Today: 95.5 km
To date: 3,761 km
To go: 4, 039 km
We finally entered the hills we had been hearing about since Manitoba. This area has been claimed to be worse than BC because of the steep grades – and after today’s introduction, I do in part agree. It was definitely more difficult than climbing the Rocky & Columbia mountain ranges – but not the Coast Mountains! Those by far stand out as the worst …… or the best depending on how you look at it (quick recap, 15km up, 4.5 hrs riding, up to 12% grades).
To explain the map on the left (which I probably should have done about 50 posts ago) – the elevation changes are below the route map and the highlighted gray areas are the climbs worthy of being rated. Map My Ride (the website I use) rates the climbs based on steepness and length on a scale of 1 (almost death itself, aka Coast mountains) to 5 (just some shortness of breath). As you can see – today had 6 notable climbs with the hardest at a level 3.
Wow I seem to have written two whole paragraphs without mentioning food…. this sure is unusual.
Rossport Marina
I normally write these posts looking back over my notes for the day – but I must have been tired (all the hills!) because all I have in my journal is – Rossport: Lost my helmet. We stopped in Rossport for lunch/dinner and it was a delicious change to normal diner food – I had smoked salmon lox and a ceasar salad! Yum. We wandered around the harbour which was where I took my helmet off and never picked it up again. I remembered it much later in the day and many hills climbed – I could not bring myself to go back for it.
We stopped in Schreiber for the night – and were going to forgo another meal (hah who are we kidding!), but the one restaurant in town pulled us in: greek salad and a roast turkey dinner… and pie of course. I had the brilliant idea (sarcasm) of riding to the beach in hopes of finding somewhere to set up camp…… I did not realize however that it was 2km down a 12% hill….. fine tonight, but that means climbing first thing in the morning. Alex was already giving me a hard time about avoiding beautiful places because I was scared of hills…. so I felt my best option was to just bite my tongue and ride on.
And it was worth it.
It’s a beauty!
This is a video Alex took of part of a climb and a long descent going into the Rossport area – I tried to edit it to shorten it, but cannot seem to figure out this iMovie thing….
Categories: Across Canada, Biking, Ontario
Ottawa – Masson 
Kaladar – Ottawa 
Peterborough – Kaladar 
Scarborough – Peterborough 
Just Ambling 
Hey, we were thrilled to receive your card from Elora area and then the terrific postcard from Niagara Falls… you are on the adventure of a lifetime…. We wish you all the best and look forward to reading more of your adventures….. ride on! Carolyn and John, Owen Sound