Home sweet home.

Day #39 & 40 Ottawa, rest days.

Canada Update #7

Main street Southern Ontario (Arnprior).

Day #38 Arnprior to Ottawa, 74 km.

A great day coming back into the city for the first time in over three years. I really wanted to make it a special homecoming and I think it worked out perfectly that way. Got home to a newly renovate home and met the folks.

The sights sounds and even smells were all too familier. Biking through my childhood.

Day #37 Stonecliffe to Arnprior, 174 km.

A great day in the Ottawa Valley! I knew I wasn’t gonna get home today so I chilled out and leisurely peddled my way through my own backyard and had one of my best days of the tour. The weather was perfect. And once again I do think that this is the best time of year to be doing this tour as the crops are in full bloom and ready to be harvested giving you perfect picture after perfect picture.

A long dull day of climbing stuff like this.

Day #36 North Bay to Stonecliffe, 144 km.

Woke up warm (I love my new sleeping bag) but everything was wet from the rain. I got out late as a result and just couldn’t get anything going this morning. Never the less after doing a full day in the rain yesterday I was lucky that I wasn’t sick as a dog. I didn’t get as far as I wanted due to the big steep hills that were in my way all day but I got far enough and when I found a campsite at 5:30 I decided to just pack it in.

Even though it was raining it was still a beautiful day to be out and seeing nature. In fact because it was my first real rain day till this point made it all the more interesting to me.

Day #35 Englhart to North Bay, 214 km.

I knew it was coming, but I finally got my first big, big rain day. Woke up early and tried my hardest to stay ahead of the front but it caught me and I spent the rest of the day dealing with fog, thunder and lightning, drizzle and every other type of precipitation outside of snow. I didn’t sit in s store all after noon or pack it in I knew I was due Never the less I didn’t complain and I took it like a man. And I hope I satified the rain gods. I was also happy that I made it to North Bay although I was cold and frozen. However, I over the last 5 days I knocked off more than 900 kms. Not too shabby.

The highway.

Day #34 Iroquois Falls to Englhart, 157 km.

A lousy day with a killer head wind. Anything over 15 kph was fast and at 3pm when I was taking my break I only had 99 km. Normally I have that much before lunch. By the end of the day I was worn out and pissed off at how little did over the last two days, but happy cause I found out that the day before I became an uncle.

Just another lake.

Day #33 Moonbeam to Iroquois Falls, 140 km.

Woke up full of piss and vinegar ready to try to knock off as many 200 km days in a row as I could. But there was just no jam in my legs today and I chugged along at a real slow pace. Today was the day I decided to head to Ottawa and that made me happy, so I crashed early and hoped for better tomorrow.

You make crazy good time when the roads are like this for a few days in a row.

Day #32 Middle of No Where to Moonbeam, 205 km.

My first back to back 200 km day, nice. Looks like my girly bod is finally catching up with my manly will. The main reason that I pulled it off is cause it is flat, flat, flat. This route is flater and straighter than anything I’ve ridden to date. And Quebec came early to my tour as everyone from Hearst on seems to speak french and my Japanese doesn’t seem to work as it’s the only thing that comes out when I try to speak another language these days.

At this point I was so far from anything there weren't even telephone poles on the side of the roads. It is odd, but that makes you feel pretty lonely.

Day #31 Jellico to Middle of No Where, 214 km.

I knew this was gonna be a huge day and I knew going in that I would be sleeping in the forest somewhere cause there are just no towns anywhere around up here, so I wanted to just go as far as I can and bike till dark. Other than that it was nice to finally be going east again after all the north and south I’ve been doing.

Just another highway shot.

Day # 30 Nipigon to Jellico, 123 km.

As soon as I pulled off the Trans Canada and onto the Norther Route everything was in slow motion. The road was great and the traffic was nonexistent. Unfortunately I could never really get my head into this ride and just kinda plodded along. Finally shutting it down in one of the coolest named towns in Canada.

42 km a day for 143 days. That equals over 5, 300 km and to date nearly 500 million raised for cancer research all done on one leg. Kinda makes you wonder what you or I could do if we put our minds to something? My hat is off to you Mr. fox. You were nails.

Day #29 Thunder Bay to Nipigon, 108 km.

Not bad considering I didn’t actually pull out of Thunder Bay till 2 pm thanks to my last Update taking so long. Anyways, the first thing you get to when you go east from Thunder Bay is the beautiful Terry Fox Memorial. This was the second time I was there and the second time that I nearly bawled because of it. After some time spent reflecting, I rode on the worst roads in Ontario for 100 km till 7 pm and stopped in Nipigon.

Kakabeka Falls. A 150 foot waterfall they call The Niagara of the North.

Day #29 Shabaqua to Thunder bay, 78km.

A relaxing day needed to get the bike checked and be in a city for an afternoon so I did an easy day. The problem with easy days is that you get out of the nice efficient routines you’ve worked so hard to create for yourself and end up wasting a lot of time for a day or two. However the geography around here is beautiful and the people are great.

Canada Update #6

This is pretty much all you get up in this parts over and over and over again.

Day #28 Ignace, to Shabaqua 185 km.

Today represented the worst aspects of biking through Northern Ontario. Either you have to stop at noon in Upsala or grunt out another 75km and hope there is a campsite along the way somewhere. At 8:30pm after going since 8:30am I got to Shabaqua and found out there were no campsites there either. So I ended up sleeping about 5 m from the Trans Canada on a bumpy hill and had my worst night of sleep of the tour. Plus I had a killer head wind. The head winds on the prairies are great compaired to here cause they are constant and come at you all day long. Because of the trees the curves in the road and the hills Ontario head winds gust and gust and gust and theat definitly wears you down a lot more. A crappy day as a result.

I really am having fun just watching how the roads twist and turn through the landscape.

Day #27 Vermillion Bay to Ignace, 158 km.

I was off and running by 8:30 and got to Ignace and camp at a decent time for once. I was having a really good day until the shoulders disappeared around Dryden. The old memories of crossing Ontario became all to familiar and the trucks came just a little too close for comfort.

The lovely and talented town of Kenora Ontario.

Day #26 Falcon Lake to Vermillion Bay, 170 km.

My first day back in Ontario. It is starting to feel like I’m home. This was another one of those landmark points I got to that was nice to pass but I did come in with a little nervousness about the work I had to do in this province and that it is a little more difficult to get don here. After Falcon Lake the hills start again and that slowed me down a little.

When you leave Banff you leave the coniferous forests of BC behind and when you get past Winnipeg the forests start again only now they are deciduous.

Day #25 Winnipeg to Falcon Lake, 155km.

A good day but a late start didn’t get out of the house till 12:00 cause they had me moving furniture. The road was flat and the traffic was really thin after Winnipeg so I made decent time. It was great to get back into the tent again especially with a sleeping bag as nice as the one I just bought.