July 2 – Thunder Bay to Nipigon

Bike log: 102.5km, 554m of vertical, avg. speed 30.8 km/hr

A short ride today, but once again there is not too much option of places to stay. The next place along (Rainbow Falls Provincial Park) looked to be a good 70km, and from what I hear the hills start about here. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the provincial parks are all full this long weekend. It won’t be a problem finding places to stay along the north shore of Lake Superior this week, but I think some days are going to be shorter. Although I do remember what happened last time I said that – rain and headwinds for the next week! But if all goes OK we should hit Sault Ste. Marie in 5 or 6 days.

The ride was pretty flat today, although the condition of the shoulder kept me awake! It was not in good shape at all in quite a few places. Fortunately, this is the Saturday of a long weekend so the traffic was relatively light. In heavy traffic, there would be a number of places in this stretch that would have required riding on the gravel.

This stretch of highway that we traveled today passes a monument to Terry Fox (his trip ended at Thunder Bay), and the highway is named the Terry Fox Courage Highway in his honour. Ironically, pedestrians and cyclists are barred from portions of it near Thunder Bay. Or perhaps it is meant out of respect to his incredible achievement, I don’t know. Thunder Bay is not a bike friendly city, and I found that the drivers here are pretty bad – I have seen 2 instances of cars passing other cars on the inside by driving on the shoulder! I did manage to find a nice way out of town (follow Hudson to Arundel to Strathcona) that bypassed a good 20-25km of the highway. Nice!