The Irish Loop Tour 2009

On August 29th, 2009 my girlfriend Alanna Wicks and myself left the top of Commonwealth Avenue in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and set out on a 10 day bicycle tour of the Irish Loop. A section of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, Canada named for the multitude of Irish
settlers in the area in the early years of settlement in North America. The eastern coastline, known to locals as "The Southern Shore" can be described as "Hilly" at best. Newfoundland is mostly cliff and with every community along the way bringing you back to sea level the eastern coastline if full of great downward slopes for picking up high speed, but also full of strenuous climbs back up cliff.

So the first day we set off to head to our destination of LaManch Provincial Park, 48 kms away. Going through Bay Bulls, Witless Bay, Mobile, and Tors Cove, all with huge hills going in and out. It was a bit of a difficult ride with a full load on but the scenery was quite nice and the downward hills bringing you back to sea level, while assuring you of a tough climb again ahead, were quite exhilarating. After getting to our campsite which was pure gravel assuring us our sleep would be less than perfect we set up camp quickly to be ready for the coming rain the next day.


The next day called for 20mm of rain, and we got it boy, if not more. Not much to say about that Sunday except it was a tough day to get through with a small little tent, luckily the park was fairly deserted and we spent most of the evening in the ladies (heated) washroom stretching our legs, drying off and getting hot showers.


The next day once the tent was dry enough we packed up and headed out on what was to be one of the longest, hardest days of our trip. We stopped in Cape Broyle for lunch, around 10 kms from the park. After a bit of letting our food settle we headed out again. Coming out of Cape Broyle is a very large long hill, that was less than pleasant. As seen the third video Alanna was none too happy about it but her spirits were quickly brightened again after a small rest. After our bad LaManche experience we decided to B&B it for the night to get some good rest. We eventually made it to a place just before Cappahayden called the Round Cove B&B just 13 kms short of our planned camping spot of Chance Cove. It was a pretty hard day, we had to walk some of the hills near the end and were glad when we finally stopped for the night. I blame this on poor sleep due to wind/rain/gravel as well as our food stop or fish and chips...not my best idea. We stayed here with Ollie and Ken for two days and it was amazing, felt just like Nans house. Not only was she very nice and made sure we could get breakfast whenever we want she also served us supper on the second day and made sure Alanna had chicken to eat as opposed to the Pork Chops she was cooking. We explored the beaches a little at Cappahayden and after two nights rest, headed out again.


We headed out over the barrens of the southern portion of the peninsula towards Trepassey for a night in the motel there. This was a great ride. Very little wind, warm temperatures, and a nice flat (for the most part) stretch of road. Some people talk of getting bored on long stretches of road with few landmarks and lots of nothing. I found it great for pace as well as a very relaxing cycling experience. We passed by the small town of Portugal Cove South and even went through it a little bit. There is a touristy thing (Light House and Bird Reserve) way down the road and seeing as we were feeling pretty good we thought we'd check it out. Unfortunately it quickly turned into a nasty dirt road, so we turned around and kept on going to the Trepassey Motel. The motel was awful. Very poor service, they enjoyed posting up their scoring of 2.5 stars. Personally I wouldn't broadcast 2.5 stars, but what can you do. The town was quite large compared to some of the other bunches of houses we saw in places like Aquaforte and Cappahayden, and it was quite nice.


After downing a bottle of cheap champagne and eating junk food, and watching TV all night, the next day we set off again towards St. Vincents and Holyrood Pond, our planned camp for the night. We were in for a hard day. The wind was blowing hard and we hadn't felt the worst of it yet. Once we got up out of Trepassey over the large climb known as "Plant Hill" I was sure that riding across these barrens would be similar to our previous ride and not too windy due to them being inland, as you hear in the beginning of the next video. I was sadly mistaken. We weren't able to get the bikes over 10 km/hr for 30 kms. The wind was just pounding us, after a while my mouth and ears were feeling kind of funny. This 30km stretch from Trepassey to Peters River was by far the hardest part of the trip. Once we got to Peters River/St. Vincents area we were treated with scenery I didn't think existed in Newfoundland and also started heading back inland to wooded areas where the wind was greatly reduced to a level where we could actually function. We made it to camp at Holyrood pond, where just before the road makes a turn west to head to Gaskiers there is a turn off to the right where there is an old abandoned provincial park with some campsites still in good shape! We had a great fire and some smores and were in bed by 9pm.



The next day, Friday, was looking like a challenge. After deciding to scrap Butterpot and get a ride home from Alanna's cabin we were going to try and make it from the abandoned park, to the cabin turn off on Salmonier Line in one day, 62 km, with a full load. I was skeptical as it was our third day of riding without a day of rest in between and Alanna and myself were feeling a bit weak in the legs. Like most of the rest of the trip I was wrong. Friday turned out to be our best day of cycling for the entire trip we were making solid time bringing our average speed for the trip up over 1km/hour. From Gaskiers all the way up Route 90 is a really amazing ride. Beautiful country, not a lot of big climbs, and you can keep a really good pace the whole way. At arriving at the dirt road turn off, Alanna's parents were still in town so we had to bike in the rest of the way to the cabin on the dirt road making our total that day around 70km, and I still felt great.



Spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and doing pretty much nothing at the Wicks Cabin, and got back today. Its certainly been an educational, physically challenging, and exciting experience that I won't soon forget. Even though the trip was cut short I'm still pretty happy with my first tour. 268kms of cycling in 7 days, that's not too shabby. Next summer I will try and plan another trip of the Avalon or maybe further. Hopefully I will have a proper touring bike and will be able to pack less.
For all the pictures I took you can check out my Photobuket Album or check out the album I put up on FaceBook. Alanna also put up some pics there. Thanks for reading! Next week look I will try to make a post about how to choose a bike as a beginner, at least in my opinion.

The Dreaded First Post

Where to begin. The ideal thing is to catch your, the readers, attention right off the bat. Anecdotes or a catchy quote would do the trick. To do this I'll use a story about one of the baddest mothers of all time. During a public meeting involving The Man, Winston Churchill, a woman stood up and accused him of being drunk, which he often was. His reply was "Madam I may be drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you shall still be ugly." Drunk as he was, he helped win the war and was just generally an O.G. From this I take it that any sentence that begins with "I may be drunk..." no matter how creative could not compare to that of the one mentioned by Winston Churchill, and that has nothing to do with this blog, bikes, or anything at all really, but now you are paying attention.

As of April of 2009 I was a long time barely casual rider of sub $200 "mountain" bikes from places like Crappy Tire. Used for such things as for riding short distances back and forth to work and school. Constantly not having a comfortable, enjoyable ride I decided that it was about time for me to look into purchasing a higher end road oriented bicycle from an LBS (Local Bike Shop). Not knowing anything about bicycles I hurried for the inter-tubes to do my research and as I had never ridden a bike with turned down style road bars, I decided that a Hybrid street bike was the ticket. After some looking around there were some good options locally from Specialized and Trek, with the Sirius and the FX series respectively. These were offered from Canary Cycles here in St. Johns, Newfoundland, who I have dealt with before for minor repairs and tune ups on my old junker, good service. But the ones that caught my eye were the FCR series from Giant, which are dealt here by a small bike shop tucked away called Earle Industries owned and operated by Harold Earle. From what I could tell by looking at the components on the shimano and other respective websites (which are a nightmare for beginners) the Giant FCR 2 seemed to have slightly superior components for a better cost. After much debating, selling my entire DVD collection, convincing my father that you could actually spend $900 on a bike and getting him to chip in as a University graduation present, I picked up the Giant FCR 2 from Harold.















It's now late August. A couple of years ago I biked from my parents house to university on an old junker and thought I was going to die. It was around 16km. Now after buying a rack, panniers, pump, seat bag, tool kit, water bottles, bike computers, and biking the top right portion of the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland almost in its entirety plus commuting every day (~1000km so far I estimate) I have learned a lot, but still have a lot to learn. In less than two days my girlfriend and I (who purchased a FCR3 and is slowly but surely getting into the sport with me) are leaving to bike/camp 347 km in 10 days with two sets of rear panniers and a fully loaded trailer. In the next couple of posts I will document my preparation for the trip, and then when I get back on September 7th I will post video blogs from the trip as well. In the coming months I will have flash back postings about experiences and things I've larned over the past couple of months, as well as the plans to get a proper touring bike over the winter. Hopefully a Surly Long Haul Trucker. I hope others will read this and think, "Hey cycling 50km in a couple of hours really doesn't sound that bad!" and go pick up a bike from Harold or some other LBS. Or someone else who will just learn some little thing, that I had to learn the hard way. Or some others who are experienced cyclists, or who've never ridden a bike just get an occasional laugh. See you next time.