the wind was behind me, the sky was blue and even though i was sad to leave my family (i always am - even when i leave to go to work in the morning!), i was also very excited to finally be starting off on something i had dreamed about for 34 years and planned for over a year. the road stretched out in front of me.
before i left, i remember thinking about the three big fears i have of biking alone. in no particular order - dogs, flat tires, and thunder storms. not cars? not trucks whizzing within a metre of my body at over 80 kilometres per hour? nope, dogs, flats, and lightning. i had covered every eventuality but i remembered that when i had my bike overhauled at wild rock, where the bike received all sorts of care and whatever else at the hands of “wicked wrench” matt (also my neighbour and duathlon partner), i had meant to get them to give me an extra inner tube. of course i totally forgot . . . . . what could happen?
so off i went down the road, hand waving, wheels careening wildly side-to-side until i reached the corner and lost sight of my family at which point i was free to get involved with the task at hand. after leaving the western fringes of peterborough suburbia, i flew along lansdowne street until i reached the the outskirts of town where i then joined hwy. 28 which ends up in port hope.
hwy 28 has a posted speed of eighty kp/h which means that as a cyclist, you share a skinny lane with whatever chooses to use the highway. trucks, buses, motorcycles, cars, rvs, all blow by with impunity. eventually you get accustomed to it, the sudden onrush of noise and physical presence on your left-hand side, the occasional dusting by a truck which forces you to grip white knuckle tight to the handlebars, and happily, the sucking vortex that follows anything large that passes you. this vortex can add five or ten kilometres to your speed for up to fifty metres depending on how fast the vehicle was moving and how large it was, the downside to that is that it takes something of your control away from you. god help you if two trucks in a row pass you closely because the combination of vortex and dusting can cause a lot of terrifying knees-turning-to-jelly type moments.
i will say this here and may say it again later - i had nothing but the utmost consideration and goodwill shown me by all drivers who passed me. no yelling, no swearing, no objects thrown, no horns honking, nothing that would suggest that they were in any way chafed or bugged by my presence. i don’t drive but i can truly appreciate the challenge of passing a cyclist on a highway with oncoming traffic an ever-present consideration as you try to give a reasonable bit of space between yourself and the cyclist.
so i rode along hwy. 28 out of peterborough
and eventually entered the somewhat nebulous community of fraserville which is scattered across a wide enough area to make locating its epicentre well nigh impossible. there is very little i can tell you about fraserville other than it is situated in a mixture of woodland, farmland and bog. it has a cemetery and a post office in somebody’s house on a rural road. riding on i came across the kawartha downs harness racing track and stock car track. here’s what that facility looks like from the air . . .
the racetrack facility is now attached to what is known as “the slots” where you can find people pitching money into more than 375 slot machines. i have known people who have won considerable sums of money there but i have never been and may never choose to do so. it’s not just my own knowledge that i will earn every penny that i have to spend that makes me cautious. it’s the knowledge that i am not very good at losing when there’s still a chance i might win, and that’s what makes those places do so well.
so moving right along, the road was being repaved along this stretch which made for some lovely smooth riding - a blessing to my body which at this early point was fine. the scenery is kind of closed in by the trees on either side which is fine but just south of fraserville the roadside opens up and there is a lovely “new” golf course that has been under construction for years it seems but which is now in operation. here’s what it looked like when they were building it . . .
and here it is now . . .
i am not a golfer, in fact mini golf is as close as i have come. i have played miniature golf in holland, germany, wales, scotland, england, canada, and in many of the united states but never a game of “real” golf. the closest i came was once when i went to a driving range and nearly killed my principal at the time when i swung and sliced the ball so sharply that it actually ricocheted off the side of the booth i was in and whistled by the startled visage of my nominal leader! i bought him a beer to mollify his ruffled composure.
past the golf course, the hills start to show up, nothing big going this way, more downhill than uphill in fact but there are a couple of good climbs that remind me how lucky i am to have a 24 speed with a good range of gears. the next little town is bailieborough. bailieborough, ontario which is in the township of cavan maintains close ties with the town of bailieborough in the county of cavan in ireland. bailieborough is a lovely little town, with the emphasis on little! it was there, as i passed by the gas station / general store
that i heard and felt a dreaded kerthump kerthump kerthump kerrrrrthump and looking down saw one of my three fears realized. a flat tire. twenty kilometres out of peterborough - 45 minutes into my ride for my first day and i have a flat. remember i left without an extra? so i pulled into the gas station, hauled out the cell and phoned my wife. i won’t relay the details of the conversation but the slight frost coming through the earpiece was very refreshing on my otherwise warm ear. it wasn’t long before she showed up and i packed my bike in the trunk of what she calls “the beater”. her other car is a really pretty little miata two seater so i get why the family vehicle is less attractive to her. anyhow, back we went to my buddy matt at wildrock back in peterborough where i got two new tires and an innertube installed and bought a spare innertube for good luck!! we drove right back to bailieborough where my wife dropped me off. here she is waving a cheery goodbye . . . .
oh and i should mention that when i asked what would happen if i got another flat and needed to phone her . . . “don’t phone me”, was her curt and cheery answer!so, newly outfitted with fresh tires and a new innertube i set off again under beautiful skies. the ride unfolded through lovely countryside and while i was constantly on edge waiting for another flat, i was able to really appreciate the beautiful scenery especially as i passed through the drumlin fields northwest of rice lake. it is the drumlins and especially the oak ridges moraine that provide the climbs but when you reach the top, they also provide the extraordinary views.
here's an image i found on the net of rice lake that is much nicer than the one i took from the road . . .
after i skirted the west end of rice lake along a very long “s” curve, the long climb up and over the oak ridges moraine began. approaching from the north, the climb is much shorter than travelling from the south . . . did that make sense?! oh well! the next stop for me was at herma’s food and treasure emporium. the nice thing about herma’s - in addition to its amazing range of good food and the aforementioned treasures is that it represents the 2/3 mark of the ride to cobourg. i stopped there to buy a juice but they had none in the fridge and so amazingly, one of the women who works there went into the employee fridge and gave me a bottle of water for no charge! she said “i’m a cyclist as well”. sometimes the cycling world can be a snotty gearhead fraternity but more often, cyclists take good care of each other and this was one of those fortuitous occasions when a really cold water was just the ticket. i hoovered it back and then headed off after taking this picture of myself at herma’s front door . . .
a little more riding and i was able to stop on the middle of the bridge over hwy. 401.
the four-oh-one as we call it, is one of the busiest and widest highways in the world and enjoys the distinction of being the busiest highway in north america.
it would have been a lot quicker for me to have ridden along it towards kingston but not only would that have been uglier, noisier and more dangerous but also against the highway traffic act which prohibits bicycles from what are called 4-series highways. makes sense to me.so after a quick thought about that i headed down into port hope which sits snugly on the shore of lake ontario.
port hope has lots of history in its relatively small boundaries. in 1793, united empire loyalists became the first permanent settlers of european heritage in what was then known as smith's creek named after a former fur trader.
it was renamed in 1817 as port hope, after the township of hope of which it was a part, which in turn had been named for colonel henry hope, lieutenant governor of quebec. port hope has been celebrated as possessing the best maintained nineteenth century streetscape in all of ontario and is well worth a visit. i flew through it this time and succeeded in getting briefly lost as i negotiated a few hairpin turns with traffic lights on them with more of an eye to speed than direction but i was soon back on the right route with seven km. left before my destination for the day. when you leave port hope you finally join the waterfront trail which i mentioned in yesterday’s blog as being a route that extends from niagara falls to brockville. this means that for this section between port hope and cobourg, a dedicated paved shoulder with big white stencils depicting a stylized bicycle are provided. yes you’re riding right next to a highway (hwy. 2) but it’s generally smooth, generally safe and as long as you keep your eyes on the road you can really fly on this surface. this section is about half to a full kilometre from the lake but you can still get some lovely views.
so within what seemed like just a few minutes i had travelled the seven kilometres to cobourg,
adopted home of my parents and my aunt. at the end of the street my parents live on is this lovely view - usually without a bicycle lounging provocatively against a street sign! i took this to show the route sign that directs cyclists along the waterfront trail route. 
today's ride - 50 kilometres. tomorrow, from cobourg to belleville.
No comments:
Post a Comment