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Published: July 20th 2011
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Windy Bridge
Notice the wind breakers on the bridge When our alarm went off at 5:30 this morning everything was still dark. The sky had started to lighten a little, but there was no sun yet, and there are no lights to turn on in the tent. With no light, and soaking wet grass from the rain, we weren't prepared to start packing things up, so we set the alarm back an hour, and grabbed an extra hour of sleep.
When our alarm went off at 6:30 this morning, things were looking good. The sun was starting to come up, we found our tent and possessions completely dry, and were looking forward to one last push before another day off. We packed up our stuff and our tent, and had a small bite, but planned to eat a real breakfast right in town before we really got moving. When we went to the campsight the night before, we were planning on following one of the small roads right through town, down all the way to Fredericton, and the camping was right on that road. However, when preparing our route more carefully that evening, it seemed that although the original plan followed a river, which we liked, we would be
Shoe Brackets
New and old comparison forced to take the Trans Canada Highway for about 10 km of it, which we didn't like. There was a short cut that would save about 15 km by doing something completely different, but unfortunately to take the short cut we would need to go back through town, so we would be retracing some of our steps - or should we say retracing some of our rolls. Moreover, the short cut involved some bike paths, which we worried might have poor road surfaces, but there weren't many of these paths, so we decided to risk it - 15 km seemed worth it.
As we headed back into town with our default plan being to get breakfast at Tim Horton's, we ended up finding a small diner, where we stopped for a full breakfast again - we have decided that these give us a good start to our day, and we will try to eat at places like this when possible. At the diner, we spoke to some friendly people who were all quite interested in our trip, and got some advice from some of them. The cook, in particular, suggested that the route we had originally been thinking of
Mounted Brackets
No wonder it was unclipping on its own! taking would be a good choice since it was very flat, went straight to Fredericton, and didn't actually join up with the highway. He didn't know for sure about our short cut, but thought it might be a lot hillier than his suggestion. On a last minute whim, we decided to take his advice, him being a local and seeming sure of himself, so we set off back towards our campsight again, and then on the road forward. With all the delays this morning, by the time we set out from breakfast, it was already 9:00 - with the extra 15 km path, we knew it would be a long day ahead.
The morning was good, and fairly flat as the cook had suggested. The flat stretches were especially important today as Therese's shoe bracket was getting worse and worse, and gave her the most trouble on the steep hills. We maintained good speed, and kept up good time. After we had been going for about two hours, we hit the part of the highway where we had been worried we would need to take the Trans Canada. Sure enough, the maps were correct, and the cook was wrong
Wheaty Sign
Here at last - there was only one way to go here, and it involved the highway. Not only this, but to get from our road on to the highway involved a very large and very steep hill, made especially bad because we stopped at the bottom of it to figure out if we really did need to take the highway or if we could risk going along the path that said: "No Exit" just on the advice of a cook from 20 km away.
We ended up taking the hill, and walking our bikes up it because of the steepness and the lack of momentum. To save the brackets on her shoes as much as possible, and to prevent cramping in her calf muscles (because of the positioning of the bracket, they make walking up hills quite awkward and painful), Therese took her shoes off, and walked up the hill just in her socks - not an ideal situation. After finally reaching the top, we had another daunting task ahead as the Trans Canada had not been friendly to us the last time we were on it, and we had heard there were some especially terrible hills on it between Woodstock and Fredericton. Once we got on however things worked out alright. We had a long downhill to start, and the following uphills were tough, but we managed to pedal through them. There were still a lot of uphills for a 10 km stretch, but it wasn't as bad as we were expecting. At the earliest opportunity we left the highway, and went back to taking our side roads.
As we approached Fredericton, the roads got progressively hillier, but we still managed to make good time. By the end of the day we had noticed a marked improvement in our treatment of hills, we could maintain a slightly better speed all the way up them (though still very low compared to our average), and they didn't tire us out nearly as much as the used to. It seems we're getting used to east coast biking after all. Therese even commented that she didn't get sweaty on them anymore. No such luck for Eric.
About 20 km out we had to pass over a number of bridges (and islands) to make it to Fredericton. These stretches were incredibly hilly, and also incredibly windy. One of the bridges even had wind breakers to help keep it up, so you can imagine the kind of winds we had to deal with on our bikes. Still, we were in good spirits knowing we would make it today and get a rest day tomorrow. We pushed on, and stopped for a cold drink and a sandwich about 10 km outside of town. Therese's clips were really doing poorly by now, so we called a local bike shop from there to check if they had the part we were looking for. They did, and we headed straight to them. We talked to some friendly and impressed people in the shop, and got two set of brackets - one for Therese immediately and one for Eric when his brackets finally wear out. They are also wearing out by the way, it not just Therese's. Since Eric has bigger feet, the brackets sit a little further back on the shoe, which helps prevent them from as much damage, but his brackets won't make it to Newfoundland, so we figured we might as well get them now.
After picking up the brackets, we headed to the university residence, as usual. There is a student rate at the residences in Fredericton which makes them especially appealing. As has been the case at most of the universities we've stayed at, the residences are at the top of a steep hill. This is not very pleasant at the end of a long day, and an annoying trend. We slowly pushed ourselves up the hill, checked in and went to our room. It is nice and spacious, but there were no towels there. Wanting to shower immediately, we called the front desk, who said they would have someone send them up. This was at about 5:15. We waited, and at 5:40 called back to double check when they were coming. They said they were pretty busy, and it wouldn't be until after 6:00 that they arrived. We wanted to just walk over and pick them up ourselves, but were told that they weren't in the office, but at a different location and we couldn't go get them. By the time they arrived it was 6:25, and at that point we still needed to shower before dinner, which meant it was a late night. After we finally got going, we had a nice dinner at a local restaurant, Eric had a nice local beer, then we picked up some groceries for the next few days, came home and went promptly to sleep.
Tomorrow: Rest day! Hooray!
Stats:
Departure time: 9:00 am
Arrival time: 5:05 pm
Total distance travelled: 111.8 km
Total time on bike: 4h 56m
Average speed: 22.7 km/h
Trip distance: 1470 km
- E and T
Note: Extra pictures were added to the last TWO blog entries.
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Tot: 0.05s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 9; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0224s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Alex Leonard
non-member comment
Day 16
Good on the two of you for pushing through the bracket situation. Seeing Therese's worn-out brackets, I can see how she would have had a lot of trouble pushing through hilly terrain. Without proper brackets, Therese's bike shoes must have felt like generic running shoes, and road bike pedals aren't designed for that kind of footwear. Despite the mechanical problems, you're average speed is still quite impressive. Moving off of the trails must have helped hugely in this regard. High-quality asphalt is never overrated!