LDW Day 3: day-long pain cave

woke up at 6 feeling great, I decided to ride til Calabogie and treat myself to a nice hotel. 100km shouldn’t be too hard… well, I was wrong again.

Numbers can’t quite capture how painful this route is. Many parts are gorgeous and really premium gravel experiences, but many others are just demoralizing and straight up Not Fun ™️. I hit a tripwire.

these “unmaintained paths” are just brutal, at some point I started crying because I was climbing and a fly got in my ear. It’s not the pain of the ride, but the keeping the mind alert and constantly on edge, every descent is technical, hiked dozens of climbs. Non stop mosquito buzzing.

after riding for 9 hours (at 15km/h / max capacity) I finally see the paved road, this meant I was close to Calabogie and a well deserved rest. I started crying again, out of joy and frustration at how psychologically hard today was. I started peddling fast to regain some spirits, hadn’t been able to descend for many hours.

I went too fast and wiped out. very stupid, the momentum a loaded bike can get is insane. entirely my fault. just got road rash, already cleaned up wounds, the bike is ok.

I’m cancelling the trip, I was already considering it by just how demoralizing today was, but the fall made me hit that tripwire. I’m on holidays and this is supposed to be fun. I’m still more hurt by mosquito bites than the actual fall (and it bleed a lot, I wonder which one lost more blood….)

I’ll go back home, recoup some spirits, and make the best of the time off I have.

I’m very grateful for what I got to ride and see, I’m impressed by my performance during the days I could ride, but it started to feel like burn out, and with the accident it’ll tip the balance for sure. I’ll have to plan more strategically and give it another try next year!!!!

some changes I wanna do are Bivy camping + more hotels, better route planning. it takes too long to setup/pack my current setup.

forgot to mention, passing by Lanark I went to their community centre and met a guard keeper. He gave me 8 bottles of water and let me pet his dog Maggie.

I also had to stop the garmin auto pause because it was pausing the bike hikes, some numbers are kinda messed up it’s best to look at elapsed time for these things.