Day 7

Today's ride profile

Today was tough. Though the mileage isn’t super high, the terrain to gain those miles was easily the toughest of this trip so far.

Last night before I turned in for the night I ended up having a chat on the phone with my good friend Graeme. He’s a friend that I made while I was on the Tour d’Afrique earlier this year. An Englishman by birth who now calls Australia home – Graeme is on a dream enchainment of cycle tours. Prior to riding the length of Africa, he rode from Paris to Beijing. At the moment he’s riding coast to coast in Canada before riding across Australia next year and doing a loop of South America shortly after. Suffice to say he’s riding his bike around the world in the span of about two years. The guy’s a legend.

Anyway, I was chatting to Graeme on the phone last night because he is currently about 600km to the west of me and heading my way. We’ve managed to sort out where we are going to pass each other along the way and have conspired to stop for the night in the same town of Thunder Bay – how random is that!

The net result of this planning is a sudden (well it never was far from my thoughts) impetus to get the lead out and start making tracks. With my knee almost back to normal I have the overwhelming desire to have some monster days in the saddle.

This morning I woke amped and ready to go. I flew out of Sault Ste Marie and was soon skirting the edge of Lake Superior. The terrain has changed. Where southern Ontario is rolling farmland, this is the Canadian Shield. Rocks, trees and hills, lots and lots of hills. At first the hills were short and easily surmounted but as I continued along the lake I encountered some gynormous mountains to summit. I’m not overstating this; they were monsters that took 30minutes to climb in my granny gear maxing out at about 8kph.

There was a thick mist in the air all day. So thick that I turned on my blinking tail light for much of the ride – so that the plentiful weekend traffic could be well warned of my presence. On the inevitable downhill’s the fog was so cold that I almost wished to go up again to warm up – almost.

After 134km I arrived at Lake Superior Provincial Park. I was hoping to push it out to about 150km today – but my next option for a campsite was at the 195km mark. Too far, damn. So I camped here, right beside the lake in a fog filled family oriented campground. All around me are tent trailers, motor homes and tents large enough to park an SUV in. there beside all the big rigs is my little tarp – I feel like a refuge or something.

Tomorrow I’ll try and ride about 150km to help me get to Thunder Bay a little earlier in the day on Thursday. Amazing the knock-on effect of this sort of travel. Do 10km extra per day for a week and you are nearly a day ahead of schedule. Well time to crawl under my tarp and get some sleep – I’m sure it won’t take me long tonight.

Recap:
Distance - 143km
Location – 20km north of Montreal River in Lake Superior Provincial Park
Accommodation – camping
Meal of the day – cold can of tuna for dinner
Beard status – I look like a hobo that broke into a bike shop
Song of the day – Alive – Pearl Jam
Photo of the day – The Fog