Canoe Lake to Madawaska: Giving touring cyclists a bad name

September 22, 2016

By the time I got off the water and had my bicycle delivered to me, it was 10:30 and I wanted to cover 80 km or more.

That was okay.

What was not okay was the route--along busy, hilly Highway 60, with a shoulder rumoured to disappear after leaving Algonquin. Highway 60 was the first road I had been on that was full of trucks and I wasn't looking forward to doing that without a nice shoulder.

I started up the first hill and realized that portaging had been harder on my legs than I thought--I didn't feel rested at all and the next two days were promising to be very difficult because of that.

I didn't have time to dwell on that, though, because I soon turned a corner and saw that fall had happened while I was canoeing, plus there was a touring cyclist at the side of the road.

Fall happened! And look, a touring cyclist, too!

He was heading to Barrie and was setting up some self-timed shots of riding on the road. I offered to take some photos for him, and he seemed pleased, but politely said, "I don't want to take you away from your ride."

Hm, he has a point. He's probably going to take some time getting a perfect shot. He picked a great place to stop. It's already late and this is promising to be a slow day. He probably shouldn't have given me that out, 'cause sometimes you just gotta take it.

And I rescinded my offer and continued on my way. Felt kind of bad about it, though.

I climbed some more hills. I stared at the road. It looked suspiciously like chipseal but didn't feel that rough or slow. Still, I decided that the parks people were a bunch of cheapskates, even though the province had probably paid for the road directly.

Then I thought about lakes. You know what's great about lakes? They're flat.

I stopped at the visitor centre for wifi and found it at the top of a very steep, definitely chipsealed road. I couldn't bring my food inside, so I sat outside and couldn't get wifi. The obvious conclusion was that Algonquin hates cyclists.

I asked a woman who had commented on my hilly ride, "Going east, do the hills get better or worse?"

"Hahahaha."

I asked a man who had commented on my hilly ride, "Going east, do the hills get better or worse?"

"Hahahaha."

I gave up entirely and was a bit dismissive toward the next people who spoke to me. Not my best cycling ambassador day.

At Whitney, people kept asking me if I was trying to stay ahead of the rain. I finally got the hint and asked someone about the weather forecast. You can probably guess what the answer was.

Ahead of me was an unpleasant, hilly, busy road full of trucks. I could see the first demoralizing hill from the centre of Whitney and it certainly looked like a bike-pushing hill. I did have another option, though: a snowmobile trail that was longer, slower, and made of sand, but had no traffic and was on a former rail line.

How bad could it possibly be?

For some reason, that thought still doesn't set off alarm bells the way it should. I thought the snowmobile trail sounded good. I continued to think that even as I had to push my bike through sand for the first couple kilometres, knowing the rain was closing in.

Most of it turned out to be rideable, some of it not, and I had fun skidding around, tiring as that was (and sometimes terrifying, with sharp drop offs on both sides of the path). The best part was the trail ran next to a pretty river which alternated rapids with placid sections, and the trees along the water were showing some intense red colours.

It wasn't so bad; even with all the slow sections, I was on track to reach Madawaska before dark. I congratulated myself on a good gamble.

There was broken caution tape hanging here and there along the path. This was formerly blocking a bridge with some interesting gaps in it.

And then it happened.

The trail left the railbed and veered off to the side, right up a hill. No longer sand, it was sand and dirt mixed with loose rocks. I was sweating and gasping trying to hold the bicycle upright while pushing it uphill; the tires kept sliding out. I had to take breaks every few metres because my upper body was so tired from canoeing.

But even then I thought it was a short detour, maybe the trail was washed out--it had been blocked off by large rocks, it didn't used to go up a minor cliff. This diversion would be a short one.

But no. It went up and kept going up and then went up some more. Some 45 minutes later, I reached the highest point of land around. I'm not exaggerating at all--I caught glimpses of a panoramic view through the trees.

It was raining by then and the trail had joined a logging road, but the surface didn't improve. The forest was hideous here, and didn't look logged, but more like an angry machine went on a rampage and knocked over every tree in its path. There was a cloud of flies following my every move and the steepness of the hill had caused my shoes to rub the skin off both my ankles, so every step was painful as well as difficult. The only redeeming feature of this route was there was nobody around to tell me what an idiot I was.

When I finally saw the snowmobile path descend toward the river, I had had enough. I just wanted to get out of there and decided to follow the logging road until it went somewhere, preferably the highway. It changed direction a lot but it seemed like it was going in the right direction.

I kept pushing the bike. The road wasn't even on my GPS map so I could only hope it was taking me somewhere.

And it was--it took me right through a pasture that also happened to be private property. I hoped I could make it out without being seen but the road turned sharply and suddenly I was right next to the house, still pushing the bike.

A pickup truck drove up beside me then, and a young guy who looked amused said, "Lost?"

"Yeah, a bit. Just trying to get back to the highway. It's this way?" I pointed, and he confirmed it was. "This is your property? Sorry 'bout that."

Then I saw the other man, the one standing in the doorway of the house, and he did not look at all amused. I tried to look as apologetic as possible while continuing to move in the direction that would get me off his property and was extremely relieved when I finally reached the highway, after 1.5 hours of pushing the bike.

Completely spent, I decided it was a good night for a motel, and found the All Star Resort, where the woman quoted me $95 plus tax for a room, which was too high for me but she couldn't make a deal.

I wished her a good evening and was getting back on the bike when she stepped outside the office and said, "Wait a minute. Can you pay cash?"

Five minutes later I was in my room, and two minutes after that the clouds suddenly unleashed torrents of water onto everything. Everything except me.

Review of rail path/snowmobile trail from Whitney to Madawaska:

Scenery: 8/10
Surface (for 32mm tires): 4/10
Getting me to Madawaska: 0/10

NOT RECOMMENDED

Today's ride: 90 km (56 miles)
Total: 575 km (357 miles)

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