2024-09-14: Ottawa to Sudbury

My time in Ottawa visiting with family had drawn to a close, and it was time to start my trip back to the San Francisco Bay Area. With my riding partner having flown back last weekend, it was due to be a very different trip on the return than it had been on the way out. But that would have to wait one more day, as my brother, Chris, was going to ride join me on this first day out to Sudbury, Ontario before returning back to Ottawa the next day.

We were up around 6:30, hoping to be on the road before 8:00. I broke down my cot, rolled up my sleeping pad and packed it all away in my brother’s closet for his next visitor to use. Then, it took a while for me to collect all of my stuff and strap in all my worldly possessions from the past three weeks onto the bike. We were on the road just a couple minutes behind schedule.

We took to the same country roads out of Ottawa that we had taken on the way in, but in the morning sunshine and surprisingly warm temperatures, it was a much more pleasant experience than the ride into town had been in the cold darkness three weeks previous. The was some fog in low-lying areas. Before too long, we had left the city limits, and jumped onto highway 417, continuing to head West. The divided highway ended not long out of Arnprior and we were on the Trans-Canada highway 17 that we’d be following for the rest of the day.

Chris had us plotted for breakfast bagels in downtown Renfrew, Ontario at Ottawa Valley Coffee, and just over an hour after hitting the road, we took our first break. The shop was a cozy, rustically-decorated one with all kinds of locally-crafted goods for sale in all the nooks and crannies around the store.

After coffee, it was through downtown Renfrew and back out onto highway 17. After passing through Cobden, Ontario we decided to take one of the old alignments of the highway that went right through the downtowns of Pembroke and Petawawa, Ontario to see how the towns were fairing, after many years of never having stopped in. Both were doing surprisingly well, with only a few storefronts for lease in the quaint, old downtown Pembroke, as well as many new subdivisions going up in Petawawa, with the Canadian Forces Base obviously thriving. At the static tank and helicopter display for the base, we made our way back to the highway.

Another 30 km (20 miles) up the road, we turned off to visit our maternal grandparents’ town of Deep River for a rest break and a coffee. We managed to find a local bakery downtown with some bistro seating and enjoyed some tasty treats and coffee in the gorgeous, warm weather. After the rest, we took a quick tour around town, checking out our grandparents’ old house and the waterfront before making our way back up the highway to get gas.

As I pulled into the gas station, my bike suddenly felt very sluggish and unresponsive to the throttle. Uh-oh. Did I have a flat tire? At the pump, I checked them both and they seemed fine. Not sure what that was. Full-up on gas, we got back on the highway yet again to continue our journey west.

Past Deep River, the scenery really became emblematically Ontario as the highway crossed along several gorgeous lakes, and alongside the Ottawa River with several overlooks and vista points along the way all the while the exposed granite of the Canadian Shield gave the terrain a rugged appearance. It was about 200 km (120 miles) before we reached the city of North Bay, Ontario.

As we entered North Bay and hit some of the traffic lights on the highway, my bike’s brakes wouldn’t release as we left the light. I was barely able to keep the bike from stalling, let alone get it to highway speed with the engine having to overcome the brakes to get going at all. I pulled over as soon as I could. It felt stronger, but very similar to what had happened back in Deep River when I’d tried to get gas. I got the bike up on the center stand and tried to see if I could get the problem to happen again. With the bike off, I was able to get the brakes to bind and not release. This led me to believe that it wasn’t an electronics problem with my bike’s servo-enhanced brakes, so that was a good thing. The only other thing we might be able to try was to try changing my brake fluid, since it had black flecks of debris in the fluid reservoir.

Since it was Saturday, we checked for an open motorcycle shop in North Bay, but found that all 3 of them were either not open on Saturday, or had already closed at 1:00pm. We scoured Youtube and Google for a tutorial video on doing a brake bleed on my bike, and found it was relatively straightforward, so it was off to Canadian Tire to get some brake fluid and a brake bleed kit. Unfortunately, thanks to a really dumb lost lawsuit, retailers in Ontario stopped taking back used automotive fluids like oil and brake fluid. Luckily my brother found the the City of North Bay’s hazardous waste disposal site wasn’t far away and was still open so we headed over there with all our brake bleed kit so we wouldn’t have to carry a jug of used brake fluid with us.

At the depot, as soon as we pulled in, a friendly staff member by the name of John asked us what we were up to, and offered us some cold cans of pop as we went to work. Having only done a brake bleed once before, on a bicycle, with less that great results, I was a bit nervous about trying to do the procedure on a dual-disc front brake on the first day of my return trip. Luckily we took our time, and after a bit less than an hour I was testing out the brakes again. John took all of our extra supplies, let us use the depot’s washroom to wash up and was happy to see us off on our way again. What a great guy!

Back on the road, we decided to skip stopping in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario with the failing daylight causing us to press on all the way to Sudbury, where we stayed at a hotel right downtown.

After a quick dip in the hotel pool, we walked down the main drag downtown to have a great meal at Respect Is Burning Kitchen and Bar as the place was very busy with all kinds of folks out enjoying the warm weather dining on the patio.

We walked back into the hotel and made a relatively early night of it. The next day we were going to split up, with Chris heading home, and me trying to make it as far around Lake Superior as I can on my first solo day of the trip back.