Hey Everyone! It's very hard to believe that it's September already, and - 70 days after taking off - my ride is about to come to an end. I'm currently on the ferry to Newfoundland, enjoying the one-man band and a belly full of food from the brunch buffet. A short 3 hours from now, we'll be reaching land and taking a short ride to our penultimate destination. And tomorrow we ride to St. John's and up Signal Hill to our final stop!
The last few days have been absolutely amazing. I know that I'm very liberal in using superlatives, but the riding has deserved it. After my Atlantic coast cycling tour last summer, I had already rode much of the route, and it was just as beautiful the second time around. We spent time in three provinces - New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia - which included doing the Cabot Trail. Despite the many challenging climbs, the two days spent riding the Cabot Trail were probably my two favourite days of the tour!
We took off from our rest day in St. Louis de Kent on an incredibly windy day, riding along the Acadian route down the coast of New Brunswick toward Shediac. The scenery along the water was nice, but difficult to enjoy with the strength of the wind that was hitting us. At least the terrain was very easy to ride - flat, but with many crappy, potholed roads. We made the obligatory stop at the world's biggest lobster statue in Shediac, which I remembered from last summer and from a trip 15 years ago as a kid... still like it every time I see it! We had a great campground right on the ocean, viewed a beautiful sunset, and retired early for the evening.
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| Giant Lobster feat. very uncoordinated posing |
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| Campsite in the evening |
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| Sun setting over the Atlantic |
The next day, we made the short ride to Confederation Bridge to head to PEI. Quite an impressive bridge! Sadly we were not allowed to ride across it, although I imagine if we had tried, we may have ended up in the water with the strong gusts of wind. Prince Edward Island's terrain was WAY hillier than I remembered, but we only had a short day of riding - 89 km - so it wasn't so bad. The scenery was nice - farmland mostly, and the red soil is pretty cool. We rode into Charlottetown to find a bike shop, and of course, we ate Cow's ice cream multiple times -- one of those times at the Cow's Factory!! Sadly they were not actually making ice cream at that time, so we opted out of taking the tour, but we still were able to enjoy the ice cream and their punny t-shirts!
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| Confederation Bridge |
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| Doing my part in the ice cream making process |
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| Mature cyclists posing at the town of Crap(aud) |
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| Rest stop en route to ferry |
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| Ferry to NS |
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| Welcome to Nova Scotia... check out our giant sign!! |
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| Amazing view of the sunset from our campground |
Moving on, we had another long ride scheduled the next day to get just to the outskirts of the Cabot Trail. The ride was 172 km in the end, as we traveled onto Cape Breton Island and to Lake Ainslie. It was a hot and muggy day with lots of "ups and downs", as we were warned on the directions sheet. Still, it was a really nice day, and things got even better once we got to the camp. We were surprised with an amazing potluck dinner from the patrons of the RV park where we were staying! Not only that, but we were given permission to stay indoors - an invitation that I accepted, since my tent was still soaked from the night before, and Tropical Storm/Hurricane Irene's effects were starting to be felt with strong winds and rain.
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| Potluck in Lake Ainslie |
The next morning was the day I'd been looking forward to all trip - our ride on the Cabot Trail! This was the highlight of my Atlantic Tour last summer, and I was very excited to ride it again. Unfortunately, the day started off a little bit worryingly -- the post-hurricane winds were incredibly strong, and many of our riders were worried about not being able to safely ride the Trail with such strong winds, and gusts of winds - allegedly up to 90 km/h! While many people decided to not ride the Trail, and take an alternate route to Englishtown, the people who I usually ride with decided to take advantage of the 40 km/h tailwind and ride the route!
What an incredible day it turned out to be!! We rode with very powerful tailwinds, and for the first 80 km the only pedaling we did was uphill - and while on the flats or downhill, we were consistently going at least 40 km/h! We started the big climbs at about the 90 km mark, with French mountain up first. The climb was long but not especially steep, and we had wonderful scenery as we rode it. We were right along the coast of the Atlantic in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, and the views were just spectacular, prompting us to stop many times along the way for photos (and well-needed breaks!). After a while we made it to the top, and enjoyed some time riding along the crest of the mountains!
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| Just starting the Cabot trail |
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| French Mountain |
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| View from French Mountain |
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| More shots from atop French Mountain |
North was difficult! It was only 4 km of climbing, but with a grade of 12-14% the entire time! I was in my lowest gear and working my ass off to crawl up the hill. But we all made it up, spotted a coyote on the prowl, and then proceeded to descend the hill. Since the hill was just as steep on the way down, we decided to walk much of it since Alistair - who had previously broken his hand - only had one hand available for breaking, which would not have been safe down such a steep hill! After North, the rest of the trip was quite easy, and despite one missed turn, we made it into camp in Dingwall for a well-deserved rest before too too long.
Finally, our next day we departed camp for one more day of riding along the Cabot Trail. It was a beautiful sunny day, which meant that we boiled as we started the day with a good 12 km of climbing! Nothing as steep as the previous day, but very steady, and fortunately we were rewarded with a good 8 km or so of solid downhill. For much of the day, we rode along the eastern shore of Cape Breton island with views of the Atlantic Ocean that were incredible. We rode the third mountain of the trail - Smokey - which was actually pretty easy, just long, in the direction we were riding. The views from the top were spectacular! Similarly to North, the downhill was incredibly steep and we decided that it would be safest to walk down much of it. We remained on the Cabot Trail for much of the rest of the day, veering off later to head to Englishtown and head to camp.
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| Atlantic Ocean |
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| Resting atop Smokey Mountain |
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| Downhill of Smokey - far steeper than the uphill (thankfully!) |
Certainly a wonderful few days to begin wrapping up the trip. Great scenery, great riding, and great times with friends.
Take care! See you all soon!
St. Louis-de-Kent, NB to Englishtown, NS Riding Stats
6 Riding Days
787 km
Overall Riding Stats
59 Riding Days
7734 km
Peanut Butter Sandwiches consumed, to date: 146
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