Day 51

Friday, August 13th
Darlington to Campbellford
132km

Today was a lousy day for cycling.  There was rain, headwind, gravel roads, and lots and lots of short, steep climbs.  All of these things also combined to put Rosalyn in a less-than-cheery mood for much of the afternoon, which didn't help my day any.  For example, at one point she refused to ride above 10km/h...for one whole hour!!!  Friday the 13th really IS an unlucky day.

The day started well enough.  I had to make breakfast (toasted bagels and oatmeal) and pack up the truck, so we didn't get on the road until 8:30am or so.  We stopped at the first Tim Horton's, which was about 10km into the ride, and stayed for about 2 hours.  In retrospect, this was a very stupid idea.  However, at the time, the weather was fine and we didn't think that the terrain would be too bad.

By the end of the day, we were sure that we'd be ages behind everyone getting into camp, and we'd probably miss supper.  However, we caught up with Steve (the slowest rider in the group) about 20km from camp, and then ran into several other cyclists outside a small cofee shop.  They had made a wrong turn somewhere, and added 20km to their ride.

Less worried now about being late into camp, we dried off a bit in the cofee shop and had some sandwiches.

In the end, we were among the last ones into camp, but we were just in time to eat after showering and setting up tents.
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Daniel Longo
CIBC Corporate Development
(416) 956-3831