Hi all,
Following are my notes and photos of my second ride in June, a four-day mini-tour in the Madawaska Highlands NW of Ottawa.
(Dan, these notes rather ran away with me, so if between the length of the ride and the length of my account, you think this more properly belongs in the "Cycle Tours" section, please move.)
[Good suggestion, John. I did move it here, because it is more than just an "activity" and comprises a really nice resource for others to see not only where you went on a tour, but also your new approaches to touring. Thanks! -- Dan.] Over the past three years, I’ve made three mini-tours through the Madawaska Highlands, the most recent two weeks ago, June 9 through 12. Each one is a journey to visit old friends whose 19th-century family homestead is located near Denbigh, Ontario. It’s also a training ride through beautiful, diverse, and (for two of the usual four days) very demanding countryside. This year, it was also a chance to check out some new lightweight camping gear and to compare my Raven-with-Rohloff against my ti-framed Eclipse which it has replaced as my touring bike. Particularly, I wanted to see how I managed on the two hilly days which make up the middle stage of the ride: as I approach 70, I find the erosion of my strength and energy is a wee bit more evident than the continuing (so we are told) erosion of the ancient hills of the Canadian Shield. Anticipating a ride in the Rockies next summer, and thinking about lower gearing on the Raven for that trek, I wanted to feel how my current 38 x 17 works on some tough hills close to home.
The route: I’ve written about past rides in 2012 and 2013, so won’t repeat that material here. I have, however, assembled a map of sorts, though, which helps to locate this ride:
http://tinyurl.com/pfxfqolYou’ll see that it’s a only a partial map: Even when prompted to use the “cycling” icon in its route options, Googlemaps seemed unable to wrap its e-head around the idea of a bike ride which didn’t follow the shortest distance between two points, which deliberately sought out the back country, and which (thus) did not venture onto scarifying roads like the Trans-Canada Highway. So, this map begins at my house in Ottawa, and heads west and north out of the city, past Balderson and Macdonald’s Corners and into the hills. It includes Denbigh, crosses Foymount Hill, the highest point in Eastern Ontario, and shows a couple of steep grades (including the 14% drop off the escarpment from Foymount, into the valley of the Bonnechere River), as well as my turnaround point at Lake Doré north of Eganville. It then inexplicably stops at the Fourth Chute on the Bonnechere south of Eganville—a nice enough spot to stop, for sure, although I just paused there to take a couple of photos of the river. Google couldn’t/wouldn’t map remaining 130 or so kms south and east to Ottawa, huffily declaring that “No more changes may be made to this route.” The remainder of the route is simple enough, running through Douglas, Renfrew, Burnstown, White Lake, and Pakenham, before angling SE from there to rejoin the Ottawa River 10 kms or so west of my home.
It proved to be a ride with both enjoyable and poignant moments, some unsettled weather with one forecast which would have been worrisome if I’d known about it, and a challenging final day. I learned some useful things about gear (as I’d hoped), and have some good pointers for my prospective ride in the West next year.
Here are a couple of dozen photographs from the ride:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/045rpm8bir9culn/AAAGUaBaBJhgVKIua1CYYOUka?dl=0 The weather: Jim's observation about the Catskills echoes here, for sure. We’ve had a cool and damp summer so far this year (while western Canada has been hot and parched) so that “unsettled weather” on my Madawaska ride meant rain on two-and-a-half days of the four. This made me realize how spoiled I’ve been by the weather we’ve enjoyed for the last few years—this is the only wet weather I’ve faced in my rides through Madawaska since 2012. The rain on my first day was steady but light, and cleared up after a few hours. The second day, when I left the farmland west of Ottawa and climbed up into the highlands, was sunny and cool in the morning, and then abruptly changed in the afternoon, the sky darkening and the wind picking up from the west. I stopped to put on my rain cape, switched on my headlight, and pushed on, knowing I had a couple of hours of tough hills before I reached my fiends’ old farmhouse. After 15 minutes, I saw a familiar Honda approaching, and my friend Richard flagged me down. He had come along the road to meet me, having just heard a forecast of thunderstorms, hail, rain, and possibly a small tornado as well. (“Tornados, in NE Ontario??” sez I. Strange times we live in.) Just as well I hadn’t heard that forecast, because there are no houses or even old barns for about half of the two-hour stretch I had been about to enter. Not the pace to get caught in dangerous weather. We put the Raven in the back of his station wagon, and drove the 20 kms or so to his place—through steady rain, but happily, no hail, no thunderstorms, and no tornado.
The third day, the most testing with its long steep climbs (see the altitude profile of the map) turned out to be sunny, with a nice steady westerly tailwind. The air was warm enough to think about a dip in Lake Doré after I made camp at the end of the afternoon, but the water was pretty brisk for mid-June, so my “dip” morphed into a few minutes of wading about near the shoreline, cooling my feet, calves, and knees.
On the morning of the fourth day, the westerly wind still held, although the morning was cloudy and humid. I made good time, riding south through Eganville and picking up the road along the river to the Fourth Chute. Beyond that, in the tiny village of Douglas, the damp turned to drizzle and out cam the rain gear once more. The rain persisted through a late-morning food stop in Renfrew, and continued as I rode south to White Lake, where I had planned to camp overnight. I decided I really didn’t want to pitch camp in the rain—White Lake is a pretty area, with several lakeside campgrounds, but their charm diminishes with wind-driven rain—so chose to press on to Ottawa. It was only another 3-4 hours, and I knew that the no-extra-cost luxury of a warm dry bed and cold beer lay before…but it turned out to be a bit more than I’d expected. The rain worsened, and the tailwind shifted 180º to a headwind. It was at least “a summer rain”, but by the end of the afternoon, I had covered 150 kms in some 8 hours of riding, 7 of that in steady rain, and half of it into a headwind. Still, as the saying goes, a bad day on the trail always beats a good day at the office.
Meetings along the way: The enjoyable moments included a chance meeting on the road about four hours west of Ottawa: I had stopped to take off my rain cape (prematurely, as it turned out) and was chewing on an energy bar when a Toyota station wagon pulled up beside me, the local rural mail service. (Thinks I, “surely he’s not going to ask me for directions?”) Mark, the driver, was 60-ish, and wanted to know about my bike, and talk about bike touring. Quelle bonne surprise! He was nearing retirement, he said, and he and his wife planned to lengthen their annual winter stay in Florida from a few weeks to a few months. His plan, he said, was to get himself a bike and ride to Florida, to rendez-vous there with his wife. Back in the 1970s, he said, he’d cycled everywhere and had planned to ride across Canada when he finished school. Instead, he got married at 20, and within a decade had four kids, a house, a job, a mortgage; but he’d never completely forgotten the idea of riding across the continent. I told him a bit about my Raven (he liked the idea of an internal-gear hub and a dynahub) and urged him not to give up on his reawakening dream. I gave him the addresses for the Thorn Forum and crazyguy, and we wished each other well and went on our intersecting ways.
Other enjoyable moments included extra time with Richard and Kate in their nearly 150-year-old log farmhouse near Denbigh. We’ve known each other for forty years or more, so it’s never difficult to resume the conversation. They and their neighbours are in the midst of a major debate, a siege for some. In late winter and early spring, a power and light company from Florida arrived with a proposal to build 100 giant wind turbines (since scaled back to 50) in a concentrated hilltop area nearby, to feed Ontario’s power grid. (“Giant” means 90 metres high—probably 2 or 3 times the size of those I cycled past last year, between Rostock and Berlin.) Predictably, perhaps, the community is split, with some landowners accepting the company’s offer of a one-time payment of $15,000 for a 20-year lease. This is one of the most impoverished counties in Ontario, so for some, a payment of that size is a serious chunk of change. Others have rejected the entire proposal, for reasons ranging from health worries, to visual pollution and the threat to wildlife, to asserting the need for a community-based plan incorporating a range of renewable energy sources. The issues are complex, with contending interests; the provincial government, far away in Toronto, talks about listening to rural communities, but its procedures favour big corporations.
Of more immediate concern to my friends was the imminent death of a grand old butternut tree in their yard, a giant well over a hundred years old, often painted, photographed, and climbed, but diseased and clearly dying. While I watched, the local tree removal expert, a spry 77-year-old, carefully and surgically brought it down with his chainsaw, piece by large and spreading piece. Kate remarked, as she saw it fall, “This is heartbreak country.” I patted the remains of its gnarly old trunk as I rode on the next day.
My campsite on the third day was Cedar Grove Park, on the lake just north of Eganville, an old lumbering small town on the Bonnechere River, one of the big tributaries into the Ottawa from the Algonquin Highlands. It’s an unpretentious family-run campground, sited on an old farm. Its owners are friendly, and they run a clean, well-organized place, dotted with attractive and well-maintained old farm buildings. These now serve as offices, loos, and rec halls. I’m pleased to see them still in use and well looked after—an act of homage to the hard labour of those who made them. (My own photos are a small tribute as well.)
I spoke with Gary, the owner-manager, about bikes and cyclists. He mentioned that the larger towns of the region, Pembroke and Renfrew, were beginning to promote cycle-touring, especially on the secondary and smaller roads further east near the river. I encouraged him to push those conversations a bit, saying that there would be a market in cities like Ottawa and Montréal. The food-and-lodging infrastructure is pretty modest, though—campgrounds like his have an established clientele (if not a well-heeled one), but general stores and small cafés are hard-pressed to survive. On this trip, I counted four which had gone out of business in the last 18 months. There simply isn’t enough custom in the back country.
Lastly, the gear: This is left to the last ‘cos everything mechanical worked pretty much as you’d would expect it to, so I didn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about it. Conversely, on my last trip with my Eclipse, in 2013, I spent the length of every big hill wondering whether my rear derailleur would give me the low gear I needed. Too often, it didn’t ?
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Gearing: The 38 x 17 on my Raven (with Mavic XM 719 rims and 26 x 1.6 Schwalbe Marathon Supremes) gives me 15.6 gear-inches in my lowest gear, and 17.7 in #2. Both are lower than the lowest gear on the Eclipse, which is 18.3. I could feel the difference: I used my lowest gear only twice, using the 2 – 12 range at other times. Using my lowest gear, the climb over Foymount Hill was noticeably easier. (After the 2km -- 14% descent, I didn’t turn around and climb back up…) I was pleased to find that in gentle terrain, I could roll along quite nicely in #s 10 and 11, and occasionally higher with a tailwind. My conclusion here is “38T good, 36T better still” – I’ll install my 36T chainring later this summer, to see how it goes. I might even take a run at Foymount Hill the hard way, the north slope.
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Weight reduction experiment: Since this was a mini-tour, I scaled back the amount of stuff I was carrying. I had my lightweight Tarptent Moment DW, along with my small silicon-nylon tarp; my lightweight Western Mountaineering 0° summer bag; and, in place of my 2.8-kg 42 ltr Arkel rear panniers, two drybags (28 ltrs total) fixed to the rear rack with Rok-strap flat adjustable non-bungees. The drybags carried my clothing, sleeping bag and Thermarest, and a pair of lightweight rubber sandals (Dawgs, the svelte version of Crocs.) My rain gear and Click-stand went into my Revelate frame bag, and in my Arkel 28-ltr front panniers I carried food, cookware, toiletries, first-aid kit, lock, and some repair items. Total weight was about 35 lbs, including the panniers & bags—the Arkel panniers and handlebar bag were the heaviest items I carried. On a longer tour, with a wider range of temperatures, I would have to carry more clothing, but not a lot more. I’m going to look into a lighter and more compact Thermarest Neo-Air Xtralite mattress for next year’s tour – the reduced bulk promises to allow the use of smaller and lighter panniers.
• The bike handled better with the lower weight, and I expect made the climbing that much easier too, reinforcing the effect of the lower gearing. I used about 60 psi in my Supremes (slightly higher in the rear), and that seemed fine. No sidewall cuts this time.
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Managing the rain: This is not something I’ve ever bothered much about—Ontario summers are usually pretty dry, and even when we have rain, it tends to come at night, to be followed by a clear sunny day. (Autumn is a different matter, when we often have Scottish weather.) On this trip, I had trouble keeping myself well ventilated on the two wet days, so that I was pretty much soaked from within. I perspire a lot, but my Ground Effect merino T-shirt and cycling jersey kept me warm enough. I’ve found that even expensive Gore clothing loses breathability as its resistance to rain improves. Not sure I’ll ever get this one “balanced”, but I might try using my Mountain Hardwear X-country skiing jacket in the next rainstorm—it breathes better than any rain jacket I’ve ever had, and is said to be water-repellent for all but the hardest rain. Maybe…
• I did learn that Arkel’s rain covers for the front panniers don’t do a very good job when exposed to 7 hours of steady rain. Funny thing is, in other circumstances, the covers for my rear panniers have worked quite well. Scrutinizing everything safe and dry in my workshop, I found the reason why: the covers for the T-28 front panniers were not seam-sealed! Serves me right for not checking. (Was this why they had been on sale four years ago, I wonder?) Anyway, now they’re sealed. (I use a 2:1 mixture of Coleman fuel and Silicone II Clear sealant, mixed in a small jar or tin, and applied with a small foam brush.)
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Rethinking panniers and dry bags: In the midst of everything, my two dry bags on the rear kept everything completely dry, and the Rok-straps held them securely too. No troubles there at all. Mounting the bags for the first time was a bit fussy, getting the straps properly positioned and tensioned. Once the straps were on the rack for the remainder of the trip, however, each side took maybe a minute, most of that tucking away the excess strapping. But—once the dry bags are in place, and everything is snugged up, getting anything out en route is a bother. My rain gear lives in the Revelate bag, so it’s very handy; but getting a dry jersey or (say) a fleece vest is quite a bit fussier than just opening a pannier lid or pocket and fishing out what you need. So, there’s clearly a tradeoff between weight and convenience.
• I think I’ve found a route around that tradeoff, however: Arkel’s waterproof 32-ltr “Dauphin” panniers, at 1.8 kgs a full kilo lighter than my 42-ltr rear panniers, and even slightly less than my 28-ltr front bags. (There’s a very useful review of Arkel panniers on crazyguy, here:
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/reviews/board/message/?o=tS&thread_id=654281&page=1&nested=0&v=19 ) The Dauphins are versatile – they’re spacious enough to be used as rear panniers on a shorter tour, and maybe even on a longer tour as well. I found a pair at a local supplier, bought them on a no-sales-tax day, so I saved myself 13% ? In a couple of weeks, I’ll do a ten-day ride to and in the wine country of Prince Edward County with our daughter. I’ll use the new Dauphins on that; they’ll probably guarantee dry sunny weather.
Enough for now, guys. Questions welcome, of course, but don’t feel obliged.
