I could ride 1,000km

“Turn left up here instead of right. I’ll explain when we get there.”

Get where? Why is Neil taking us off course, and where is “there”?

He swings his bike to the left, and I don’t have much choice to follow. When I reach where he is stopped he is looking very pleased with himself, standing outside a water treatment plant. I’ve been hanging out for a cold drink. Does he think we can go inside and find a Coke machine?

Then he points to the sign at gate. “1000.” With a little help I understand what he’s getting at. 1,000km!

Our real 1,000km was yesterday, but it came and went about 20km before we reached Cobourg, due to mathematical failures on my part and a long and tiring day. Neil decided last night that we would celebrate riding 1,000km under load, as we have done some riding without all the gear.

So here we are. Neil has had a feeling that we would see a sign at our 1,000km point, and, serendipitously, and perhaps with a little woo-woo, that’s exactly what happened.

When we reached the 1,000km point in our Eastern Europe trip, we spent ages trying to jump in the air and catch a photo at the right point. It proved quite difficult to get legs with 1,000km in them to jump anywhere. Today we content ourselves with a couple of pictures in front of the sign. Sadly, I didn’t get the camera positioned right, or Neil moved after my test shot, and you can’t really see him. But I’m there, in all my splendid cycle outfit glory.

We’ve ridden 40km today to get to this point. We had both been afraid it was going to be a slog like yesterday, but the wind miraculously turned around, and, after a fine breakfast of cheese-stuffed french toast at MacKechnie House and a quick trip to see the Cobourg beach in daylight, we hit the road and sailed along route 2 with an enthusiastic tail wind. At last! I saw my speedo get up to the high 30s, on the flat. Tail winds make you feel like a super hero.

Once we hit Port Hope, about 8km from Cobourg, we turned off route 2, slogged up a butt-nutter of a hill and turned onto some smaller country roads that lead us closer to the water. We’re still following the Waterfront Trail, so it is encouraging to actually be near the water. These roads also take us on a bit of a roller coaster ride, up, down, up, down – today is looking to be our biggest climbing day of the whole trip!

After the fairly low-key 1,000km celebration we keep going, getting closer and closer to Oshawa, where we plan to catch a train into Toronto. We are still following the Waterfront Trail, and it takes us on a merry dance on an ever changing mixture of beautiful paved paths, hard packed dirt, slippery, rutted gravel, a skinny goat track that is so rutted you have to ride on the grass beside it, and even on a path near a nuclear power station. It looks like different communities or organisations take charge of parts of the trail, and maintain it in their own way. And where there is no off road trail, we ride on regular roads that join the trails together.

There is no doubt we are approaching a major city. The roads we do ride are busy, the chain food places increase in number, and at times we parallel the busy 402 freeway, with cars tearing along in both directions. It makes me glad to be not living in the busy, working real world.

The going is pretty slow along these trails. I appreciate not riding on busy roads, but I’d also really like to get where I’m going. The last few days have been pretty tiring, and I am in need of a break.

About 10km short of Oshawa we chance upon Lakeview Park, a (lake) beachside park where we stop for a breather, some lake views and a bit of a breeze. There’s a massive ship docked nearby, and we watch it manoeuvre itself out to the lake waters, with the help of a couple of tugboats. One tugboat is attached by a line, and actually seems to be hauling the massive ship out, while the other buzzes around the ship’s side. It only takes 10-15 minutes before the tugs head back to dock and the ship winds up its motors and steams off into the distance.

We keep pace with the ship as we make our way to Oshawa, but lose sight of it when we turn inland to head to Oshawa train station.
We made the decision during planning to not ride all the way to Toronto. We’ve had some pretty torrid city entries, and it usually is just no fun. Toronto’s GO trains reach all the way to Oshawa; it is about a one hour journey into Union Station. They take bikes, two at each end of each carriage, and for no charge. There are just restrictions on when you can take bikes in to Union Station. It is almost 6pm; we won’t have any issues with that now. By the time we get into Toronto, rush hour will be well and truly over.

There are huge queues to get tickets. It looks like every teenager in Oshawa is heading into town this evening. I ask the ticket seller when the next train is and he tells me there is one out there now, but if we miss that it will be another hour. Neil and I sprint like you’ve never seen to catch this train. When we reach a carriage the doors are shut and we think it is about to leave, but the doors open, and a great cheer comes from people inside. We’ve made it.

Once in Toronto we make our way, via a bike path with every other cycling commuter in Toronto, to our AirBNB in the Studio District. We are both starving and in need of the end-of-day beer, so head to the closest set of restaurants on nearby Queen Street. I get to indulge my Mexican food craving at the very fine Barrio restaurant, which also sports a range of unique (and delicious) margaritas.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 79.1km
• Climb: 596m
• Average speed: 17.7km/h
• Average temperature: 29C
• Moving time: 4:28:16
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken at Barrio, a Mexican restaruant near our AirBNB place. Again, I’ve gone for a Margarita over a beer. This time a spicy one. Big tick of approval.

Along the way today: