Training Log Archive: veinbuster

Oro-Medonte Rail Trail from Barrie to Orillia.

This was the nearest of the Simcoe off road trails that was long enough to make the drive to - ride was approximately double the drive time.

The trail was extremely flat and straight with very little on it other than periodic signs you could choose to read. Most of the trail is close to twice the width of the Caledon trail. It is very well maintained for use by snow mobiles in the winter - the only motorized vehicles allowed. Note even horses are allowed.

The entry to the trail was a bit tricky to find. I basically kept turning left towards the lake until a parking lot showed up here.

It was the only formal parking area I saw on the trail, though there is a small lot at 7th line S (space for 5 cars or so). Most people just parked on the side of the road a few car lengths away from the trail on one of the roads it crossed.

You could see forever, so it was easy to tell when a road was coming up. You couldn't always tell what road you were at. There wasn't much traffic at the crossings - I only paused for half a dozen cars. And this view was typical - I saw a small group of people about every 3km northbound and every 2km on the southbound return, which happened to be lunch time.


There was lots of shade in the middle third of the trail with trees forming nice cover for much of the trail. This section also had a fair bit of old forest so should be quite pretty when the leaves turn. If I take Mrs. up for that, I'll park at the small lot at 7th Line and ride north. This is a little over 10km for where I started and gets past the 7km stretch with just a thin row of trees on each side of the trail.


About 20km up the trail the light gravel became a fair bit deeper, so it became a bit more work. This is also where the look of the surrounding area became more typical northern Ontario (which it isn't) with bits of scruffy wetlands holding the forest at bay. I was a bit surprised to see so little of the lake given that the trail basically runs up the western shore. Most of the time you could only tell there was a lake to the east at road crossings, but generally couldn't actually see the water. It didn't show up until getting to the southern edge of Orillia.


A couple of hotels near the end of the trail provided access to the hotel - and signs reminding people they were there. The trail ended at James, just north of the overpass for Memorial. Here there were a few fast food restaurants for anyone who hadn't packed a lunch.

At that point the snow mobile trail was twinned for pedestrians. I decided to see where it went - just about a kilometer to a Home Hardware which would be a convenient place to park on the north end.


I took a relaxed interval to eat my power balls and fluid up a bit - testing the new bladder I got for my ancient Salomon thermal drink pack which works a charm and actually kept my water decently cool. I had only seen one porta-potty north bound at 20km, but going back I saw that there had also been one at 5 & 10 km, just obscured from view by trees at the pace I was going. I took most of the photos on the return (timer off for the stop, but deceleration and acceleration on the clock).
There was really only one spot on the trail set up for sitting for a while, and it was marked by typical Lake Simcoe rocks.


I definitely pushed my time limit on a traditional bike finishing this ride arriving back at my car spot on 3 hours. Normally I would consider that a hard cut off, but I expected no more than a kilometer of trail south of me, so thought I might as well see how it ended - big chunks of concrete and broken road half a km from the lot, so really nothing to see in that direction. That little extension put me over my target rolling exercise range of 14-16.5 hours by a few minutes, but it was deliberately at a super cool down pace so shouldn't have any material impact on my experiment.

C • Great info! 2

Dawn river ride. Newmarket was testing two new lawn mowers and putting up a bunch of 'living with coyotes' sign on the stretch north of the train station. The sign pretty much said:
- there are coyotes
- don't feed them
- don't let your pet pick a fight with them

Long way home from the bike shop to check up the free tune up. Bottle cage tools pop out easily and can shift to all gears again. Ready for the snow.

C • Snow 4

A variation of last Monday's route. Davis east to 48 was too busy and as a result had very turbulent air. South on Warden to Bloomington was fairly quiet, but it was necessary to pay attention to the edge of the lane trying to fall off the Morraine. North up Yonge and Industrial Parkway had too much construction and not a great road surface. Even my normal outbound stretch had several intersections littered with gravel.

Temperature stayed close to 20C and skies were blue, so can't really complain.

Day 1 soloflex

Time trial day out west, so I wanted a bit of that, but I also wanted to get my rolling activity level up to 15hrs for a science project.

I opted to redo the original Flight chase route and time trial north up Warden. I only got one red light getting out of town which made for a nice start. I had Warden to myself except for one rider who went by at 17km. Pace was good enough that I tried to be attentive to a bonk as I road 30km from home with everyone still asleep.

It turns out Ravenshoe is now a bad road to cycle on the weekends. The Kawarthas traffic that used to take Davis to 48 now comes flooding off the top of 404 so I had a constant flow of people in a hurry to get by me for 7km as I tried to stay off the crumbling shoulder.

I thought I might be dragging a bit south on 48, but when I looked at the Garmin the speed and heart rate were staying constant. West on Mt. Albert got me to calm enough traffic I could eat the two power balls I brought and guzzle some water.

As I turned south on Warden to finish up a group of 5 strong looking riders was starting up again so I thought I might be able to catch a pull when they passed me on the first climb. It took longer than I expected for 3 to catch me and it surprised me a bit when they pulled in 10cm off my wheel. They pulled away a bit at the crest, but my bike descended faster than their's . I pulled into a gap behind the front two and finished the last climb at the back as they swung west on Vivian when I head east to go home. The tow of the group kept my interval pace above 28km/hr with a net ascent of 40-50m. I expect that on my own that late in my ride I probably would have been 15% slower.

The home stretch on Mulock at 9:30am was a death trap. I switched to St. John's a couple of years ago, but wanted to avoid the construction today (and the extra 5km). I had to loudly tell 3 drivers wanting to turn out in front of me to stay - like training a dog. I hopped on the river path to get to the south side and took an easy cool down home, hoping to set a good example for the racer boys in their drops dodging dogs, toddlers - too no avail. They just gave me a'why are you so slow on that fast bike' look.

Rode the north end of the river route. Being Friday, the GO parking and the path were lightly travelled so I was able to maintain a decent pace.

One big dog enjoyed racing me. A white Shepard-Husky was in the dog park and paced me at the fence line. Never barked or made any kind of noise, just wanted someone to have a good run with.

Got a flat on the way home. It was in the range were I opted to walk the bike home rather than repair the tire and use my CO2 a kilometer away. I left the clock running so that brought the average heart rate and pace down.

My phone says over 8000 steps to mow my lawn and something over 4km. I'm noting it just in case it matters when I test level of exercise versus blood levels.

Fragmented time doing my lawn because the batteries sized for a normal lawn have to be recharged to finish mine.

Day 3 soloflex