Day 64: Sault Ste. Marie, ON -> Blind River, ON

Date: Tuesday, July 18, 2023
Start: Sault Ste. Marie, ON (Hotel)
End: Blind River, ON (Marina campground)
Distance: 140km

Waking up in a hotel.  This has only happened a couple of times this trip.  But each time I wake up warm and dry!  As a bonus, I had laid out all of camping gear in the room and it was all dried as well.  The day was shaping up to be a good one!  I immediately tried to get blogging, because I was - and am still - hopelessly behind on blog posts!  I treated myself to a free continental breakfast as I blogged.

I stayed in the hotel blogging until about 10am, at which point I packed and hit the road.  I wanted to try to get a big day in as I was well rested and the road was supposed to be flat again.  I'd paced myself well across Lake Superior, time to put on a little speed!

I got my bike together, checked out, and hit the road just after 10am.  I jumped onto the series of bike/pedestrian trails that run throughout Sault Ste. Marie which is known as The Hub Trail.

While biking out I snapped some pictures of local sights that Bob had pointed out to me the night before.  One of those highlights was a statue of Dr. Roberta Bondar, the first female Canadian in space! She's also the first neurologist in space.  They're pretty proud of her.  Born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, her name is on several locations in the city.  I was happy to see a town celebrate someone who was a woman and a scientist!

After this I passed by several sights around town including the Bushplane Museum, which seems like a very large and impressive place.

I rode out of town on a route recommended to me by Bob the night before.  As I got about 4km out of town and started passing the McDonald and strip mall type of things I heard a loud bang come from my rear tire and then a kind of clicking sound every time the wheel went round.  My first thought was that a spoke had probably broken and was hitting things with each revolution.  I stopped in front of a Jiffylube to survey the damage.  Pretty quickly I found out it was worse than a broken spoke...

A nail had somehow gone through the tire and was sticking out.  It had also mangled the tube inside and so the tire was flat.  I had a few options:

1. take the nail out and replace the tube if the damage to the tire wasn't too bad
2. add a temporary patch to the tire and replace the tube
3. replace the tire entirely and replace the tube

All of these would require me to take the tire off the rim of the bike...and if you remember the trouble I had doing that in Osoyoos, British Columbia with the last flat, it would be nearly impossible to remove.  But I had to try, so I started wrenching and pulling and prying.  After about 15 minutes one of my fingers was bleeding and I has no closer to getting the tire off.

Two other bike tour folks ended up being close by.  The first was a new person - Andrew - who stopped and took a shot at trying to get the tire off the rim.  It turns out Andrew is from a town not too far down the road from where I grew up!  It was a real coincidence!  Shortly thereafter, Michel rode over and also tried his hand at it.  We weren't having any luck, so we asked the guys at JIffylube if they could help.  At one point, 6 of us were trying to work on the tire and we STILL weren't getting anywhere.  It was almost embarrassing.

When the tire got punctured I had messaged Gavin.  We were going to try to reach the same place today, but with this breakdown I doubted I would have the time to do the distance he was doing.  I messaged him to say that I wouldn't have enough time to reach him.  He messaged me back to let me know that his mother was in Sault Ste. Marie running errands and could come and get me and take me to a bike shop.  Not too long after, Erika called to ask if I needed help.  With all 6 of us unable to make any progress, I said yes.

Once Erika arrived we put my bike and gear into her car and she drove me to THE bike shop in Sault Ste. Marie: Velorution.  There I grabbed a tire that was on sale in the bargain bin as they didn't have the tires I wanted, and asked if they could also replace the chain while it was in the shop.  The salesman was a bit testy about me asking to have it done immediately...but they did it!  New tire and now new chain, it was time to hit the road again.  Erika had stayed with me the entire time because she wanted to make sure it got taken care of, and then drove me back to the Jiffylube to make sure I didn't have to cover an extra 10km.

Now back where I'd started this ordeal (Jiffylube), we loaded the gear on the bike.  I thanked Erika multiple times and never feel like I'll be able to make it up to her for all her generosity, time, and patience.  She said to me, "If it was my son that this had happened to, I would hope someone else's mother would do the same!"  Gavin isn't going through my corner or Quebec on his ride, but if he was he would have been treated like royalty.

I gave Erika a hug and we parted ways.  I only realized later in the day that I should have at least bought her lunch because it was now after noon and I was getting hungry.  But I wanted to try to salvage what was left of the day and get some distance and was only thinking about getting the tires turning.

I set off.  A little hesitant about the new tire, I tried to pay attention to the road to make sure I didn't hit anything else.

I hadn't gone 200 meters and I heard another bang and the sound of air hissing.  It had happened again.

I couldn't believe it.  I could still see the Jiffylube in the distance behind me.  I pulled onto the sidewalk, took the gear off the bike, and surveyed what was wrong.  No nail this time!  But the tube inside the tire was definitely flat and likely punctured.  I took my tools out and set about replacing the tube.  As a bit of validation that the old tire was impossibly difficult to work with, I was able to take this tire off and change the tube in 20 minutes.  Once it was replaced I pumped it up with my little hand pump and set off again.  This time I was WILDLY nervous about flats...but it never happened again.

It was almost 1:30pm at this point and I stopped at a gas station to grab some snacks and fuel up.  The clerk was a young woman who asked where I was going, and when I told her she offered me a carton of milk that had expired the day before but was still good.  I accepted and drank the entire thing!  As I ate in the parking lot I watched a young couple who met a dog breeder and they bought their first dog, a puppy.  I congratulated them on the addition to the family!

Now fueled up, with two tires that could roll, I was ready to leave Sault Ste. Marie.  It was about 2pm.  The entire tire ordeal had cost me almost 4 hours!

I set off out of town and almost immediately passed 4 people going the other way with all the bike gear.  I don't know where they were touring to, but we all waved as we passed by.

I was pedaling hard today.  I had a timeline and I wanted to try to keep to it.  If I went fast I could try to get some distance and salvage my plans.  There were no more flats, just some beautiful sights.  And headwinds...there were lots of headwinds.

I passed by the town of Echo Bay, Ontario about 20km outside of Sault Ste. Marie.  I knew it because Erika grew up here and had told me about it.  It was ALSO home to Robert-Ralph Carmichael who designed the original loon on the first iteration of the Canadian one dollar coin (the loonie) that was introduced in 1987.  To celebrate this, there's a giant loonie coin on the highway in Echo Bay!

I pushed on down the highway which was largely two lane with varying degrees of poor shoulder the entire way.  It didn't matter, I was determined to push on and try to at least get to Blind River, Ontario.

Along the way I saw signs of Mennonites in the area, and eventually saw a man riding in a horse drawn carriage.  Not too long after this I saw signs of the tracks in the shoulder of the road.  Turns out there are a concentration of Mennonites living in this area.  It was at this point that I noticed there were MANY farms surrounding me.  This is a real change from the Northern Ontario experience, and the last concentration of farms I'd seen were in Thunder Bay.  Clearly I was reaching warmer climates and gentler soils.

Here's a bit of explanation of the Mennonites of Algoma.

At about 6pm I still had 50km to go.  I was starting to feel tired, but I kept pushing on.

Just outside of Blind River I passed an area of bog or marsh or wetlands.  It was golden hour, and the pictures there were incredible!

I biked into Blind River and found the camping area at the local marina.  It was near an old timber mill which still stood but was slowly decaying.

Camping at the marina meant being by the water.  This was Lake Huron.  In the distance I could see land, and it was Manitoulin Island which was my destination the next day.  I setup my tent, paid the camping fee online, and ate dinner.  Unfortunately when I paid the camping fee I didn't get the password to the showers/bathroom but I asked someone near by and they gave it to me.  I took a much needed shower and turned in for the night.

I'd been messaging Gavin in the evening.  He'd made it almost another 40km for the day.  If I had another two hours I could have easily made it there...but I'd been given lemons this day, and I feel like I'd been able to make some lemonade!  I'd done almost 140km with a very tight timeline!  Tomorrow I would continue East and then turn South and start the ride into Southern Ontario.  It was was going to be officially the end of Northern Ontario, and I was happy for it.