Peterborough and the Kawarthas Cycling Odyssey – Day 5

Weather forecasts, even short term ones, are becoming increasingly unreliable. Last night, the forecast was showing a strong threat of thunderstorms, and the possibility of tornadoes developing by mid afternoon, so we chose the 65 km Hills, Views and Pastries route 3A to ride today, and planned to leave no later than 9am, to hopefully be back before inclement weather.

Dave spent some time patching the tubes that he took out of Dayle‘s tires the past two days so, that if there was another flat today, he would have a tube ready to go. He also put some oil on chains and pumped up tires. It would be very challenging to do these types of trips if no one knew how to do basic maintenance on the bikes. We all do, but we all often help each other out, as well.

Here we are ready to go.

Not long into the ride we saw a house with two bikes decorated with baskets and flowers.

The day started cool, but humid, and with the forecast high of 22, it was hard to know how to dress and there were a few stops for taking jackets off, taking sleeves off, putting jackets back on, taking jackets back off.

The weather was quite changeable and at times got quite dark and made us think that it might start to rain.

But then it would brighten up, and warm up, and cause another change of clothing.

We saw more farm houses today than on our other days of riding. It was quite a pretty area.

We saw this very interesting building. I guess it was an old barn being converted into a luxury home or event centre? At the right hand side there is an addition, two storeys, with lots of glass.

This was a stop on a bridge over river to adjust clothing.

It’s interesting to see these signs for the Greenbelt Route and Waterfront Trail, both of which go through the area in which we live. Wayne is wearing a Greenbelt Route jersey from an organized ride he did on the route a few years ago.

I was chased by an agressive looking and sounding dog today when I was out in front of the rest of the group. He came running and barking down a long farm driveway. I was concerned, but kept pedalling, and moved to the far side of the road as we met at the road end of the driveway. Fortunately, by the time he got to me he was too tired out, being old and fat, to do more than bark. Another dog who ran at me with him just watched. He continued barking at the rest of the group, but was literally all bark and no bite.

Once again the first half of the route was more climbing than descending, but there was this lovely descent to a roundabout. I quite like roundabouts on my bike, but it does take a fairly high level of confidence to use them.

We arrived in Millbrook, a pretty little town with a lovely Main street, and a highly recommended café called Pastry Peddler.

There was a bike rack in a parking space across the road from the café.

I thought we would just have coffee and pastry and continue to get back before the rain, but Dayle checked the forecast and now the rain was not forecast until 5 PM. The lunch menu looked good so we decided to have lunch.

The inside was decorated with bikes and bike paraphernalia with a lounge area on the second floor.

Even in the bathrooms there were bike themed things.

I took off out of town after lunch – I am generally leading as the navigator – and didn’t realize there was a mural until I looked back and could just see the very top of it where the cloud is. Fortunately Dayle stopped and took a picture and shared it with me.

Millbrook has a nicely preserved art deco post office from 1939.

It also had a couple nice churches as well as other well preserved buildings.

It was a big climb out of Millbrook on a full stomach, followed by a beautiful descent. We had to turn the corner partway down the hill, but after a small climb the descent continued.

After another long climb and about 20 km from home the sky was darkening and we felt a few raindrops. Dayle checked the forecast again and discovered that once again there was now high probability of storms at 2 PM. So David, Cindy, and I raced on ahead, as we are a bit faster and sometimes have to slow or wait for the others to catch up. We decided if we got back and it started raining we could take the car to rescue the others if the weather was dangerous.

In the event, it was sunny when we got home, and Dayle and Wayne arrived not too long after we did. As of writing this at 4:30 it’s still sunny out. The others have been swimming in the river behind the house.

We used all the chicken thighs and salmon we had purchased for the last three night’s dinners so tonight we ordered sushi for dinner.

Tomorrow we are going to do a ride in Northumberland from Rice Lake to Cobourg, revisiting a short section of the Waterfront Trail on the trip from Ottawa that David and Dayle and I did in 2017.