ride for africycle day two (part one)

presquille provincial park to kingston 130 km (part one)

waking up in a tent in the woods knowing that i get to spend a day riding.

sweet!

nothing else describes it.

nothing.

it's the purest freedom.

i woke several times through the night and listened to the

sound of the wind rushing through the very tall trees.

after breakfast and packing up my bin with my stuff, taking down the tents, we got our maps for the day and headed out on the roads.

here are bike buddies mike and jessica emerging into the day.

this is my very best early morning smile. behind me also cracking a monster smile is

bike buddy ben on his fifteen dollar bike bought at habitat for humanities local shop.

the bargain of all time without a doubt -

the bike not ben.

a tailwind of epic proportions pushed us along so that we're moving along

almost effortlessly at 35 - 40 kph for long stretches.

the group spread out, which it often did as riders still finding their legs, or wanting to go at a less strenuous pace chose to ride in little groups or pairs.

we rode along the edge of the lake at times - reedy bays and grassy promontories - and then sometimes the lake was hidden from view by farmland. we also passed through several gorgeous little towns - immaculate little gardens and gingerbread trim, big old porches, garage sales everywhere.

mid-morning coffee was a frequent feature of our days and we tried really hard to land in funky good coffee shops. this one wasn't funky and wasn't really a coffee shop either but they did make fresh coffee and most best of all they made their very own sugar donuts. i bought a bag of six and shared them 'round sort of.

food became more and more important as the ride went on.

it was amazing how much i could eat and how often.

leaving the donut/fruit stand we rode on through rolling countryside to bloomfield

where a super cool bike shop is located.

you can imagine places like this run by people like this but

when you're actually there you just stop and say wow out loud!

this is the front door of the bloomfield bike company.

they sell all things bicycle riders and lovers and maniacs could wish for,

want for, or even need including stickers that look like this:

what i especially liked is that they took care of bike buddy john paul who arrived with a super retro not-so-safe helmet. the team chipped in and bought him a really nice helmet and then the bloomfield people set him up with clipless pedals and new shoes. no cost! wow. did i say wow! he was completely reinvented as a cyclist. sure he dropped a handful of times when he forgot to unclip but he was able to fly along like never before.

thankyou bloomfield people!

after leaving here, bike buddy jim and i rode ahead so we could drop in on a microbrewery along the way called barley days brewery. the lady shown in this picture supplied us with a handful of samples. there's only one thing better than free beer and that's good free beer. this stuff is really good. we each bought a six pack. it was a bit of a challenge to carry the box on my drop handlebars - so one hand holding the box while the other steered and braked. you gotta do what you gotta do, so i made it work.

we stopped in picton for lunch in a grassy area tucked away in the centre of town.

the firehall let us use their washrooms.

the bikes rested in the shadows and talked about us while we ate our lunch.