Well after getting caught in the thunderstorm on Thursday, I was a little gun shy on Friday. Forecast was full of thunderstorm warnings and even a tornado warning beginning around noon. So I bailed early in Peterborough. Grabbed a campsite and was all set up by noon to ride out any storm. And nothing all day. A bit of rain rolled in around 6pm, but nothing serious....could have logged a few more K's, but I put the downtime to good use....making a new plan of course. Found out my son who lives in Seattle and maintains a home in Richmond Hill was flying in on Saturday. Perfect timing. So instead of swinging a little north to the old family homesteads, I'd swing a little south to Richmond Hill. The Ontario portion of this trip was going to be a speed run Ottawa to London. It's now turning into a wanderfest like my days touring NS.
So, new plan in hand, got up and away on time from Peterborough for the easy 130k ride into Richmond Hill. But for some reason Ontario has it in for me. It threw the thunderstorm at me on day 1 and then the threat of even crazier stuff on day 2. Day 3 it decided to hit me with wind. All that good luck I've had all trip was getting cancelled out in Ontario. The wind was brutal. Average speed dropped to 18 from a good day of 26, and a slow day of 21. And when the wind wasn't brutal enough it threw in some crazy roller coaster hills in the ski country north and east of Toronto and then some rain of course and a 10km long stretch of road construction....you know where they tear off a layer of pavement leaving a pitted and streaked layer. I guess if you're going to have bad luck, you might as well get it all over with at once. Even the Timmies I pulled into around noon to update people on my progress didn't have wifi...... they ALL have wifi!!!! Toughest day by far even at only 130k. At 60k I was already kind of beat up and an hour behind, I had serious doubts that I was going to last...but managed to roll into Richmond Hill around 4:00. Multiple stops just to rest and the granny granny gear on the hills and sometimes just to fight the wind. I hadn't even got out of the big chain ring in the past couple of days. My bike has the bar end shifters so you get used to the position of the shifters. Today you'd be riding along a flat section coming up to a hill...you'd reach for the shifter to move it to the middle ring like you've been doing for four weeks and find you're already there because of the wind. So you try to pedal harder because no way you have to drop down to the granny chain ring for this stupid hill...until you realize that, yup, you do. 7 km/hr on an incline....not big enough to even call it a hill. Brutal!!
I'm not sure what Ontario has left to punish me with.....not sure I want to find out. I'll spend an extra day here in Richmond Hill and then back to wandering mode heading for the family homesteads. Then maybe London if nothing else comes up. The way Ontario is going, something is going to come up. In the meantime the bike is good, the trailer is awesome, the body has recovered from the car days enough that I can once again get dressed without some weird manoeuvres, and I have a plan. Life is good.
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