I skated from my front door to Niagara Falls yesterday.
Total Distance: 146.3km
Total Time: approx 9 hours total with about an hour of breaks included.
I got a much later start than anticipated, leaving the house at around 11:00am with the intention of doing about 75-100km. It was hot and windy, and the first stretch through Toronto and Missauga was tougher than I thought it would be. With the wind it was tough to go more than 20km/h through that stretch. I didn't really do many stops until about Winston Churchill. I grabbed a freezie, 2 bananas and an apple.
Oakville turned out to be better than usual. Less traffic and the road quality seemed better than I remember it being. I discovered a section from Rebecca street which runs parallel to lakeshore that was very well paved, with less traffic and has a bicycle lane that took me over to Bronte. A quick break in Oakville for a bank machine and gatorade.
Burlington was a bit of a blur. I kind of zoned out except for a break to stop for a large bottle of gatorade and I ate an O'Henry. On the whole i stuck to the road for the latter portion, the sidewalk path wasn't very good as I once thought it was.
Getting to Burlington Waterfront Park felt good. I stopped at the beginning of Hamilton Beach Trail to change my socks and bandana, and ate a banana. The trail was pretty busy with pedestrians, cyclists and rec skaters, which kind of energized me through this portion.
Once I got to the North Side Road things became a bit easier, the road was nice and smooth and not very busy, although I was careful about the occassional car or truck. I could get a solid push, it seemed to be a net gradual downhill for the most part and I could actually average about 30km/h. I felt like I got my second wind at this point.
At Beamsville, I stopped by the Subways to eat, and the guy working there asked if I had skated from Toronto. He remembered from the Blade Trek adventure! I loaded up ice into my camel poach, drank some water, bought an ice tea and ate half a Turkey sub with all the fixin's.
At this point I decided that I was going to make a run for Niagara since I felt very strong.
I pretty much chewed up Grimsby and Lincoln with no real difficulty. Jen managed to find me in the car at this point and I was really glad to see her. I told her what my plans were and luckily she was supportive with my insanity.
I stopped just before St. Catherine's to eat an apple and then crossed over into territory that I had never skated out to before in hour six. I felt pretty confident that I could get to the falls within two hours. The distance would be another marathon at a pretty easy pace, even with the anticipated hills. Easier said than done!
The North Service Road ended and I had to figure out where I was and had to improvise from that point onwards turning onto 3rd Ave Louth and making my way to 5th Ave and then St. Paul (after discovering that 4th Ave Louth was all torn up). That's when things started to fall apart as I didn't really know the best route to take into Niagara and there really wasn't much in the way of a direct route. Some roads turned out to be harder to skate, and there were a few challenging climbs. I had to stop and ask directions. I headed down Louth and then Glendale Ave turned out to be a fairly good well paved road in general with a bicycle lane, despite some hills and construction. I crossed the Locks and then turned at Niagara College and up the most challenging climb, which was only one lane that was tough to use because of the cars, and the paved shoulder was covered in gravel. From there, Mountain Road wasn't bad until I hit a strip that was completely torn up and impossible to skate. I ended up finding a bit of a solution by skating balanced on the curb. Mountain Road had variable pavement quality, but I could get a pretty decent speed between 20-25km/h before I turned right at St Paul, heading down to Thorald Stone and then onto Stanley all the way to Casino Niagara with a great deal of traffic to watch out for in this last stretch into downtown Niagara.
And then I fell! Twice! The hill from the Casino down to the Falls was massive and my legs were too tired to properly T-stop my way down. I opted not to go for the one lane road fearing the cars and oncoming traffic at the bottom, but as a result, the pedestrian sidewalk as impossible to maneuver through as I kept picking up speed and my legs gave out. I bailed backwards onto my bottom twice. The first was pretty mild, but pretty much at the bottom of the hill I went down to avoid running into slow moving family taking up the entire width of the sidewalk. I scraped my elbows and got some road rash on my rear and some bottom bruises as a result.
But I finally made it to the Falls! Within daylight. The last stretch after getting off of the North Service Road was certainly a Herculean effort. I can't imagine having to navigate that in the dark with the cars driving by when you are down to one lane. The construction and amount of hill climbs was certainly challenging enough. I started thinking that it might have been easier just following the Waterfront Trail mapook through St. Catherines, down to Niagara on the lake and then taking the Niagara Parkway across to the falls along the water. I'll have to look into that as an alternate route next time!
Jen gave me a nice kiss and then took me out to dinner at a Pizza and Pasta place. I slept pretty well last night.
WHAT I ATE YESTERDAY:
Rice Crepes, Curry Beef Bun, litres of Gatorade, O'Henry Chocolate Bar, 1 Power Gel, 1 Hammer Gel, 2 bananas, an apple, Freezie, 1/2 Turkey Subways with all the fixin's on wheat, Pizza Burger, two big meatballs, spaghetti, Ravioli, Dr. Pepper.
