We had two days off here in London. We did this because we wanted to be conservative and give ourselves time to recover from any injuries/soreness/weakness from our long ride into town on Wednesday. As it turned out, we didn't really need two days, as our legs coped with the ride pretty well, and our ride tomorrow is quite short.
Well, we made it!
Today had been sorta looming ominously on the calendar for a while. Today's ride is the longest of the entire trip, by a decent margin: 76 miles. On a loaded touring bike, that's a lot! At least it is for us.
This was also the most rural/remote ride of the entire trip. There were exactly two settlements on our entire journey: a small village (Glencoe) at mile 40, and a tiny village (Delaware) at mile 60. Any injuries or mechanical problems would have been a Very Bad Thing today.
Not a ton to report today. Another beautiful day -- low 70s and sunny.
The ride itself was only okay. Today is the flattest day of the entire trip, but we didn't actually make very good time because of a lot of detours and a headwind that picked up over the last 20 miles. A lot of the ride was on roads with no paved shoulder. But, in general, drivers are much better here than in Michigan, and they leave plenty of space when passing.
One annoyance about my setup is that one of my bags doesn't properly interface with my rack. The rack gets in the way of the bag's locking mechanism, and so the bag can't fully clamp on as designed. This has almost never been a problem in the past. On previous tours, the bag would come unhooked due to a bump maybe once or twice per week, tops
However, in Michigan, most trails did not have smooth transitions at intersections. Instead, there would be a concrete piece with a groove in it (presumably for water drainage). Something about the shape of that groove causes my bag to come loose multiple times per day. So, in that sense, I was happy to no longer be riding in Michigan. Bad news! Ontario (at least this part of Ontario) uses the same system.
A grueling ride today! Seven whole miles (at least 1 of which was walking).
We crossed over into Canada around 10am (more on this below!), and spent the remainder of the morning at a laundromat a couple miles south of downtown.
For lunch, we went to an awesome/ridiculous Italian social club. A big tacky building with a big tacky fountain/statue out front. They had a pizza bar in their basement which is open to the general public, and the pizza was really good!
