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September 19 Monday Bicycle touring from Toronto Ontario to Cook's Bay Ontario We got up at 7 AM. We got our bikes out and left after breakfast. Traffic wasn't bad at first but it got busier as we headed toward the major thoroughfares. We stopped at a Canadian Tire and I bought a can of fluorescent yellow spray paint. That'll brighten up my pannier covers. We are pedalling into a strong headwind. This morning it feels like I've been off the bike for weeks. My legs feel like lead. Heart attack. Is it cheating to hitch a ride while on a bicycle tour? We stopped at a mall beside Hwy 7 and Dixon Road. We eat leftover pizza for lunch. It is one PM and we've done a blazing twenty kilometres. Sometimes bicycle touring can be such a drag. We hit more wind. If there's one thing I hate about bicycle touring, it's wind. We are heading straight on Hwy 56, or Dixon Road, towards Lake Simcoe. There are hills. Wouldn't you know it. It has been a tough re-introduction to bicycle touring. Some trees have turned colour. They are looking good. We take a beautiful bike ride along Canal Road. I take a picture of a tree reflecting in a canal. We stop to look at the map. As we are stopped, my front bike tire explodes. unbeknownst to me, Sharon had pumped it up to 90 psi this morning. I had been keeping it at 80 psi ever since my back bike tire blew up. This one blew my bike tire completely off the rim halfway around. There is a big gash in the bike tube. I put on a new bike tire. I hate to imagine what it would be like if that happened when I was flying down one of those hills back there at 40 mph. Scary. We cycle in to a pick-your-own vegetable place. At first they wouldn't sell us half a basket of already-picked carrots. Sharon took a basket and we went into the fields -- the fields are almost a mile long -- to pick some tomatoes. She wanted corn too, but it is way at the end of another field. When we got back, the owners wouldn't charge us for anything. Then they gave us potatoes, cucumbers, celery, a big onion, and, oh yeah, half a basket of carrots. All free of charge. They also gave us a Canada pen each, too, so that we would remember them with every postcard we wrote. Touring by bicycle certainly brings out the best in some folks. We wobbled down the road on our severely overloaded touring bikes and were blown into Keswick just before dark. We found a park beside Cook's Bay, set up our Kelty two-man bicycle touring tent, and cooked hamburgers in the dark. It is still very windy. The good news is the wind keeps the bugs down. We took a picture of the sunset through two huge trees. Later the sun went nuclear and was a really spectacular red and orange. That's a great thing about touring by bicycle -- we get to see a lot of sunsets. |
