Bikely map

Once again, rain furnished me with an excuse for a late start so by the time I’d shown my remaining route to the Atlantic Canada Cycling folks (who didn’t really have any suggested improvements to make — something I’d blame partly on consulting their website when planning the route back in Edmundston), breakfasted on the sweet and sour pork ration, broken camp, and gotten myself back on the road it was a little after noon.

Coupling this late start with the substantial headwinds that were blowing at me (and would continue to for about half the ride; the remaining half having them as crosswinds instead), it was pretty clear that I had a long day and another potentially late night ahead of me.

For the first little while, I got to ride on relatively empty road looking roughly like this:

and which was moderately hilly. After one particularly tiring uphill/upwind slog, I stopped to admire the scenery from the top of the hill (sure everything else looks pretty flat):

After a couple of hours, I came to the road that my map told me ought to take me to the slightly more major highway that would lead me pretty much right into Truro. The thing is, the road (Jersey Road) only appeared to turn off to the left, and I needed to take it right. It was a dirt road, and there was a remarkably poorly maintained driveway just across from it. I rode ahead a short bit to see if Jersey Road had any jog in it, and after about 100m, decided that the unmaintained driveway was actually the unmaintained road going south.

Now although I didn’t take a picture of it (not wanting to jinx the possibility that this “road” would get me to the highway, instead of some collapsing shack in the woods), rest assured that the surface condition was worse than most mountain biking and offroad trails that I’ve ever seen. And I was on a road bike. A heavily loaded road bike.

I somehow managed to make it along this trail without falling, losing any parts off the bike, or even having to step in one of the many large puddles, and got to the highway on the other side.

Now this highway continued east a little way further before turning to the south, but when it turned, it led to a rather nice (if vaguely ominous) view:

The ominous part being, of course, that little bit of mountainous terrain off in the distance. As it turned out, there was no particularly good pass, and I got to ride up to Folly Lake on a climb that, while it wasn’t quite something I’d expect in BC. was certainly larger than anything I’d encountered in any of the other provinces (since my experiences with mountains in Alberta consisted almost entirely of coasting down them). On a nicer note, there was certainly some good coasting to be had going back down the other side.

Continuing along, I generally managed to avoid getting rained upon, and reached Truro at around dusk. There was a warmshowers host who fed me and put me up for the night, which meant the last leg could be done well cleaned, well fed, and well rested (and it promised to be short too!)