David, Dayle, and I are biking to Meaford and back, over four days, on our first fully self-supported bicycle trip. Patti is joining us for her first bicycle trip. Patti’s husband dropped her at my place for the start of the ride.
I could have titled this day “Wind at our backs”. It was an absolutely delightful ride with a good tailwind the whole way.
Here we are, having bade farewell to our husbands, ready to go.
David and Dayle arrive at our rendezvous at Torbram and Countryside. Dayle is very excited!
Barry is riding with us to Cookstown and then returning to Brampton. First group us-ie of the day.
An hour later we have arrived at the Caledon Trailway. Jason, a fellow BikeBrampton member gave us a nutrition seminar a few months ago in which he advised we eat 100-200 calories for every hour of riding on full day rides. Here we are complying.
Here we are in Tottenham, the end of the Caledon Trailway, and the start of the South Simcoe Railway, which is a steam train run by a group of enthusiasts. We stopped for second breakfast at Tim’s.
This is in interesting looking, operating flour mill we came upon as we left Tottenham.
Tottenham to Beeton was on the road. We expected to use the New Tecumseth trail for a short section north of Beeton, but it was closed for a bridge reconstruction. It wasn’t difficult to figure out a detour.
Here we are at the next trailhead. I imagine at some point there will be no trail gaps, but at the moment there are several. Unfortunately, the next section to Cookstown is very soft having been constructed recently and not settled yet.
I also rode this section in May on a cold, rainy day. It was hard going. I thought it might be better now having settled for a few months and dried up, but it wasn’t. Next time I will take the road the full distance between Tottenham and Cookstown. It only adds 3km versus the more diagonal trail.
The next two pictures were taken about the same spot on the trail, today and in May. It was much nicer riding today.
Last time I didn’t notice this lovely vista. It was just gray and wet.
I’m a sucker for hydro towers marching across the country against a beautiful blue sky.
Thanks to Barry for the following three images. I love this one of Patti and me. We have been riding together since Grade 7.
We stopped for lunch, at Tim’s again, in Cookstown. After lunch, Barry returned to Brampton, and we carried on to Barrie.
We followed the Thornton-Cookstown Trail to the Georgian Downs race track near the Barrie city limit. it was a good stone dust and aggregate surface like the Caledon Trailway.
There were a lots of places with windfall apples that I was concerned about hitting which, I think, might have caused a loss of control and a fall. I navigated these sections carefully. My bike handling was more challenging with 9kg of panniers on the back.
Picture just before we exited onto Veterans’ Drive.
Our AirBnB hosts are very friendly and accommodating. We parked our bikes in the garage. Patti and I are sharing a room in the basement. David and Dayle are on the main level. They swam when we arrived. Patti and I decided the water and air were a bit too cold and spent half an hour chatting and stretching instead.
On our previous trips we have had a van with us to drive to dinner or walked to a very close restaurant. Tonight we had to bike, but found an excellent place only 2km away. According to our hosts, Justin Trudeau ate at The Barnstormer when he came to Barrie. We locked up our bikes in the parking lot patio which is now closed for the season. It was loud and busy, but the food was excellent.
Before we arrived in Barrie, I suggested that we decide on where we were going for dinner and see if the return distance would get us a gran fondo (100km) before saving our rides. I would have needed an extra 12km, so I saved mine. But David and Dayle had come from further away this morning and needed only 2 additional kilometres after the restaurant so went around the block a few times to get their first gran fondos of 2019.
Tomorrow we ride to Collingwood. David and Dayle came prepared with rain gear. Patti and I both looked at the weather forecast before leaving and didn’t see rain. I packed no rain gear. Patti did have a rain coat, but decided to send it home with her husband this morning. Unfortunately, it is now forecast to rain all day. Sigh.
Our average speed of 17kph was very much dragged down by the trail in between Beeton and Cookstown during which we averaged only 11.9kph.
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Safe travels and thanks for sharing your adventure
And I hope you don’t get too wet