I have been promising to open up a page on biking since I conceived my
home page back in the early months of 1997. I have just returned from
a trip cycling around Northern Ontario (Canada), Upper New York State, vermount,
and the picturesque pinusula of Picton, Ontario. This trip took about a
week to complete and started off in the last week of Septermber....brrr...it
gets cold...not to mention wet at times. But man is nature's canvas a joy to
behold in this part of the country. The other tactic to make a trip more
enjoyable is to become proficient at
minimal camping (tents, sleeping bags/underpad,
hot meal). This leaves you more time to enjoy the trip as you are not at
the mercy of some clerk on a busy Friday afternoon in some Hotel chain.
Cycling has always been my favourite mode of transport over dry land. It is akin to canoeing over water: One can take a power boat and get from point A to B in no time flat but the speed at which you can assimilate your surroundings and make a decision to STOP ...invariably forces you to NOT stop. In a canoe...you DO stop...you notice the swirl your paddle makes as it enters the water powers you forward. The treeline off to your right in infinitely more varied than you can imagine and its details gradually spring out at you as paddle by and around and nearer. Not that I have not be-laboured the point but I hope you get the gist of what it is like. The only better thing than cycling is walking...but it takes a wee bit more time than most of have. I hear that walking tours in Scotland are very popular, though.
Many kids remember getting their first bike. My parents eventually
bought a bike for us( four brothers) when I was 12 years old. My brother
Peter was just a year older than me and he has passed away due to
mysterious virus just a few months earlier...so the "kids" were getting
on with life. My dad had returned from
work the with the boxed folding contraption the night before and had
it assembled. We were up before the sun the next day. The one clear
thing that stood out was the deafening scream from a neighbour two houses
down: He poke his head from the second floor bedroom window (first and last
time I ever saw him at that particular window) and crooned " Will you kids
shut up". Like I said...biking is the max.
I am going to give a brief synopsys of trips made over the last decade and leave it to you to vote on which one I should provide detailed routes, places to stay, and places of interest:
- Glen Sutton/Jay Peak/Waterville/Hyde Park/Stowe/Mount Mansfield/ Smugglers Notch/Fairfax Tour : This tour was taken in 1983 with the Ottawa Outing Club. It was an incredibly well organized trip costing about $300 per person. I was young and in love and cycling with the person of my dreams. The trip had a sag-wagon in the form of a van that met with the group for lunch and at the the end of the day. Everyone was encouraged to cycle at their own pace and given maps with various turn-off and turn-on points and distance markers. We stayed at quaint "bed and breakfeast". To this day, I pick a "bed and breakfeast" over a hotel. I do not need my own phone or TV in my room.
- Saint John,New Brunswick/Digby(NS)/Annapolis Valley/Bay of Fundy/Wolfville/ Halifax,Nova Scotia: This was my first self planned and execute biking/camping trip. My girlfriend at the time help divide up the load for the week long excursion. I had just bought new front and back panniers from Mountain Co-op that I used to this day along with a Blackburn front low-rider racks. There are no paved shoulders on Nova Scotia roads (back in 1983) and you need to know to pull over when a half-ton is coming up behind you and at you at the same time on a two way one lane highway. Never made it to Cape Breton. Highlights for me were the Bay of Fundy, Acadia University and the pizza at the end of the trip.
- Calgary/Banff/Jasper/Train to Edmonton : What a trip in 1984. I was confident enough at this point to rally two of brothers to get off their behinds and cycle with me and my friend Brian. Brian where are you ???...send me a e-mail. I cannot describe to you the feeling one gets when the mountains begin to creep within your field of view. When stopped and took many pictures at the very first set of mountains...we later found out that these were just the beginning of the "Canadian Rockies". Lotsa of hostels and campgrounds along the route. Very gradual and sensible grade....c'mon even my "first time" brothers made it. We made a pit stop in Banff to replace the racing cluster with a wider range one...this after George's kneww started to blow up!
- Calgary/Banff/Jasper/Car to Edmonton : What a trip in
1990...I am fullfilling a long promise to take my wife(married in 1989) to
see the Athabasca Glacier. We met up with David from France who had cycle
across Canada and all the way from Montreal despite having one leg shorter
than the other. About 80 miles outside of Banff, my wife takes a mysterious
tumble(she does not recall the fall and no eye witnesses) as she rides ahead
a mile ahead of David and me. I am testing out David's loaded down mountain
bike which contains about 60 lbs (why am I talking miles and pounds in
Canada...)worth of gear. My friend,Mike, at Jasper Park lodge takes a day
off to pick us up after a night of observation. I am convinced the helmet
(Bell V1 Pro) saved my wife's life. One side of the helment has scratches and
the styrofoam liner has shrunk from 3/4" to about 1/4" due to the impact.
I am not so keen about my bike trip to Euroupe as I once was.
- Rocky Mountains...again: The rockies is a bike trip
that I could do once a year and never get bored...it is that special. My
friend David at work tells me that both this brothers, his mom and his dad
had all cycled in the rockies...except him. Guess what...I am back cycling
in the rockies in 1995. We have the latest technology at affordable prices...
our cyclmeters by Vetta tell us that we have travelled 600km in the course of about
7 days.
- Get back on that horse in Stowe..trip: My wife musters
enough gumption to get back on the bike for some extended biking. We retrace
some of our routes of our Vermount trip and add a tasted ou upper New York State/Adirondack
biking mixed in with a dose of Sandbanks Provincial Park. Can you hear
the sound of the waves coming into the bay lulling you to sleep...wonderful stuff.
- Maritime/Atlantic Provinces Trip . PEI is a near
cyclists
paradise but heading up north to popular Cavendish from central capital
city Charlottetown
is a trip for the more experienced/informed cyclists.
(i.e. if you see a bit camper coming at you from the distance and look back
over your shoulder to see the same coming at you from behind, then
I suggest you pull over onto the dirt shoulder :) )
After checking into the Cherry Tree House (B and B near Vernon Bridge)
in the mid-afternoon on
Thursday, we trip started off
with a two hour cycle ride two hours before dusk cycling around the pictureque
farms
and secondary roads surrounding Vernon Bridge. You could count the number of
cars encounter on two hands. The next day was spent in downtown shopping
and looking for some wrap for Doug and Suzanne's wedding gift. We
underestimate the time to traverse this "small" island by car and
to the 2 o'clock wedding in St Mary's Church (Souris) with two minutes
to spare. Saturday and Sunday was the overnight trip to PEI National Park,
near Cavendish, in which we covered a round trip distance of 140 Km
(more details later). Definitely enter Cavendish via the park entrance
(free to walkers and cyclists)
at North Rustico and get ready for the most amazing 10 km coastal ride
of your life...not quite as interesting by car, I imagine, but not bad.
The campsites at Cavendish are very nice and the roar of the Ocean can be
set to your preferred level by picking any one of about 300 campsites.
We make it back our car that Elsie/Joseph let us leave at their B and B
on Sunday at 6:15pm and dash off to Wood's Island at 6:20 pm
(fastest unpacking and bike attach job in my lifetime) from their place
to make the 7:30pm departure. We get to Nova Scotia, town of Caribou,
$46 poorer, and make headway for Bolyston Provincial Park.
After following poor road signs and exiting off two false secondary roads,
we find that it is no camping. We remember seeing a campsite sign
and chase this down. It is 11 o'clock at night and the private campground has
its car gate up. We park in the visitor's section and set up the tent
beside our car. After a long hot shower it is, thankfully, a clear night
out and we leave the tent fly off and nod off to the sight of star filled
sky...ahhh...camping. The next morning we are still into our biking routine of
waking up early and pack slowly. We head off at 7 for our destination
of Majestic Cape Breton. To be continued
-
Nothing quite like a walk in woods to cool the savage beast bought on from the life's daily battles to earn a living.
The niagra escarpement runs from Niagara Falls to Tobemory along a route called the
Bruce Trail . The
remenants of rocks dot the top of the escarpment where waters once ran fast and furious in the form of
underground caves and crevices. Imagine a "rock" tunnel some 20 ft long carved out by just water. Soothe the
soul and clear the mind by visiting Bruce.
- Toronto to Fergus Bike Loop
This trip marked a promise to a work colleague and friend after a bout
with cancer of his upper stomach. The promise involved a canoe trip but
instead became a bike trip that started from the porch of my house.
Along the way, we visited the campuses of McMaster and Guelph
University. A trip back in time landed us back with my grade eight
teacher and having burgers in his amazing dwellings in Fergus.
Brrr....its getting colder. Toronto blooms full of colour within a long Autumn season due to the moderating effects of Lake Ontario. A few good hikes worth taking are the Tom Thomsom trail established in 1994 gives you a glimmer of the beauty found in a mature forest. Book some time to peruse this jewel in the heart of the city and to get a feel for the beauty of this region prior to settlement. - Elora Gorge: The first thing I hear from the instructor is that two weeks ago on this very stretch of river, a person died. Canoeing on the Gorge is not for the feint of heart during high water...you must know what you are doing. I took a two day course with Rusty and Paul of Equinnox Adventures. They taught us "new school" techniques which basically center around gaining control by going faster than the water. This is fine when you have no equipment/bags/packs in the boat and if you have a Royalex/Polyethylene boat...am I expecting too much in a two day course. We learnt the concepts of tilting upstream, eddy-in/eddy-out and reading water. For $88, it was a great trip through a scenic surrounding. Sorry...no pictures.
- Palmer Rapids: If
you want to learn to canoe right, then Palmer Rapids is one of the most
amazing places to do it. It is a river that is about 100 yards wide
with water about 4 feet deep everywhere. This is exactly what you need
to do practice a lateral traversal of river (ferry) with no forward movement.
It is also the place where the WCA held it's annual water clinic run by
Jim Morris.
Our instructors were Jim and Hugh. They were from the "old school" meaning this is just what I was looking for. This means that will push people to go slower than the water to gain control. The idea in this case is essentially be able to "ferry" while pointing down the river as opposed to pointing upstream and against the current (when doing a upstream ferry). The old school techniques require skill in being able to steer a boat while going backwards in calm water...not many novice canoeist can do this for a number of reasons. Perhaps the most significant being that the person in the bow is usually the least experienced. Secondly, the stern tends to ride higher that the bow and this creates a situation where the boat can swing around in the current with the person in the stern pointing downstream. Below, you see the coolest capture of some big dragonflies at the bottom of the main chute at Palmer:
- Sea Kayaking at Dillon in 2006: This trip was my introduction to sea kayaking. It was my first meeting of my friend Alex and sometimes it is amazing that people share the same post-secondary education and somehow end up teaching at the same institutions. There are sections that are shallow out in the middle of the expanse which result in tides occuring out in the middle of nowhere. One of the kayaks upset that day (some blood shed) and we were taught some valuable group protocols and the importance of "enjoying a cup of coffee". Some of these made their way to my sister's wedding that occured about a month later. The trip was so fun that we re-did it with a younger group that had just graduated from high school the following year.
- Nahanni River is a trip with crazy logistics to get to the put-in point and an immense amount of food...but well worth it!
- Lake Superior: This trip has been a long time on the backburner. It was not the orignal canoe trip centered around the cove in Pukwaska but one done with sea kayaks due to safety concerns. On return, we took a beautiful hike to Agawa Falls.
- Germany Loop: It's been a while since I've updated this page. Click here to see a wonderful 3 week trip spanning about 1400 km in parts of Germany not often mention in tour books.
