Circumnavigate Lake Simcoe – Day 1

Inspired by our BikeBrampton friends who completed a one day circumnativation of Lake Simcoe on the solstice, but without their endurance, we planned a three day circumnavigation. The four of us who live in Brampton piled into one vehicle and met Wayne who lives in Simcoe County, at the Innisfil Beach Road and Highway 400 Carpool lot, where one can park a vehicle for up to 120 hours. We were all very grateful to be fully vaccinated against Covid and felt comfortable travelling together.

We left Brampton at 7am to ensure we didn’t run into cottage traffic on the 400. It was a quick drive and we were ready to ride by 830. Innisfil Beach Road is very busy, but we were able to head north from the carpool lot paralleling the 400, to 9th Line which was a relatively low traffic volume road with a downhill ride of about 13km to the lake.

At the beach in Innisfil, and many of the municipal beaches we saw around the lake, they had beach access mats for those who would have difficulty walking or rolling a wheelchair or stroller on the sand.

They also had a cute bike rack. Unfortunately, like many bike racks, it didn’t really work very well except for the two highest slots.

On Monday, prior to the trip, I was riding in Toronto on my cross bike and got a nail in my tire very near the end of the ride. It became hard to ride, but I thought maybe I was just tired, so I continued the last few hundred metres. Tuesday morning when I went out to ride my front tire was completely flat. I didn’t have time to change the tube then, so I rode a different bike. Tuesday evening I found a snakebite flat, repaired it, reassembled it, but it still wouldn’t hold the air. I took it apart again, and found the nail, which caused two holes. I had no patches left. I ordered patches on Amazon and put a new tube in. Wednesday morning after a short trip to the grocery store, the seam blew on the new tube. I put in another new tube Wednesday evening and the seam blew on it as soon as I finished reassembling the tire. I could find no problem in the tire causing the blowouts. At that point I was out of tubes, as well as patches, and I needed my cross bike for the trip for its carrying capacity. The next morning a friend provided me with patches and I repaired an old tube of a different brand from the blown ones. It seemed to hold. That afternoon I also bought new tubes.

Unfortunately, 17km into our trip I had another flat tire. Fortunately, Wayne has eagle eyes and found a very small piece of metal that had caused a slow leak. We repaired the tube using my remaining patches, but damaged the stem pumping it up! Thank goodness I had the new tubes. In went the tube, everything was reassembled, and it held the rest of the trip, but it took me until about half way through day two before I felt confident that my spate of flats had ended.

By then it was getting quite warm, and we had wasted a lot of time, but it’s all part of the adventure. Everyone was patient and helpful.

We continued along the lake to Friday Harbour, a resort near Barrie, and out to Big Bay Point where we enjoyed looking at the cottages generally, and specifically looking for a family cottage in the area that David used to visit decades ago. Dayle also had family with a cottage in the area.

As we rode towards Barrie’s waterfront along Hurst Drive, I started thinking that it look very familiar. I asked Dayle about it and she felt the same. Later I determined that on our four day trip to Meaford in 2019 we stayed in an AirBnB just off Hurst Drive on our first night. The next morning on that trip it was raining, so our exploration of the Barrie waterfront was very brief. We were able to explore it more fully this time.

We ate lunch in Memorial Square which is at the foot of Owen Street, and just north of Meridian Place, where there were many anti-lockdown protests in the spring. There were still a few protesters there who wanted to talk to us, but we gave them short shrift.

After lunch we continued along the waterfront on a limestone screenings trail, which was reasonably smooth, for a few kilometres, and then onto Shanty Bay Road, which turns into Ridge Road, for 23km. It was absolutely lovely. Good quality pavement, beautiful homes, lots of trees and farms, not much traffic. Cindy had a peek in a small art gallery in Shanty Bay, but couldn’t fit anything in her panniers!

Once we left Barrie there was little in the way of restaurants or coffee shops so I became very excited when I saw the Carthew Bay Pub & Scoops shop. It was a lovely setting and hit the spot perfectly. Wayne had a different idea about what would be refreshing and thanks to new pandemic liquor laws was able to indulge.

The beautiful scenery continued as we left Carthew Bay.

We could have spent much of the afternoon on the Lake Country Oro Medante Rail Trail, but I prefer low volume traffic, paved, rural roads to trails, as they are generally smoother, have less rolling resistance, and more varied scenery. We did get on the trail for the last 3km into Orillia which meant we were able to go under Highway 12 and cut off a few kilometres of Orillia streets. The section we used was of reasonable quality.

After a brief foray off the trail to the wrong hotel (the Best Western which was perfectly located with trail access to its back parking lot, but not where we booked) we headed up (literally) Westmount Drive North which was a steady climb for almost 2km ending in a hill that was worse than it looked from a distance with a 16% grade! I stopped to take a picture of the sign and rest my legs for a minute before attacking the hill and just barely making it up. It was much worse than it looks in the picture. A left turn and a similar descent and we arrived at our accommodation.

We checked in, had a quick swim, which turned out to be quite chilling, warmed up with a hot shower, and then determined we needed to go back down the hill for dinner. A 5km round trip walk in my cycling shoes, with the cleats crunching on the unswept sidewalks, finished me off for the day, and convinced me to make room for walking shoes on my next trip. We had a good meal, on a patio set up on a parking lot, at Theo’s Eatery. The food and service was great. I really hope that one of the lasting effects of the pandemic is continued outdoor dining.

It was a very enjoyable, stress free route, which I would highly recommend.

July 17, 2024 Update: A friend just did a one day circumnavigation of Lake Simcoe and one made a video blog of the experience. Check it out here.