8/17/09: Off segment on Rt 19 north on Breton Island.
Cheticamp, Nova Scotia to Pleasant Bay, Nova Scotia. 25 miles.
Check out Barney’s blog on http://www.nwpassage2.blogspot.com/
Kind of a milestone today, as I’m now exactly 3 months into this trip, with 11 off days. I’m just under 5600 miles in, with just 3 more days riding in Nova Scotia, and then on to the home stretch – Newfoundland!
Ok, so last night I had toilet paper stuffed in my ears last night to deaden the sound of Barney, aka the B-52 bomber, in the next bed. Soooo I didn’t hear it raining all last night like Barney did. But, sure enough, got up at 7:15am and looked outside and the parking area was soaked. So it must have rained pretty good. Well, the gameplan for this Cape Brenton Highlands National Park section of riding is to do it in 3 days, with three very short rides, this so we can just relax and enjoy the scenery, which is noted as world class. It was very overcast, and I nor Barney was in a hurry to get on the road. We were able to take our time and let it clear a bit before our departure.
With that in mind we both cleaned our drivetrains, which had been coated with a thick powder of granite dust from the trail riding yesterday, and then we applied some lube. Sounded a gazillion times better! Then we walked down to the place we had dinner, for breakfast, and as usual, ordered the Grand Slam. Now the Grand Slam here was a bit pricier than what we were used to, so we didn’t do the side order of pancakes. But this meal was pretty filling nonetheless. They had good wifi there, so Barney went back to the motel and got our computers and we lounged for a bit catching up on emailing and blogging. By 10am the sky was really looking like it was clearing out, so we moseyed back to the motel to get ready to depart. And this is the fun part, putting on the still damp cycling gear that I washed in the shower the night before. Very nice feeling indeep putting on damp socks and two pair of damp cycling shorts. “Oh what a feeling!”
So we got er going around 11am, riding out of Cheticamp, and up to the park entrance, about 3 miles outside of town. The fee for a day is about 8 bucks, so we signed in for 2 days worth of park, maybe getting that third day on the house if we exited the park by 4pm on Wed. And the climbing began from the get-go. First there was a steep little cookie climb that Barney just hammered up, and then we hit some dippsy doodles up and down along the coast until the biggie – the French Mountain climb. This was a solid 6K climb at about 10% grade, and you peak out at 455 meters. Let me tell you that I have not climbed anything this long since my youth of this trip back in BC. This was a for-real mountain climb in all respects but the altitude. It took a solid 45-55 min to top out at.
My legs were not feeling their best today, and that was good, because I could stop at literally every turn-off and take pics of this fantastic landscape unfolding before us – and not feel like I had to just keep hammering and holding down a rhythm. Today – my rhythm was NO rhythm! As we started the French Mt climb there were just these wonderful vistas around nearly every curve, vistas of the ocean, and the tops of these awesome peninsulas that jutted out into the ocean. And I’d come to one of these vistas, and I’d just be dripping with sweat, as the humidity is just off the charts thick. I’d have to towel off my head, hands, arms and shoulders before I got my cameras out so as to not get them drenched in sweat. The climbing was all little cookie to be sure, and usually in the last 3 gears, but my shifting is not A-game, and I cannot get into my second easiest gear, so I was forced to use either a gear that’s too easy, or one that’s too hard while seated climbing. Out of the saddle I was fine, but you cannot go 45-55 min all out of the saddle on this pup.
Barney climbed great today, and there were stretches where I’d take shots of him climbing up towards me, and then visa versa. There was another fellow we met coming up the climb, a dude from Montreal, who’s done Alaska to this point here – and I thought I’d gone a long way. This dude must have 1500-2000 miles on me – and I’m almost at 5600 miles. Barney tells me that this guy did like 2G’s worth of riding on gravel road out of Alaska. Makes our little 8-mile foray on the bike and hike trail yesterday sound like child’s play!
Well, old French Mt climb was a long one indeed, with a ton of pic opps along the way, and I finally topped out with Barney taking some shots of me with a thumbs up signal at the top. Then we just rode along this broad expanse of mountaintop for must have been 5-6 miles. This was moose country for sure, as you could see the giant hoof prints in the mud pools alongside the road, and these game trails that lead into the bush, where here it’s just like Newfoundland, that the game trails just lead into a tangle of stunted pine tree thickets and marshland. Go hiking off trail in a place like this and it’s pure hell moving even 100 yards! The bush will literally scrape the clothing right off of your body.
We noodled along the top hoping for a moose sighting, but no go. Then, at a vista point where we took a half hour’s break, a tourist had said that she just saw a moose and it’s young back where we were riding. Ate some beef jerky at the vista, and then did the descent, a series of sharp switchbacks that take you just about back down to sea level. I probably braked more on these switchbacks than I have in the last 2 months of riding. You had to really brake going into the turn, and then let it roll through the turn, straighten up, and then get ready again to brake into the next turn. Over and over. I hadn’t much of a chance to lean with my bike on this trip, but today on this descent was an exception. So we go down to Pleasant Bay, and we saw a sign for a Hostel, with beds for 27 bucks. Checked it out, and no one was inside. We wanted to see if the wifi was good first so we both brought our computers in and tried getting online. No go. So Barney phones the owner for instruction on how to book a bunk and how to get the wifi, as we had done about everything we could by that point. She said that the wifi was ok, and that there were bunks available. So we just sat in the living room typing in the access code time after time – wrong! Finally typed in the code, this long series of yellow shaded numbers and non shaded letters and bingo. ON. So here we sit right now. I’ve skyped, emailed, blogged, and now my appetite is ready to take over. So I’ll sign off for now and finish after the rest of the day unfolds. Late.
Alright, just back from dinner. We had a great dinner at this little place called the Rusty Anchor. Of course I had to have the seafood chowder, which was quite good, but not the homerun we had in Quebec, and had a seafood linguini, which was stellar. But problem was that little gremlin in my belly calling for more, more, more. So I ordered the fishcakes for dessert while Barney had the multi-berry pie and icecream. And just to top things off, on the walk back to the hostel, we stopped at a little store and I got a double scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough icecream. Good, but still hungry. Oh well, had to leave it at that!. Got back and I skyped a bit, and now just chilling in the living room of the hostel with Barney doing the rest of my blogging.
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