7/20/09: Off route for the remainder of Ontario; west of Renfrew, Ontario; to Ottawa, Ontario 68 miles
We hit Finigan’s Pub last night, and I ate a damned half a Subway sub just before we left. Finigan’s was great………here I am talking about food again, sorry……….I got meatball soup and the steak hoggie……..um um good. Finished the night, and get this, we drove all the way back from Renfrew to our KOA, pulled in and then both Ryan, myself and Cheryl started to cajole Neil about not getting our ice cream fix. And wouldn’t you know it, he turns the car around and drives all the way back to Renfrew to the Wendy’s for a nice Blizzard blast. Burp, burp, back to Hotel Hillie and sweet dreams with a nice sized Buda belly.
Woke up late, but no big deal since today was supposed to be an easy day. Ryan had drove the rental to Renfrew to get some Tim Horton’s coffee. I was packed up when he got back and then slammed the coffee while tearing down the tent. Our big challenge today was trying to find a way to get to downtown Ottawa without using route 417, which is a “no bike” stretch of inter-provincial – it’s where Rt 17 goes to Turnpike so to speak. So we needed to coordinate with Neil and Cheryl to meet on some parallel roads into downtown. They would carry our gear for this last day, meet us in downtown Ottawa, and then we’d find a motel and chill for the next two days. That was the plan anyway.
So we were told that you could not take Rt 17 all the way to downtown Ottawa, because it turns to double lane. We had to find an alternative route that paralleled 17, so we came up with Rt 3 to Rt 7 to Rt 36. Sounded good, but try to coordinate that while you’re on the bike for 4 hours! We got it going on Rt 17 east, just west of Renfrew and started motoring. And the road was total shit, with nothing but a rumble strip between us and semi’s doing 60 mph. In other words – no berm! You see, here the berm was largly a rumble strip, with a miniscule 8 inches of berm between the strip and the gravel. And we weren’t about to balance our bikes in that shallow little zone cruising down the road at 18-24 mph. So with a whole slew of 4-letter curses we reluctantly got on the left side of the rumble strip and got it going, with my cussing under my breath at each and every turn we did on this suicide run with traffic.
And Ryan say to me, “dude, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m feeling great today, so you can hammer if you want.” ALL I NEEDED TO HEAR. So down the hammer went. Got low on the bars, clicked a gear or two down, and my goal was to try to get the hell off of this death trap asap. Plan was to do this stretch of 17 to our exit on Rt 3, and then relax on this secondary to the outskirts of Ottawa. We were off on the train. And we hit the designated town of Arnprior in really good time. This is where we were to get on Rt 3 to avoid getting on the foreboden 4-lane super highway. And we saw nothing in the way of an exit for Rt 3. So we ride further, out of the city of Arnprior, and still nothing. Now by this time the Timmy Horton’s go-juice was ready to splode in our bladders, so we really needed to hit that exit. And still nothing.
We finally pulled up to a truck who was off in the berm, right were the foreboden section of road begins. And I ask the guy about Rt 3. He’s sergeant Schultz from Hogan’s Heros, “I know nothing.” Would have been better off consulting a city limit sign! So we relieve ourselves on the right side of his truck, out on the berm, and decided to just go forward on the foreboden section of Rt 417. Click, click, and down into the big meat. If we’re to go illegal, by gosh let’s slam the stretch. And we were just jamming, holding like 21-24mph for a solid hour. And I kept anticipating a cop with the siren blaring behind us. But nothing. By the end of that hour we were within striking distance of downtown Ottawa, having gone 43 miles in 2:15 hrs. So we saw a sign for Rt 7 exit, and decided to pull in at the island of the exit and look at the map. And just then Ryan tells me there’s a motorcycle policeman pulling in behind us.
Busted! We must have been reported earlier, because he pulls in and radios back that he’s caught up with the bikers. And the guy is totally cool. He wants our ID’s to make sure we’re not on the run. Once he gets a negative back from the board opp he talks to us a bit, kind of interested in the fact that we’re doing the trans can. He kind of encouraged us to get helmets, and gave us a good suggestion for an alternative route – the one we came up with that morning! So he wished us well and we exited the freeway for Rt 7 west, to Robertson Rd east. And we were like, wow, we made some great time on that, can’t believe that he didn’t complement us on how fast we scorched that stretch of freeway!
So we get on Roberson and cruise to downtown, but it was still another 15+ miles away, and we hit lights, and traffic, and congestion, and really start to loose any sense of rhythm. So we did a Subway stop, slammed a sub each, and then asked a local about alternative routes into downtown. He pointed us to the “parkway” route which has a bike and hike trail alongside. Ryan phoned his folks, and they were at the Parliament building, so that would be our meeting spot. So we go the parkway and hunted down the bike route. And the bike and hike is really, at this point a crumbly old section of asphalt sidewalk. I rode it for 5 min and then dropped the f-bomb on it about 6 times, and was back on the parkway. I’ll take traffic rather than a broken, crumbly old carriage trail! So we just rode on the parkway, eventually. It took Ryan about a half a K of riding and he to was on the parkway.
And we twist and turn in the parkway, which is actually quite beautiful as it parallels the Ottawa River, for 5-7 miles. We came to a stop with a traffic policewoman, and I asked her if the bike and hike was better to get us to the Parliament. Yup. And this section of bike and hike was just wonderful. So we twisted and turned along the river for another 4 or so miles, to end up behind the Parliament. We ride up, look around and Ryan hears his parents calling from across the street at a nice little outdoor bistro. We rode across the street, entered the gated outdoor bistro area where all these business and tourist types are having a nice lunch in the warn sub, and we’re stinking like a road kill skunks, salt stained, wind beaten, with crusty cycling cloths, and crazy tans on our legs, faces and arms. Neil and Cheryl bought us a “going away” lunch which was just fabulous. I mean we were just across the street from the Parliament, eating this wonderful food in a very cool setting – and looking like something that the cat just dragged in.
It was fun, as we joked about being pulled over, riding another 68 as our “easy day”, and kicking around the last 10 days that we’d spent together. Finally, Ryan and I left to find a hotel/motel for our stay here while his folks went to spend some more time tooling around the Parliament. I let him wheel and deal with the hotel people, hoping to get a “ride across Canada” deal. He got a guy to go down by 20 bucks at the Lord Elgin Hotel, then a couple of negatives, and finally we hit paydirt with the Extended Stay Hotel, just 3 blocks up from the Parliament.
Got inside and really just totally crashed and fell asleep for about 15 min while Ryan showered. Neil and Cheryl came by about an hour later and dropped off all of our gear and we all said our goodbyes. It was really a treat to have them with us for the past 10 day. And they have been motoring along from Montreal River, back on the shores of Superior, all the way to Ottwaw! We had some great times and some very wonderful belly laughs at some of the stuff we’ve done and the situations we’ve been in. It’s been great, and a joy to have them as a part of this crazy adventure.
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