Joe's Bike Ride Across America: Day 41 – London to Brantford, Ontario

Today: 68 miles, 1558 feet of climb
Cumulative: 3068 miles, 99925 feet of climb
Remaining: Approx. 636 miles, 21810 feet of climb

Riders pose with their new Canada jerseys. I love mine, which Toronto Mark and Susan got for me.

Another great day on our cross country ride. The remaining days and miles are dwindling now, and everyone is starting to think about the last day and trip home. I’m looking forward to seeing Karen and being home. But I haven’t spent much time thinking about all the preparations required for the last day. With 42 days of not having to make any decisions behind me, why start now when I can wait until next week to worry about it?

The Geldings, soon after we started this morning.

Our ride today was rather uneventful. Or as Toronto Mark would say, “…dull as dishwater.” We passed through several small towns (Springford, Otterville, Oakland, and Mt. Pleasant) on our way to Brantford. We headed mostly to the east, with about 20 turns and a jog to the north when entering Brantford. Again we were mostly on farms roads until the outskirts of town. The day was overcast and gray with a small headwind. But the roads were again flat. The rain held off until we were finished at the hotel. Temperatures were in the 60’s, and I was cold most of the day, especially when restarting after the days only SAG stop. It has been a relatively cool crossing, so I’m probably in for a shock when I get back to Georgia. There was one detour for road construction that added 1.8 miles to our daily mileage.

This picture is here for no reason other than Baltimore Mark will copy it and upload it to his blog.

Brantford is the birthplace of Wayne Gretzky and Alexander Graham Bell. It is called The Telephone City as Bell made his first distant phone call from Brantford. The population is just over 90,000.

This picture was taken late in the morning. That is our "The Box" truck ahead on the right side of the road.

I mentioned we only had one SAG stop today, but it was a good one. Susan (Toronto Mark’s wife), visited the stop and brought some of her world famous biscotti. She was kind enough to give me the recipe and I’ll be attempting to make them soon after I’m home. We also had some leftover butter tarts and they were equally good.

I was surprised to see tobacco being grown here. I thought it was a southern crop.

Today, The Geldings reassembled at luggage load. Baltimore Mark, Toronto Mark, Jeff, Dave and I rode together for the first 25 miles with Alex accompanying us until she and Jeff stopped at a store. After the SAG it was just the remaining four of us for the last 34 miles of the day. I’m not sure any of us was motivated to ride fast, and we didn’t, yet we still wound up at the hotel fairly early. Some of our rooms weren’t ready yet, nor was the luggage available, so it was time for a quick trip to Subway for a sandwich.

This picture of Baltimore Mark, Joe, and Dave was taken by Toronto Mark

Tomorrow, we will individually cross back into the USA at Niagara Falls at the end of the days ride. Then, we will have our last off day on Monday before riding through New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire.