Day 35-Nipigon
Thunder Bay, to Nipigon
Distance: 109 km
Temp: 27 degrees

We kept hearing from people about how bad the hills were; we were warned by the organizer, as well as by all kinds of people along the way About The Hills.
We all worked ourselves into a frenzy about today’s ride, which as it went along, only delivered little ‘hilletts’-nothing too substantial.
We kept thinking that perhaps the worst of them were saved until the end-but nothing that was worth the hype and hooplah.
I thought that maybe we had ridden such monsters over the course so far, that we had become un-fazable, so fit that monstrous hills no longer had any affect-surely not possible.
Anyhow, we all remained suspicious as although the terrain was certainly challenging, it in no way presented us with the hardship that was promised (although Hedwig certainly had a good go, as we had strong winds for most of the day.)

Since we had all slept so poorly in residence at Lakehead (due to the heat) we were all tired and lazy-it was difficult to get on with the ride.

We rode along a very pretty side-street that ran parallel to the highway, but ran along the Lake Superior shoreline; we got to see very pretty houses that backed onto the water.

On we pressed, often through parts of the highway that were under construction, which meant waiting beside huge trucks before the flag-wavers let us through; once we were waved through, we rode beside huge caravans of massive steam rollers, and rode through wafts of tar steam.
The freshly tarred road had a tacky/sticky feel to it, and was so fresh some of it splashed onto my legs, making it look like I’d been playing in tar pits when I got into camp.

At some point along the highway there was no shoulder to ride on, or if there was it was cracked and unrideable, forcing us onto the road, which was the only host to the many trucks ferrying goods to and from the area.
As mentioned before some trucks are nice under ideal conditions, and some not, under less than ideal conditions (where we all have to share the road) it is quite a scary situation-but we all made it.