Witless Bay Line, Early Autumn

The weather here is still holding good. I got an unanticipated 100 km ride in yesterday - Bay Bulls, Witless Bay Line, Holyrood, Conception Bay Highway, Topsail Road, home. It was sunny throughout, with ideal temperatures. There was a bit of a headwind on the last third of the Witless Bay Line, but by then I needed the challenge. The views over the barrens were taking my mind off the effort (and everything else) anyway - the little deep blue ponds receeding into the distance, each one poised upon and punctuating it's own discrete terrace - a study in horizontals. I never cross this section without feeling absolutely euphoric at some point! It's a great section to ride alone. But it's 28 kilometers of emptiness before you hit Holyrood, so fill up your bottle in Bay Bulls.

Here's the route map:

Bike route 1854126 - powered by Bikemap 

Avalon Biker goes to Ontario - Part Two

Here's another ride I did while on vacation. Until I did this I had no idea what the Trent-Severn Waterway was (and they say mainlanders are ignorant of Newfoundland!). The Trent River near Glen Ross was beautiful. Downtown Sterling had a good coffee shop. The loop is about 30 kilometers of flat riding on pavement.

Bike route 1846663 - powered by Bikemap 

Avalon Biker goes to Ontario - Part One

We've just been on vacation in Niagara Falls for three weeks. Took our bikes with us. Yes, fine weather to ride in!! Here's a particularly nice ride I did on September 21st:

Bike route 1846639 - powered by Bikemap 

This was a beautiful morning on the Niagara Escarpment, with several red-tailed hawks flying over the vinyards, deer peeking from the woods along shaded country lanes - very nice. My destination was Café Domestique in Dundas, where the owner has one of Steve Bauer's 1988 yellow jerseys on display (not to mention excellent coffee and food). Getting through Hamilton caused a few navigation problems but I arrived at the prearranged time, and Deborah drove me back to The Falls. A wonderful day! About 90 km and pretty flat. Here's me, as close to Le Maillot Jaune as I'm ever going to get! Where's the podium girls??!

Hardest Climbs on the Avalon

Avalon Climbs Ranked by Category and Length

During a recent club outing a couple of the younger lads were discussing a ride they`d just completed on the southwest Avalon. They started at Colinet, went down the North Harbour road, up the Cape Shore to Placentia, then across the dirt section through The Cataracts to Colinet. Now, Saint Bride`s - Placentia is only 30 kilometers but nortoriously hilly, with perhaps the steepest pitches anywhere on the Avalon. I took three hours to do it north to south one afternoon, on a hybrid with 26 inch wheels and two full rear panniers. It's incredibly beautiful down there when you can see through the fog (doesn`t Rex Murphy write somewhere that Gooseberry Cove is the closest thing to heaven he's ever seen?).

The boys were getting gradients of 14% from their onboard GPS units, and their discussion got me wondering about what might be the most difficult climb on the Avalon. I started plotting all the long hills I could think of using the Map My Ride interface. The data are tabulated above. Categories were assigned by the MMR software itself. My criteria were not rigourous; I simply eyeballed the longest possible section with the highest average gradient for each climb; I did ignore anything less than a kilometer however, because finding the steepest pitch shorter than that would be too exhausting to do by hand.

Is there any application where the raw numbers are quite as misleading as they are for bicycle climbs? From South Side Road up Shea Heights is a lot of work, but I've never found it as hard as coming up the other side from Maddox Cove, though the latter ascent is given the easier Cat 4 rating here. Despite these shortcomings, I believe the table does give a good overview of climbing on the Avalon.

Witless Bay

Rode out to Witless Bay today. Here's the map. I've done this as an overnight tour from St. John's, but today it was out and back with a short stop for photos and to breathe in the sea air. At the end of Gallows Cove Road on the south side of the bay there's a beautiful cobble beach with flat, grassy fields at the far end, which are ideal for camping (see photo at left). You can set up your tent so that you have a view of the islands just offshore. On one occasion Deborah and I woke in the morning to find seals swimming nearby. Today I saw only a couple of whale spouts but they weren't breaching.

And here's some pictures of the bicycle I've been using for most of the rides described here. This is the third year I've had this steel Marinoni. It has a carbon fork, and the Shimano 105 triple groupo. Last year we completed a Super Randonneur series together (a first for both of us)! The compact gearing on the front along with the granny gear makes this a real wimp's bike, but hey, it gets me back up the Witless Bay Hill with ease, and the ride really is as smooth as silk!

Circle the City

What happened to the annual Canada Day Ride? Till now it was a regular feature on the Bicycle Newfoundland and Labrador calendar, and it usually had a big turnout. We'd do a loop of the Northeast Avalon - to Pouch Cove via St. Thomas' Line and return via Marine Drive. It was the closest thing to Halifax's Joseph Howe Century Ride that St. John's ever had, and I'm not alone in thinking it a disgrace that it wasn't held this year! Oh well - on to other things.

Recommended Ride: I call this the Circle the City ride, because it`s just one big loop that skirts our fair metropolis. Tuesday evening conditions were beautiful for this. Wind was practically zero and it was warm even by the water. I managed 51 kilometres at an average speed of 25.3 kmh which for me is fast, especially when travelling alone. It`s best to leave this one till later in the evening, because it involves negotiating one of the off-ramps at the old overpass, and you don`t want to deal with it when traffic is at peak. Click here for the map. If you do it without taking a break I give you permission to finish up with a piece of fresh cake and a coffee at Gracie Joe's. Clomp your pedal cleats and keep your helmet on till the server clues in that you rode up on your bike - sometimes they give you a 10 % discount - imagine!!

Marine Drive Hills

Recommended ride: Finally - a ride that didn't require extra clothes! I even got a bit of a sunburn on my upper arms. I went out to Fort Amherst then back along Harbour Drive to warm up. I got delayed a bit by the Canada Day parade, but soon got up to speed and headed out to Middle Cove via The Gut and White Hills Road. Several small groups in full kit passed me going the other way. The climb out of Outer Cove was hot, but it went well. I crawled up Signal Hill in my granny gear at the end. There was a small pod of five humpbacks cavorting off Cuckold's Cove Head and tons of people up on the Hill watching them. Click here for the map.