Ride for Saturday, 20 July
I decided I would take a tour of the Aspotogan Peninsula, as it sounded like quite a nice ride. As I went through Timberlea, I saw the Lakeside- Beechville- Timberlea trail and decided to take that. It was a pretty smooth ride (albeit a little slower than riding on the road) which I enjoyed, stopping every now and then to take pictures and apply suntan lotion. When I hitting Lewis Lake, however, the trail degraded into a morass of rocks - inch long pebbles up to 6 inches deep. Riding through that was like slogging through snow, but I'd gone too far to want to turn back. I got a pinch flat along here, too - riding at up to 35km/hr through the rocks really wasn't a great idea!
Once I got to Tantallon it was OK, but the section from Hubley through the Tantallon is really not worth it on a bike unless you've got wide knobby tyres, preferably on a mountain bike - I can see it being quite fun then. The trail from Tantallon through to St Margaret's Bay was still a bit rocky, but it was fairly easily navigable. Once I hit St Margaret's Bay the trail was smooth crushed rock almost all the way, apart from a few sections here and there that had pebbles scattered across the road. Riding on the trail meant I was able to listen to my MP3 player, too - something I don't generally do on the road unless I'm in a really rural area, so that made a pleasant change.
When I hit Hubbard's I had a choice to make; I could either take the 329 highway (my original plan), or I could continue on the trail, which turned into the Aspotogan trail. Lacking any mapping, my assumption was that the Aspotogan trail would go by Aspotogan and loop back round towards Chester, following the same basic route as the 329. I decided to take the Aspotogan trail, since I was enjoying listening to some MP3s and riding along on a relatively deserted trail without cars zooming by. After around 15km of riding, I was rather surprised to find myself coming out by East River. I found a map at the trail head there, which revealed the Aspotogan Trail went, essentially, nowhere near Aspotogan. What a rip. I decided it would be a good idea to head back to Hubbards on the #3 highway anyway, as I was starting to run low on water. I picked up more water and food in Hubbards and continued on on the trail, jumping back onto the road at Tantallon through to Hubley, then rode the trail all the way through to Lakeside before the trail stopped. It looks like the trail is eventually going to go all the way into Halifax, which means I'll have about 5km of road riding before I get on a trail, which is a nice option to have. I rode the rest of the way home on the road, and filled up on a nice big plate of stir fry before relaxing in front of the TV watching a Penn & Teller episode.
Total fluids drunk: 6 litres of water, 2.8 litres of gatorade mix
Total food eaten: 2 gels, 4 energy bars, 3 granola bars, 3 apples
GPS map: http://www.fop.ns.ca/bike/2005.07.17_aspotogan/00gpsmap.jpg (not complete - GPS turned itself off before I hit East River)
Pictures: http://www.fop.ns.ca/bike/2005.07.17_aspotogan/
Distance logged: 133.33km
Time: 5:54:15
Average speed: 22.6km/hr
Max speed: 99.9km/hr
Temperature: 21C-23C (according to Environment Canada - I saw it hit 33C), sunny
Cumulative distance: 3523.195km
Once I got to Tantallon it was OK, but the section from Hubley through the Tantallon is really not worth it on a bike unless you've got wide knobby tyres, preferably on a mountain bike - I can see it being quite fun then. The trail from Tantallon through to St Margaret's Bay was still a bit rocky, but it was fairly easily navigable. Once I hit St Margaret's Bay the trail was smooth crushed rock almost all the way, apart from a few sections here and there that had pebbles scattered across the road. Riding on the trail meant I was able to listen to my MP3 player, too - something I don't generally do on the road unless I'm in a really rural area, so that made a pleasant change.
When I hit Hubbard's I had a choice to make; I could either take the 329 highway (my original plan), or I could continue on the trail, which turned into the Aspotogan trail. Lacking any mapping, my assumption was that the Aspotogan trail would go by Aspotogan and loop back round towards Chester, following the same basic route as the 329. I decided to take the Aspotogan trail, since I was enjoying listening to some MP3s and riding along on a relatively deserted trail without cars zooming by. After around 15km of riding, I was rather surprised to find myself coming out by East River. I found a map at the trail head there, which revealed the Aspotogan Trail went, essentially, nowhere near Aspotogan. What a rip. I decided it would be a good idea to head back to Hubbards on the #3 highway anyway, as I was starting to run low on water. I picked up more water and food in Hubbards and continued on on the trail, jumping back onto the road at Tantallon through to Hubley, then rode the trail all the way through to Lakeside before the trail stopped. It looks like the trail is eventually going to go all the way into Halifax, which means I'll have about 5km of road riding before I get on a trail, which is a nice option to have. I rode the rest of the way home on the road, and filled up on a nice big plate of stir fry before relaxing in front of the TV watching a Penn & Teller episode.
Total fluids drunk: 6 litres of water, 2.8 litres of gatorade mix
Total food eaten: 2 gels, 4 energy bars, 3 granola bars, 3 apples
GPS map: http://www.fop.ns.ca/bike/2005.07.17_aspotogan/00gpsmap.jpg (not complete - GPS turned itself off before I hit East River)
Pictures: http://www.fop.ns.ca/bike/2005.07.17_aspotogan/
Distance logged: 133.33km
Time: 5:54:15
Average speed: 22.6km/hr
Max speed: 99.9km/hr
Temperature: 21C-23C (according to Environment Canada - I saw it hit 33C), sunny
Cumulative distance: 3523.195km
posted by steve at 7/17/2005 08:51:00 pm
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