To Barrie and beyond!

So I left you all the night before i was to embark on my bike journey from guelph to my parents place (north of barrie). To prep for this i had google mapped a route, written it all out, brought a map that i thought was suffiicient (note that i thought it was sufficient...), i ordered a large cheeze pizza to take with me for snacks. packed some extra drink crystals, filled my h20 bottle, filled my paniers with cliff bars, and went to bed.

woke up the next morning early. i wanted to be on my bike around 7 (i think). christine took some photos for me:



Handlebar set up, with ever important left and right on hands.



all ready to go





And then i was off. Things started out smashingly. the weather was lovely, light wind. i felt great. the cold pizza was awesome. Then i hit an odd turn just around rockwood area. thinking i knew what i was doing i biked merrily on. and on and on. then i hit hwy 124. i wasn't supposed to be anywhere near hwy 124. this was a problem. thankfully i hit it right where a gas station was, i went in and got myself a better map (with backroads!) found where i was, where i was suppposed to be, took in the realisation that i had biked about 20 km off track, sighed, and got back on my bike. On the right track again i hot some pretty awesome hills. if you have never been to chetlanham badlands by bike i recommend it. it's quite the trip.



The roads are as hilly as the badlands.

the next stretch was quite nice along the trans canada trail from Inglewood to Tottenham. Nice packed stone. flat flat flat! i had a lovely lunch with christine's mom in the tdot. (tottenham that is), then carried on. where i met with the worst road to bike on i could have coem across. it was so nice and flat, but so gravely and rocky it made it feel like my nice padded bike shorts weren't even there.  



Doesn't look that bad from here.

      
But persist i did over 10km of the stuff. Aweful. But at the end of the road, i stopped to take a bike and had a lovely converstation with a fellow biker that had jsut came up the same aweful road. He was very excited about his new spedometer thing on his bike and was going down hills as fast he could trying to beat his speeds. i'm glad he was wearing a helmet.



End point for the day



Wind catcher in barrie



I pulled into barrie late in the afternoon and called my sister to come get me. i told her i'd bike towards her and whereever we meet we meet. I made it to shanty bay. biking a total of 150ish km (including the unintentional detour) in one day. and i didn't feel that bad at all.

Then i stayed two nights at my parents place (one to see my sisters dance recital andone for birthday cake!) then i packed my stuff up again, ready to make the return trip. my dad drove me to the south end of barrie to start my trip off. I took a slightly differnt route going home that would avoid the above road from hell. this  new road, although paved had its nice share of hills. i credit this ride as to why the hills on the bike rally didn't really seem all that bad. The closer i got to home, the harder it became to peddal. i took more and longer breaks. i was ready to get off my bike, then i arrived in rockwood. i wasn't supposed to be in rockwood...that same turn that messed me up on my way to barrie messed me up on my way home. but rockwood was a nice detour. I'll end this now as it is getting long but lo and behold, i made it to guelph over 250km return trip. A great way to see if my body could take the pounding of the 600 km i was about to do.  

Home sweet home (and a giant beard!)