The last day of our tour was upon us, and it was looking like it would be a doozie. It was to be our longest day at over 96km to the southwestern suburb of Barrhaven in Ottawa. There were very few towns we’d be going through for chances to stop. We’d be traveling across (ok, maybe in the narrowest-possible way) the province of Ontario from the shores of the St. Lawrence River and the border with the USA to the shores of the Ottawa River and the border with Quebec.
The previous night, we’d decided that we’d get Chris’ broken spokes taken care of before leaving town. The bike shop downtown, Cranks Bicycle Shoppe, didn’t open until 10:00, so we had some time in the morning to explore St. Lawrence Park, and maybe even take a swim at the beach before heading out.
Our weather overnight had been lovely. Not one drop of rain, and temperatures dropped down to around 13°C (55°F) making it perfect for sleeping. I woke to another beautiful, sunny sky.
Finding only Alina was awake, we made our way down to the beach to find a bunch of dogs playing fetch with their owners in the water. They were having a great time running, jumping, swimming and splashing in the crystal clear water. We sat and watched on the raft as balls were thrown, fetched and hogged by the various dogs all over the beach and in the water.
Chris later joined us down at the water and took in the sights. We were just about ready to jump in the water when one of the dogs decided to relieve itself in the water. Full-credit goes to the dog’s owner who went scuba-poopa-scoopa for the dog’s business in the water, but after the beach had already been closed the previous day for E. Coli bacteria levels the day before, we weren’t about to jump in anymore with dog doo floaties!
With swimming cancelled, we decided to take a tour around the park before making our way back to our site to start packing and having some breakfast. Peanut butter and honey on pitas with apples were tasty and satisfying. Before we knew it we were packed up and ready to head downtown for some spoke-fixing!
Chris and I rode ahead while Ilya and Alina put the finishing touches on packing up. A short ride later and we were wrestling our laden bikes through the front door at Cranks. Unfortunately, the store wasn’t willing to take Chris’ bike in for priority service, not sure if they even had spokes to use to do the job. As quickly as we came in the door, we were turned away. With our last chance at fixed wheels gone, we hoped Chris’ wobbly wheels could carry him for the day’s journey.
Our quick in-and-out of the bike shop meant that we’d still get going out of Brockville at a reasonable time, and with Ilya and Alina pulling up, we decided to make a quick stop off for some water and snacks at the grocery store before heading out of town. Alina sent Ilya in to the store not needing anything, and I headed in looking for apples, granola bars and some watermelon spears to snack on. I came out of the shop with my supplies and offered to share the watermelon while we waited for Ilya.
When Ilya finally emerged with only a single 1.5L bottle of water, Alina was furious! All morning she’d been saying she wasn’t picky about the taste of water, and had filled up at the campground. Not sure why she had expected Ilya to mind-read her desire for bottled water, but there it was. Another run into the store for more water, and some tempting oatmeal cookies, and Alina was ready to go too. No store stop on the trip without a story to tell afterwards! With that out of the way, we headed out of town.
I wasn’t familiar with the route we were going to take out of Brockville, so I followed Google Maps’ directions closely out of town. It had us take a very meandering route through Brockville, and then eventually had us out on Centennial Road. That road’s terrible pavement and heavy traffic had me dreading the rest of the day to come. Luckily for us, we went through an intersection with North Augusta Road and all the traffic went left or right on North Augusta while we went straight through. It was clear, quiet sailing, and the pavement was also better. Yahoo, all that’s left to do is to do the riding for the day.
The day’s riding was mostly along reasonably quiet county roads through rolling countryside and farmers’ fields. The day was getting warmer. Not really humid, which was nice, but definitely warmer than the previous day had been. As we continued, Ilya noticed his bike was making a really strange, irregular, long squeaking noise, which had him concerned. My bike’s left crank was making a pretty awful noise on just about every pedal stroke, and Chris’ wheels were as wobbly as ever. The bikes were not holding up under the stresses we were putting them through.
After some time, we came to an intersection where we had to turn off the county road to the left onto a much smaller side road. The intersection was a bit busy, and Ilya, either not noticing that it was, or not knowing what to do at at a semi-controlled intersection came to a complete, dead stop in the middle of the intersection. I barked in anger at him as I slammed on my brakes and swerved around him, nearly causing Alina and Chris to crash into me in turn. Furious that Ilya didn’t seem to know how to use the road, I rushed up the hill and continued on to try to blow off steam.
I eventually stopped to have a snack and some water, and when Chris and the group arrived on the scene, they were none to pleased I’d biked off without them. When my suggestion at taking a short detour to the town of Kemptville, Ontario was rebuffed, I got even more upset. This day was going to be our longest day, by far, and we were going to forego the rest and morale boost of a full-fledged lunch stop? Whatever, I thought. Lets make our last day a death march then. We had quite a spat about not knowing how to use the road, and what a terrible group leader I was being. In the end everyone rode off in silence and it wasn’t for another several kilometers before we said a word again.
Eventually, we broke the silence when, just before Oxford Mills, we decided we should stop for a water and snack break again. By this point, everyone was getting tired and thirsty enough that the thought of stopping for a full lunch was sounding much more appealing. Luckily, we were still not too far for the detour to Kemptville was far out of our way, so I altered our route, and we were on our way.
Spirits were higher when we crossed over Highway 416. It was just a few kilometers down the road before we were to cross back over the highway again to come back to Kemptville. Little did I know that this stretch of the road was to be one of the most trying of the whole trip.
By this point, we were all hot, had sore bums and legs and were getting quite tired. Chris’ bike was having a lot more troubles going the slower speed of the rest of the group, and Ilya just liked going faster than I did. So I stayed back with Alina and we chatted while we rode. Having Chris and Ilya so far ahead must have felt like pressure was on her, cause she started to get pretty anxious. By the time we caught up with Chris, having a break, and fixing Chris’ brakes, Alina was ready to call it quits. She was tired, cranky and in need of some good food and cold drink. After some discussion that we were all tired, just didn’t complain quite as much, we were back on the road and pulled into Kemptville about 20 minutes later.
As we rolled through the downtown, we didn’t see a single restaurant until we made it over a bridge and found 3 pubs on all corners of the T intersection. Choosing the one with the waterside patio, we made our way down to Salamanders. Our server was super-nice, he was a former bicycle tourist himself, having once completed a trip from Montreal, Quebec to Peterborough, Ontario (a distance of 450km or 280 miles) in three days, he could totally relate to our craving of huge amounts of ice-cold water on our way out.
With a giant, late lunch in our bellies, and a great respite from the saddle, we were into the home stretch. There was less than 30km (20 miles) to go until we reached our destination.
Based on my experience driving into Ottawa on some of the back roads, I thought it would be nice to take River Road along the Rideau River into the city. It was hard to get Google to plot a bicycle route along this road, and soon we figured out why! For most of it’s length there was no shoulder, terrible pavement and highway-like levels of traffic. It really was terrible. I was hoping that things would improve when we crossed the Ottawa city limit, as I could recall years ago the road was resurfaced, and a bike lane was added. But alas, that was mostly a memory.
(Note the bullet wounds on the sign. I thought Canada didn’t have much in the way of guns.)
It turns out the furthest 15km of the road hadn’t been improved, and only the last 10km of the trip along River Road had a bike lane and decent pavement. When we finally reached the turn for the bridge across the river, we were nearly home free!
Only a few verses of “Country Road” adapted to take me home to Barrhaven, instead of West Virginia, later before we arrived at Vera’s house where homemade beer and barbeque awaited us, thanks Vera!
After the great hospitality and company of friends, it was starting to get dark, and the draw of being only 15km (10 miles) from home was too strong. Originally the plan had been to stay the night at Vera’s, and make that last journey in the morning, but after some consideration, the group of four of us decided we’d rather sleep in our own beds. We all re-loaded our bikes, got our lights on, and hopped back on the road for our last leg of the journey together.
Luckily, it was all downhill, into the Ottawa Valley and closer to the river. The roads were relatively quiet for a Friday night too, and the whole ride was actually pretty serene. Everyone was proud of their accomplishment of the day and of the week. In all we each did over 100km for the day, breaking the century (albeit the metric century!) on our last day. Chris and I did a total of 114km (71 miles) in our slightly further trip to his house.
Overall, the trip had been a great success. Kudos to Alina and Ilya! They both did so well on their bikes, it was amazing to see. Congrats to Alina, Chris and Ilya on completing their first-ever bicycle tour. Riding with them was a pleasure, and I hope to be able to do another ride with them someday.
With that, our Kingston 2018 tour of eastern Ontario was over. It was time to have a shower, and relax before needing to pack-up and head back to San Francisco on Monday!