Subtitle: The weather forecast I checked before leaving Brampton was wrong
Lessons learned:
- Don’t trust the weather forecast when packing
- When away from built up areas plan lunch and coffee stops ahead of riding
- Garbage bags work quite well as impromptu rain gear and are cheap and stylish (well, not the last thing)
Neither Patti nor I brought rain gear as we both saw sunny forecasts for the whole weekend. David and Dayle, on the other hand, apparently saw rain in the forecast, and packed accordingly.
We learned last night rain was forecast for the whole day today. We decided that we could buy something if necessary. I jokingly suggested garbage bags, but then proceeded to look at MEC and Walmart online.
Then our hostess independently offered garbage bags. We laughed and then accepted them. Snip, snip and we had rain gear without shopping. They turned out to be good enough to keep our cores warm and dry. We both had merino wool shirts and socks which stay warm, even when wet.
Morning us-ie. Ready to ride. Still smiling despite the rainy ride ahead of us.
Our hosts, Sandy and Terry, were excellent, and provided good conversation, a lovely home and breakfast.
Our route took us along the Barrie Waterfront, which is beautifully done with gardens, parkland, marina and public art. It was the Terry Fox run today and an astonishing number of people were out participating in the rain.
One of the things I like about the Barrie Waterfront is that they have built densely – close to great parks, downtown and GO transit.
Between having difficulty hearing Ride with GPS from under my clothes and over the noise of cars on wet pavement, to the app sulking and refusing to give directions verbally, to misplaced or misread street signs, we made a lot of wrong turns which caused backtracking, and wasted time today. We expected to ride 72km and finished at 86.
We still had a great day. One of the highlights, was the descent pictured below, which was the longest descent I have ever encountered, just after we left Barrie. It was about 5km long and a joy to ride, even in the rain. The low lying clouds made for a spectacular view.
It was followed by a few hundred metres of quite challenging climbing. Here we are taking a picture, nature, and nutrition break
I think one of the reasons I am fascinated by hydro towers is they are ubiquitous and take up so much land in linear corridors that connect all our cities and towns.
Imagine if we built bike trails through them!
Anten Mills is where I realized Ride with GPS was no longer speaking to me. We turned west, then realized we had gone too far, fortunately just before descending the hill pictured below, then doubled back in the other direction, only to realize that was also incorrect and that we were looking for a trailhead, not a road.
If we hadn’t done that, though, we would have missed seeing this house decorated in tricycles.
It is quite sandy up here and on the trails generally, but especially where the trail crosses roads. We were only on it for 1.2 km though, so it wasn’t too bad. It was called the Simcoe County Loop Trail.
Looks like it is used for ATV’s.
Leaving the trail behind we travel some quiet country roads.
We had a couple of mechanical problems – David’s front brake and Patti losing her chain, but neither was serious. At this point we realized it was getting past lunch time, and we hadn’t even passed somewhere to stop for coffee, let alone lunch. We consulted the route and realized that we would not be going through the commercial area in Wasaga, which appeared to be the only chance for food before Collingwood, so we re-routed on the fly.
We were pleased to go through Wasaga. They received bronze status as a bicycle friendly community this year from the Share the Road organization. There were bike lanes and good shoulders. We lunched at McDonald’s at about 50km into our ride, longer than we have ever gone before on one of our trips, without a break for a snack or meal.
The rain stopped, but we decided to continue wearing our garbage bags for the protection from the wind. However, having said that, we had another day of only mild winds, which were generally at our backs.
Wasaga Beach – we didn’t go in.
The gals at the beach. Look at the fancy shoulder treatment on Patti’s garbage bag!
There were some modest cottages along our route out of Wasaga, but a lot of older ones have been replaced with large modern homes.
The cottage streets were lovely to ride along.
Every few hundred metres there were beach access paths.
There were more cute bikes decorating homes and gardens.
Patti in her economical rain gear.
After what seemed like a very long way past the Welcome to Collingwood road sign we see a water tower and built up areas.
Blue skies!
The sun!
We have arrived and settled in.
Time for the hot tub.
There was an excellent Thai food restaurant right in the resort where we are staying.
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