Day 40 – Short made Shorter (Thessalon, ON – Spanish, ON)

Our ride today was a relatively short 67 miles so we slept in (to 6:30 instead of the usual 6:00 A.M. rising). “Sleeping in” at the campsites is relative – you are still woken by the miles of tent and sleeping bag zippers being un-zipped and re-zipped (and un-zipped and re-zipped) by the early risers, but you just stay in your sleeping bag until your alarm goes off.

Did I mention that I was losing weight with all this riding – we have all become a lot smaller since we started out in Vancouver.

After a late start (on the road at 8:30) we headed east along a fairly flat road with a nice tailwind at our backs. We made the ride even easier by taking three to five minutes at the front of our tight 3-man pace-line.

Our first stop along the route was at the half-way point in Blind River where I had one of my peanut butter and jam sandwiches drowned with a chocolate milk and two lemon/blueberry slushies.

We are staying near the marina so the views are great – we have been very lucky weather-wise over the past few weeks, with any rain coming in at night, or blowing south of us, rather than during our riding time, or when we are packing camp.

In two days we will be taking the ferry into Southern Ontario – riding-wise I have not found the daily riding to be too difficult although some of the riders have mentioned that having to ride day after day after day to a fixed schedule seems almost like work. I am finding it enjoyable as you never know what the next day will bring.

Working with Serge and Pierre-Alain on our pace-line, we averaged 20 MPH and just over 3 hours in the saddle today - that got us into camp early where I could catch up on keeping my blog up to date. I hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I am enjoying riding/writing it!