Day 1 – Kitchener to Clifford

For the second time in a row I was up at 6 to start this trip. It worked this time.

Met Michael at his place at 7:30, Gary at the train station at 8:15, on the train 30 minutes late and an hour and a half after that in Kitchener.

We rode all of 20 minutes before hiding from torrential rain under the awning of an industrial building.

The second time we hid from rain was at Ecocafe, the official start point. We spent an hour eating breakfast sandwiches and pastries, and speculating about our chances of staying dry.

We chose poorly because 30 minutes into the actual ride we were in heavy sideways rain. It lasted about 30 minutes and gave way to a nasty headwind that lasted all day

When the rain and clouds cleared, it was actually great riding weather despite feeling more like October or November than August. The route was a little rail trail but mostly fairly flat country gravel.

Other than the god awful wind, which I promised myself I wouldn’t harp on, the most remarkable thing about the day was Michael’s garmin cycling computer. Despite me having exactly the same model, his apparently has a special feature that displays on a single screen all of the bad news about your ride: how much worse the rain will get, how slow you’re going, how you’ll never make it to your intended destination, etc. Damnedest thing. 😏

We did indeed fall about 25 km short of where we had roughly hoped to land, but, given the conditions, we did a respectable job of making it as far as we did. Some rain expected in the morning, but the rest of the week is looking good if a little on the cool side. No complaints about that so long as I’m able meet ice cream quotas.

Goodnight from Driftwood Beach Campground.