Day32 - Sleepless in Sudbury

I had a great evening with Mike last night.  He's an awesome dude that's training for Ultraman Canada in a few short weeks, and was kind enough to offer me a bed last night.  We made a kickass meal, talked about athletics, moments of darkness and light (in sport), and life in general - but we ended up staying up until 02:30.  Morning came far too quickly and even though it was a somewhat late start (rolling by ~10:00) it was still pretty painful.  On the upside, the weather had cleared and it was sunny with blue skies.  No weird atmospheric pressure systems apparent, and my knees felt pretty good. 

Seb had rolled pretty hard after we parted company, making Sturgeon Falls - so he was pretty close to North Bay in the morning and I wasn't sure if he had plans to have a quick lunch with his dad and then press on, or if he was going to chill.  I started the day off by pushing pretty hard and after the first hour had to settle it down a bit or risk burning the motor too hot.  Mike had told me that "it's pretty flat" - but I had to climb out of Sudbury and then spent the first hour and a half in rolling hills.  After that it did indeed flatten out quite a bit. 

The wind was weird.  At first it was very still, then it swirled around and hit me from pretty much every direction - with the overall trend being more of a headwind than anything else.  I kept the pace as high as I felt that I could realistically keep it without blowing up or digging a hole from which I'd have too hard of a time emerging later.  I stopped in Hagar after around 12:30 for fuel, and sent Seb a text that I expected to be in North Bay by ~16:00 (~77k away).   Rolling solo for the first time in a while was kind of weird, but it felt good to be able to just do my own thing - making tempo changes whenever I felt like it and not having to consider how anyone else might be feeling.  Seb's pretty strong on the bike, so I don't really have to "worry" about him being able to keep pace - but a seemingly random change in pace can wreck havoc on someone's groove, so it's still a consideration.  Luckily his rhythm and natural break schedule jives pretty well with mine - so it hasn't been a problem.  Still, when I fell into a momentary funk and slowed a lot for a few minutes, then smacked myself out of it with a long section of standing hammering, it was easier to deal with solo than it would have been in a group. 

I was tired, but kept pushing the pace as much as possible as I still wasn't sure what Seb was up to - so if I had to chase him past North Bay, I wanted to keep the gap as small as possible.  My timing was good and I rolled into North Bay pretty much right on time.  I got hold of Seb and he was just chilling out, relaxing in his dad's hotel room with plans of spending the night.  My body had held up very well today with only minimal ankle pain - but I wanted to stay on top of things so I made the decision to get a hotel and ice bath my legs again.  I pfaffed around for about an hour, rolling around the "downtown core" checking out my options, and then decided to look for the hotel who's restaurant Courtney had told me I needed to try.  Seb and I had looked it up earlier and based on the website it looked pretty nice.  I decided I might as well check out the hotel.  Let's just say that the website really shows it's best side.  Sort of like how with enough Photoshop, I look like Bruce Lee.  To add insult to injury, the restaurant is closed for renovations (actually much of the hotel is under renovation) - so my raison d'etre (here) was all for naught.  Bummer. 

Oh well - an reasonably early night tonight and we'll roll on toward Ottawa in the morning.  If things go well we might hit Deep River or Petawawa tomorrow night, and Ottawa by Thursday night.  As always, we'll have to see what Mother Nature gives us.  The road definitely rolls more than it did today, so it won't be an easy ride - but it might be a lot harder than it has to be.  :p


Stats:

Total Elapsed Time: 7hrs
Actual Ride Time: 6.02
Total Distance:  141.28 km
Avg Speed:  23.3kph
Max Speed:  50.4kph


The only really interesting thing I saw all day...