Day 44

Friday, August 6th
Thessalon to Massey
130km

Another very cold morning.  I wore all of my “warmers”.  Its tough to dress properly because the days start off so cold and get so warm in the afternoon.

We stopped at the Tim Horton's in Blind River.  (There's a name that inspires confidence in the drinking water, eh?).  I fear that we may end up stopping at every Timmy's we encounter for the rest of the trip.  As soon as we rode up, we saw Paul and Rick's bikes.  By the time we left, Jonny, Jose, Pierre, and Leslie had all shown up.

About 89km into the route we had a rest stop compliments of Bill, a TDC rider from 2000.  He is 71 now, and gave out bottles od cold water and cut up oranges at the side of the road.  Very kind of him.  Bill had a thick Scottish accent, and Alan (the Scot on our trip this year) said “He's the first Canadian I've met where I understood 100% of the things he said.”

When Jonny and Jose got to the rest stop, they said that they had been pulled over by a cop...lights and sirens and everything.  The cop told them that they were supposed to be riding at least 30 feet apart.  This is crazy.  Most people ride less that 3 feet apart.  In a quick paceline, Paul and Rick ride about 30 inches apart.  Jonny, to his credit, just kept saying, “OK...OK...OK”.  I thinkb that Jose pretended not to speak english...which is not really much of a stretch.

We stayed at Chutes Provincial Park, just outside of Massey.  Provincial parks are usually nice because of the ample, clean washrooms...and this was no exception.  Its called Chutes because there are a few waterfalls on the park.  I didn't find these very impressive as far as waterfalls go, but the river was nice.

We all got a laugh over dinner when we heard someone in a neighbouring campsite say in a firm voice, “NO...NO...what part of no don't you understand.”  This was only funny after we realized that the person was talking to a small dog.
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Daniel Longo
CIBC Corporate Development
(416) 956-3831