Wasaga to Honey Harbour: A deadline and a headwind

September 14, 2016

There were three problems I needed to address this morning: my rear derailleur and my rear fender, which had manage to gouge a line around my tire's sidewall. I didn't have a wrench to adjust the fender, so I bent one of the stays. That was easy.

Moving on to the derailleur, I fiddled and adjusted and made things better and made things worse, and eventually realized I could get it shifting cleanly all the way up the gears or all the way down, but not both. I was meeting a friend so I had to get going, and since today's route was fairly flat, I decided I'd figure it out during my rest day tomorrow.

My other problem was that overnight, a spider had decided to spin a web in one of my shoes, a thick web that looked like it had been gathering dust in an attic for years. I cleaned it out as well as I could, and peered doubtfully into the dark recesses of the shoe. I have no idea what kind of spider makes a web like that, but I hoped it wasn't poisonous and lurking somewhere in the shoe, or if it was, that my foot would crush it before it could react to the intruder.

My friend Sara, who lives in the area, had offered to ride with me for a day. In one of our emails, I warned her I'm slow. The response: "Yes, I competed in a Sprint Duathlon on Sunday, but what I didn't tell you is I came dead last; I got beat by an 88 year old."

I am 100% serious when I say I think that is fantastic, and my new ambition in life is to enter a race and get beat by an 88 year old. It seemed she'd be an ideal riding buddy for the day.

We met in Wasaga and set out on forested roads with an assortment of homes and glimpses of the lake. It was like yesterday, but with two important differences: 1) a headwind, supposedly 20 km/hr gusting to 40, and 2) my riding buddy, who served as bicycle-guarder, headwind-distracter, and even took care of all the passersby who talked to us every time we stopped.

The roads were so quiet we were able to ride side-by-side for much of the day. This probably isn't the case during the summer season, but it was great riding today.

Tiny Township is amazing: it provides drinking water and is also named after a dog

At Midland, we got on an amazing paved bike path that took us all the way to Waubaushene. It was at its best through Midland, where it was a concrete path with white bollard-type lampposts and wrought iron fences on both sides--because the path cut right through the backyards of a swanky neighbourhood. There were huge houses to the right and private waterfronts to the left, which were landscaped with rock and tall, swaying wildflowers and grasses. Really well done.

I was getting concerned about time, as I had to be in Honey Harbour by 4:00 pm, so we couldn't linger, though the further we went along the path, the more I understood why everyone here seemed eerily happy. We kept passing groups of up to 20 seniors on bicycles, many of them wearing jerseys saying "Easy Riders." Fantastic that they have the infrastructure for a cycling group like that.

My first wrong turn of the tour turned out to be fortuitous because it gave us a view of this bridge instead of a view from the bridge

Because of the wind, Sara and I were both quite tired by Waubaushene, and after that the magic was gone as we biked on a service road next to busy Highway 400 with the wind directly in our faces. There was a hill, one hill, and it was too much for me. I walked it. When Sara saw me walking, she decided she was finished for the day. She made it the rest of the way into Port Severn to wait for her husband. She did a great job; I didn't know this when we left Wasaga, but her longest ride ever (before today) was only 20 km!

I got to Port Severn in time to see a group of American retirees in restored 1920s motorboats sitting in the lock while it filled with water. One of them joked, "I'm finally getting that raise I've been asking for all these years." The lock staff smiled politely and I was thrilled to note I thought it was a terrible joke--touring does weird things to my mind, but I still seemed to be okay.

There were 13 km left to Honey Harbour. Sara had brought up the possibility of a ride several times, but I was sure I could get there on time. Only 1 km after I left Port Severn, her husband drove up beside me wondering where his wife was. He went to retrieve her and we all met at the marina where I was going to take the water taxi, where they presented me with a massive, juicy, delicious shawarma. A fantastic reward for the day's effort. They figured it'd be better than the peanut butter I was mostly subsisting on.

Another great route today, and always a washroom a when I needed one. Traffic was light and gave us tons of space. I recommend this without hesitation to anyone.

I ended my day with a water taxi to Beausoleil (confusingly pronounced more like Bozely) Island in Georgian Bay Islands National Park. I'm scribbling these notes while lying on a warm granite outcrop, basking in the sun, Georgian Bay splashing on the rock near my feet.

Not a bad life, this bike touring.

Map to follow.

Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 247 km (153 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0