We decided to try a ride in Northumberland County today which was shared on their cycling website. We knew it was going to be a cold day, but weren’t expecting rain. Unfortunately, the rain which was forecast but didn’t happen yesterday, happened today.

We drove half an hour to the beginning of the ride on the south side of Rice Lake. It was raining when we left the house, and rained off and on as we drove. We found a place to park and sat in the car for about half an hour until the radar showed that the rain had passed us. Fortunately, after that, we were only subjected to a few sprinkles now and then.

I put my rain cover on my helmet which makes it look crazy dorky. I didn’t end up needing it for the rain, but I was actually happy to have the helmet vents covered which kept my head warmer.
I was dressed in a merino wool base layer, long sleeve cycling jersey, down filled vest, and light windbreaker. David and Dayle, and Cindy were dressed similarly. Wayne runs hot and was happy as a clam in a short sleeved jersey and cycling shorts.

The roads were wet and throwing up a bit of spray for the first few kilometers, but the sun occasionally peaked out, and the wind dried things up eventually.



We visited the Harwood Fish Culture Station. Fish culture is the production of fish in a controlled environment. At Harwood they practice intensive fish culture which involves rearing fish at concentrations greater than would be found in the natural environment.

Harwood was chosen because of the numerous artesian springs that can produce the large volume of quality water that is required for intensive fish culture. The building is located where the water can flow by gravity into the fish tanks and not require any mechanical or electrical equipment that could break down. Fish are then transported by water truck or helicopter and released into the natural environment.


Today’s route climbed for the first third, descended to Lake Ontario, and then climbed back up to Rice Lake.

It was a beautiful, pastoral ride. There were very few motor vehicles.

We passed through the Alderville First Nation, where there was a brand new gas station, convenience store, and food truck. Gas is a little cheaper here because they don’t have to pay all the fuel taxes.


We saw this interesting art deco World War One memorial in Alderville.

Just south of Alderville is the start of the Greenbelt route. It’s a marked cycling route that stretches from Alderville for 475 km to Niagara Falls.

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to photograph this beautiful farmhouse and barn.

The route we were following was called the Rice Lake Ramble Cycling Route and incorporated part of the Greenbelt route.

After a lot of climbing we love to see views like this.

The bottom of the hill, where we had to turn the corner was the Country Road Café, but this time of year it is only open on the weekends. Can you believe we’ve come to the Kawarthas and haven’t had ice cream yet this week?

The ride today had a lot of rolling hills. We like to get up a lot of speed going down and use momentum to get part of the way up the next hill.
I stopped to take this picture of David and Cindy after I got to the top of a hill, as they descended.

They were so focussed on building up momentum for the next hill that they missed this sign indicating a right turn. I was behind them, rather than my usual position out front, and yelled at them to make the turn, but I think the wind was blowing my voice back behind me and they didn’t hear a thing. They descended quite far before Cindy heard her phone ringing, and picked up to hear me telling them to come back.

Meanwhile, Wayne and Dayle caught up to me at the corner, and thought David and Cindy had already turned and continued on thinking I was waiting to point them in the right direction. I yelled at them to stop. Wayne heard, but Dayle did not. Wayne and I waited for a while and then I decided, when David and Cindy still had not reappeared, that I should go after Dayle to prevent her becoming worried at some point.

I finally caught up with Dayle.

The rest of the gang finally caught up with us.

This road, although gravel, was very smooth and we were able to descend quite quickly.

We could see Lake Ontario long before we got to it. You cans see it in the distance in the above picture. Lunch was late in the ride today at 57 out of 75 kilometres, so we were very happy when we saw this Welcome to Cobourg sign.

Last night we identified three possible restaurants in Cobourg with patios. The first one we came upon had closed their patio due to cold weather and were unwilling to serve us outside so we carried on.
The second one, The Ale House, was willing to serve us outside so he got our business.

Cobourg has a very pretty main street. David and Dayle and I were here briefly on our first cycling trip from Ottawa to Brampton. It was so hot when we were last here that we went to the beach and put our feet in the lake for a while.

The buildings are well preserved and there are interesting shops, and plenty of restaurants and cafés.

I found this little alley called the Henley Arcade which had some interesting murals in it.


City Hall is very impressive.

I walked around right after ordering my lunch to save time, as I knew we wouldn’t want to linger with a 20 km left to go, all uphill and with a stiff headwind.
I grabbed a latte and a cookie and arrived back at the restaurant just before our food was served. The food was good, but it was windy and overcast, and we didn’t linger.

As we were going through this construction zone Wayne asked the flag man if he would stop the traffic behind us until we crested the hill which he kindly agreed to do.

In addition to the roads being lightly travelled by motor vehicles today there were excellent paved shoulders on many of them.

Dayle and Cindy are still smiling at the end of our 12 km long climb out of Cobourg.

Thanks, but no thanks. The paved shoulder here where the bike symbol is was so rough that we stuck to the narrow pavement between the line and the bike symbol.

We were very happy to see this Gore Landing sign and the beautiful descent to Rice Lake to finish our ride.


On our drive back to Peterborough we saw a double rainbow from the car.

Dinner was a “use up all the leftovers in the fridge” affair, but still was very tasty.

Cindy and Wayne went out to get us ice cream for dessert, while David and Dayle cleaned the kitchen, and I wrote this blog.


Tomorrow we are going to pack up the cars to return home, and do a local city ride as we have mostly explored outside of Peterborough.
It’s hard to believe the trip is coming to a close. When we began we had so much time stretching out ahead of us, and now it seems, all of a sudden, it’s gone.
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