From Hypothermia to Heat Rash

If you put last Saturday and today beside each other, you would be hard pressed to find two more different days, wild though they both may have been.

Whereas Saturday brought its fury in the form of cold, lashing rain, and a relentless east wind, today’s theatrics came in the form of sweltering heat and ferocious winds out of the west.

On Saturday, I avoided stopping, for fear of hypothermia setting in. Today I stopped often to avoid overheating like those cars you see on the side of the road, with their hoods up, and steam rising from the engine. As it was my face was a big red ball, and my legs were covered in a heat rash. I’ll spare you the photos; think chicken pox on a youngster, then add the wrinkles of a non-youngster. Take my word for it, not pretty.

But heat rash and overheated face aside, it was a pretty swell day. Setting out from Whitney at 7:00, I paused briefly at the Opeongo River, which, along with the Madawaska River, is popular for white water paddling; it looked so serene in the early morning.

By the time I got to Barry’s Bay at 9:30, the heat was rising, and having only had my instant brew in the morning, I was thrilled to find Madawaska Coffee, where the young barista made me an iced latte. I also got two monster cookies for later. Yes, I did say two. Monster though they were, it was a long day of pedalling with over 1300 meters of climbing. I wasn’t going to manage that on love alone.

The wind really started kicking up as the morning went along. While first nudging me gently, it then started thrusting me down the highway, which was all very appealing, but for the occasional gust from the side, especially while descending some of the longer hills. All you can do is hang onto your brake hoods, and hold yourself steady on the bike. Well you could pray if you were inclined, or let Jesus take the wheel so to speak, but I found my methods worked well enough.

The route was pretty straight forward today, but for one section taking me south of highway 60 onto some quieter roads, including some gravel. All I could think of, as I climbed the sandy, rutted gravel was how brutal it would be to ride on were it wet and muddy. The route tried to take me on a road with a no exit sign, so I had to go another four kilometres south on the sandy washboard gravel, before I could reroute myself north. Other than that glitch, after which I got back in the highway, the day ran pretty smoothly.

I would have loved to take video of Golden Lake, where the wind was creating white caps, but there was debris blowing up from the shore, and I didn’t fancy the notion of getting hit with fallen branches while trying to video the waves smashing, and the trees thrashing.

From the town of Golden Lake, I headed north and then east into Pembroke.. The back roads outside of Pembroke were pretty, with lots of trees blossoming, but it was clearly a special garbage pick up day, as people had piled up broken furniture, tires, and even the odd mattress at the end of their driveways. I was struck by one house where, amongst a tower of garbage, I spied a sewing machine with the needle still threaded. A few yards past the house, I saw a spool of thread, as if it was trying to escape the sad heap of garbage into which it had been flung. Having been a terrible seamstress, sewing the shakiest of seams on sad tote bags, I could envision myself marching a sewing machine out to the curb, though I would like to believe I would offer it a better home than a landfill site.

Passing by the sad spool of thread, I had only a few more turns to make before I reached the Best Western. My final turn took me directly into construction and the wind, suddenly a making the last 500 meters of the day the hardest and the grittiest.

I was all too happy to roll my bike into my swell suite with a separate living room and two tvs. An embarrassment of riches really. The walk-in shower and spacious room were all I needed to recover from the day. I even made it down to the fitness center, where I did some much needed stretching.

Now it is time for some dinner, before my eyes close. Tomorrow, I will head for Gatineau, and much of the ride will be on the bike trails of Quebec. The weather looks much cooler, she whispered happily, so as to avoid offending those readers longing for summer.