier in the morning, the one the KOA was on. But no signs. So I asked a person pulling out onto 17. Yep, she said, it’s down off of Johnson Road. So off I ride again. And in a field is a broken sign, half in the grass, a hundred years old, that you can barely make out to say KOA.
Make the turn, and then the bloody road turns to gravel, and goes uphill, for what seems to be several miles. Finally a KOA sign. Keep riding down the gravel road for another mile and finally hit the entrance. Neal and Cheryl are at a nice little cabin just around the corner from the office. We sat and talked for a bit and then set tent up, jumped in lake with layer 1 cycling shorts and up to office to blog.
Ryan just came in about 20 min ago, and his ride was a death march compared to mine. He was in power climbing hell for the day, the 9th straight day of cycling, and over 600 miles in those 9 days. I do hope he adds his two cents into today’s blog because it will give you a totally different perspective on the days’ ride. On a ride this long, with this much territory to cover, we each experience days differently. We could both be on for a particular day, or one could be on and one could be off. Of we both could be off. It’s a coin toss really, but one things for sure: the longer you ride with no rest the higher the chances that you’ll have more off days than on. Rest we’ve found is crucial to these distance rides. I lucked out today. Why did I feel so good today when I was just through the ringer yesterday? Why did Ryan feel like total bonksville today? Just goes to show that you never know.
So tomorrow: we’ll ride to Ottawa for the 40-50 miles on Rt 17 east, find a seedly little motel for a couple of days and just relax and enjoy the city. Neil and Cheryl are going to drive into the city to have lunch with us, walk around town for a bit, and then they’re off to return to Detroit to catch a Wednesday flight back to So Cal. Hopefully we can get to a sports bar tonight to watch the much anticipated mt stage in the Tour.
I’m feeling pretty good about this trip, and it looks like we’re making pretty stellar time, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we gain a couple more days ahead of schedule in the next week of riding. Love doing this, love the riding and exploring, but it will be very nice to see friends and family again. I’m beginning to smell the barn off in the distance – and that indeed is a very good feeling. I see finality to this adventure, despite the fact that we still have 5 more provinces to traverse. Today we’re 50 miles away from completing some 1500 miles across just once province – Ontario! The remainder of the provinces are mere specs on the map compared to the behemoths we’ve been riding through for the past two months. Look at a map and you’ll see where I’m coming from. THAT’S why I smell the barn!
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