Vacation Cycling Adventure #1: Camping

Some people read mysteries to have armchair adventures. I read travel books – and whenever possible they’re about people travelling by bicycle. In these people ride huge distances, circumnavigate the world, ride through hostile environments or in places where they don’t speak a word of the language and muddle through with sign language and a phrasebook. These are the kind of great adventures I have only had a couple of times in my life.

But life also gives us everyday sorts of adventures like the one I had just a week ago. Last Monday, Daegan and I packed tents, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, a stove that burns rubbing alcohol, and a few clothes and sundry items in four panniers and left the house at 8:00 in the morning. Already it was 26°C with a humidex high enough to already warrant a heat warning. (Ah yes, we also had two water bottles each along with two tubes of electrolyte tablets!)

Our ride took us through neighbourhoods so wealthy that not only do the likes of Drake live there, fans of comedy TV shows will recognize the mansion from Schitts Creek along our route:

And then, down we went into the ravine to ride along the Don River – my old commute home from work before we moved to our current place. The first part is a really nice route:

Then as we get closer to our old apartment we can see some of the big changes to our old neighbourhood where a new subway line is being built requiring the building of two big bridges. The ravines where Daegan would explore and I would go trail running are now, in great part, fenced off and trees have been removed. In the end, a subway means more accessibility for residents along its route and a reduction in car traffic so the end result is great. It is a bit sad to see what it takes to get there.

Further south we went until we got to the future location of the second bridge. A large area there was also fenced off and a construction worker stood in the middle of the path with a “Slow” sign in hand. As we passed, he said “There will be some trucks on the other side but they’ll tell you what to do.”

In my mind there would be 2-3 pickup trucks, tools in the back. But no, there was a lineup of about six huge dump trucks taking up almost the entire width of the path. They were sitting and waiting to move so it was safe to pass but still their size and noise was intimidating.

We took the path until nearly the lake shore before heading back up into the city proper. There, too, it seemed that every big truck was out, passing us as we rode. (Again, we were in a bike lane far from them but they were still so big and loud!) Also as we left the river valley, the heat of the day was really evident. Stopping at red lights I sometimes would put my finger in the front of my helmet near my forehead and run it along the front. There was so much sweat that it literally poured off as if I were pouring from a bottle. This was an excellent illustration of how much water and salt I was losing so it was important to keep drinking.

Finally we hit the Lakeshore bike path. We’d spend the better part of today’s ride heading west along this.

Riding along here through Toronto can be a bit of a frustrating challenge as there are so many trail users and tourists who aren’t sure of the rules. Pedestrians have a sidewalk but often don’t use it, favouring the bike path. Some cyclists ride on the wrong side, others run red lights while still others ride slowly in the middle scrolling on their phone. The best solution to all of this is acceptance. This portion of the route will be slow and that’s fine. The trade-off for all of this is safety. You won’t go very fast but you also won’t be passed too close or too quickly by a driver.

About 40 km into the route we were both ready for a break. We pulled in to a convenient Tim Hortons, bought some breakfast wraps and hash browns along with frozen lemonade to cool us then carried our snacks to the shadiest spot we could find.

We gobbled our snacks up quickly, the effort of hauling our gear making everything taste like the best thing we’d ever eaten and the lemonade cooling us from within. About half way through our stop, a man walked over from the road. He seemed a little distressed and at first I thought perhaps he might need some money for food or for me to go in and grab something for him. He did ask for help, but with nothing we expected.

“Can you stop traffic for me on Lakeshore Boulevard?”

Lakeshore is a fairly busy road – we’d seen how busy as we cycled along it for the past couple of kilometres. There was no way either of us wanted to go stand in the road and try to get traffic to stop, for what we didn’t even know. Disappointed he headed back in the direction he came from.

Five minutes later I saw another man in a hairnet and rubber boots leave the meat packing plant next door. Confidently he stepped out into the road and held up a hand. And then, behind him a huge transport truck backed out driven by the man who had asked for help. Once the truck was in the road, he gestured to the driver so he could navigate into the traffic lane before guiding him again as he backed into the next driveway. We were both relieved that we hadn’t signed up for that!

What was it about us and big trucks that day?

By the time we headed back out it was really hot, even in the forest next to the lake. The effects of the frozen lemonade disappeared within an hour along with all of our water. Fortunately this happened as we passed through a park with a large water tap. We filled all our bottles, added more electrolyte tablets and then stuck our heads under the cold water stream. This helped even more than the lemonade did.

When we hit Oakville the houses got even bigger – some with huge gates and hired security SUVs parked nearby. On the plus side, the stretch of road we were on is very popular with cyclists and drivers know it. So we were comfortable as drivers gave us tons of space.

In Oakville we made two stops – the first at a coffee shop for two iced americanos which we drank in the shade as we watched expensive cars drive by. I made a second stop at a grocery store for quick food stores – bagels, pita, hummus and instant oatmeal. Little did I know how important all that would be.

Our camping destination was nominally in Oakville – around 83 km from home in Bronte Creek Provincial Park. The roads nearby were not great but fortunately in most cases, while busy roads might not have true bike lanes, the sidewalks were wide and marked as shared between cyclists and pedestrians. There were, however, few pedestrians so effectively we had a bike lane. All of this was great until we got to the park entrance on the opposite side of the busy road. It took a bit of time to get across but finally, tired and overheated we got to the gate and let the attendant know we had a reservation.

“Oh sorry, the camping entrance is on the other side on Bronte road” he said. Not only that, there was no easy way to cut through. There was a huge ravine in between with no trails. We asked him how to get there and he told us to go north on Burloak (the busy road we’d just crossed) then right on Dundas and south to Upper Middle Road. Easy peasy, as he put it.

I put the info into my bike computer and it came up with a slightly different suggested route which actually looked a bit quieter, taking us through a quiet suburban neighbourhood and then onto a trail to get us right to Dundas. The first sign something was up was when we got to the trail:

It was slightly uphill which isn’t normally an issue, however it was also made of wood chips. They created so much drag it was a struggle to get to the end. Finally, though, we were let off in another quiet suburban neighbourhood. So far so good.

But then came Dundas. This road was busy and had an 80 km/hr speed limit. It did have a curb lane for a little bit before that disappeared. But wait! My bike computer says to turn right after the bridge onto “East Ravine”. Looking at the spot it tells me to turn, though, reveals only tall grass and the mere suggestion of a trail that seemed almost vertical. Not even good for riding if we didn’t have our gear. We looked at our options:

1. Try the trail anyway knowing that if it’s no good we’ll have to carry the bikes back up the huge hill in the heat.
2. Turn back and go all the way south to the other side of the park, then cross at the bottom and go back up – this could take 1-2 hours.
3. Get on the bikes and brave the traffic. The stop light to our west seemed to give little breaks to the traffic so we’d have 30-60 second blocks of not worrying about fast cars.

In the end we chose option 4. Walk our bikes along the narrow gravel verge of the road for a couple of kilometres and hope it’s better on the other side.

Riding the 90 or so kilometres to get to this point was not too challenging. Walking this couple of kilometres on the other hand? So difficult. When you’re riding at 20 km/hr you have a lovely 20 km/hr breeze keeping you cool. Sometimes we rode along the lake so we got a breeze from that. Other times we had shade as we rode through forests and quiet suburban neighbourhoods. But here? There was no shelter from the sun. Being of a certain age and demographic I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been teleported into this game:

We kept having to stop as we walked, not to rest but to take off our helmets, wipe not just our brows but our eyes which kept filling with the sweat and sunscreen that ran down our faces.

Finally we only had 500 metres to go. The end was in sight. Except for one thing. Now our little gravel verge would disappear and we would be forced into the road. Again we weighed our options:

1. Keep walking and hope that drivers noticed us. Having the bike on the car side might provide a little protection.
2. Wait for a break in traffic and ride like Lance Armstrong as fast as we could and hope that no more cars came behind.

In the end we chose option 3 which was: “Hey, look over there on the right between the boarding kennel fence and the unbroken line of townhomes! There’s an alley!”

All we had to do is walk our bikes down into the ditch and push them through chest-high grass and brush. But let me tell you, that was preferable. (The next day I would find a tick crawling on me, no doubt having come from this stretch. Fortunately it was a Lone Star Tick so the likelihood of Lyme disease had it bitten me (which it didn’t) was zero. On the other hand, what they can do is transmit an odd disease whose most notable symptom is to make you permanently allergic to red meat!)

Once we got to the alley, we were home free on quiet roads and then the park road itself. Finally, 93 km into our 83 km ride (!) we arrived at our campsite. It looked delightful:

The long walk across Dundas had taken everything I had. We slowly unpacked our stuff and drank a ton of water before I decided it was time to get myself into the shower. This proved to be an amazing choice. It was still extremely hot but I felt much relief from the extreme heat. On the other hand we now had another challenge: mosquitoes. They were ruthless – until we put repellent on. Suitably protected we figured out how to set up our tents.

Mine has a green rain fly on it while Daegan’s has none. After I looked at the forecast, I also decided to remove mine, preferring the ventilation to the protection from the rain that was almost certain not to come.

Now it was time for dinner. Our original plan was that a short ride from the park were a few different restaurants and grocery stores. But that was the other entrance. This entrance had nothing within 30-40 min ride. As hot and tired as we were we decided to make due with what we had along with whatever we could find at the campground’s store. There we picked up a few different bags of chips and some trail mix. To this we added hummus and pita. You might think that after riding nearly 100 km we might want more to eat – as did we. However, we wanted even less to get back out on the busy roads and look for something. So dinner was a teenager’s dream – a buffet of snacks.

We blew up our air mattresses (actually Daegan did both, I felt like I was still recovering!), and tossed in our sleeping bags. Neither of us thought we would need them but thought just in case we’d have them. In the end, once the sun went down, not only was I glad to have mine, I ended up digging out a hoodie to wear in the late night.

Sleeping in the tent was lovely. After 10PM the other campers were silent and I barely remember anything except at one point late in the night the moon rose and it was so bright I could have almost read by it. Most surprising of all was that what woke me up was not hunger but delightful sun and birdsong:

The next morning I went and fetched water to boil for breakfast (oatmeal) and instant coffee. The alcohol stove worked a treat and heated the water up quickly and soon we had bowls of oatmeal along with cups of coffee.

Normally, instant oatmeal does not sound good at all to me and I have a huge attitude about instant coffee. However, today this tasted like the best breakfast.

Breakfast conversation was a bit more of a serious topic: While we had several days of riding – 90-100 km/day before we got to Lake Erie where we’d spend a couple of days relaxing, the weather promised to not just be hot but hotter than the previous day. And so we changed our plans rather drastically. Instead of riding 85 km to another campsite (which would for sure have been closer to places to get a proper dinner), we would ride 7-8 km to the train station and head home. While our bodies, bikes and even our camping and sleeping gear were well prepared for the trip, we had not accounted from an unseasonably hot week of weather. So back home we headed. Before getting on the train, though, we had one more activity for sure we needed to do: Find a proper meal.

You cannot imagine how delicious breakfast wraps and iced coffee eaten outside a gas station at the edge of two busy roads near a highway would be. Imagine the most delicious meal you can think of. Now double that. That, friends, is how good that food tasted.

After that we zipped over to the train station and one train and one subway later we were home where we re-planned our vacation including another cycling adventure – but that’s a story for tomorrow.