July 27, 2018
Day 40 – Port Huron, MI, USA to London, Ontario, Canada – 83 miles + 3 miles of detours, 790 feet vertical (flatter than flat).
Bonjours, mes amies. Comment allez-vous? Nous sommes ici dans la belle pays du Canada, notre voisin amical au nord.
I just wanted to dust off some rusty French. Actually, the road signs are bilingual, but everyone seems to be speaking English, eh?
Well, we executed to plan and got up before god this morning, with 5am breakfast and 6:15am load and line up with passports on our persons. At 6:30 on the dot, we rolled out en masse and started up the bridge. Traffic into the US was heavy with trucks, but outbound was light, and it was stopped for us. The toll taker made a phone call, something about a horde of cyclists, and apparently got the ok to raise the gate, and up we went, over the Blue Water Bridge and into the just-rising sun.
It was exhilarating. It was also a bit treacherous as we had to dismount and walk across the two massive expansion joints that could easily have swallowed our narrow racing tires. We got to Customs and Immigration and presented all our passports. I can’t say the officers were all that friendly, but they are probably still bristling from our president calling them a national security threat. (Just a wild guess.)
The terrain in Canada was very much like the farmland we had just left. More corn. More soybeans. In fact, if it wasn’t for a Tim Horton’s on every other corner, we’d think we were back in the US. Oh, yeah and the road signs.
Our first detour came early when one of the small bridges was “out” and we waited while ABB staff checked out a workable reroute, going on ahead and laying down orange arrows for us.
Our second detour was necessitated by a mile long freight train that stopped across our path on one side of a double track. After some time, a second freight came along – apparently the “superior” train – and it was also a mile long. It passed by slowly, slowly, until it came to a stop. Then a start. Then a stop. Each time the momentum changed, we heard the loud bangs of the cars couplers’ slack either compressing or expanding. At any rate, we gave up, and once again, went back out to the main road and found a clear section of track to finally cross. All in all, an extra 3+ miles added to our route.
The weather was ideal. The company incomparable. The conversations and spirits were light.
One thing that was different today was the suspension of the enforced caste system of early rollers versus main load. Since we all left together, we were able to mix and match and ride alongside our friends that we don’t always get to ride with. This made for an entirely new dynamic that I had missed from the very early days of the trip.
We stopped for a phenomenal lunch at BJ’s in Delaware. We had custom-made sandwiches and I slugged down a chocolate milk. It was heaven. Audrey then talked us into ice cream for dessert. Why not? So I had a cookies-‘n-cream milkshake. It too was delicious, but I rode the next ten miles in a lactose overdose-induced fog. File under: self-inflicted, but guilt-free.
We have two more days of cycling through Ontario before we wind up in Niagara Falls for our final rest day.
Please enjoy these photos from the day, eh? And check out the dwindling array of red dots at Where’s Jeff at jeffblye.com Only NINE riding days left and check back tomorrow as we pass the 3,000-mile mark!!
Journey with Jeff 
for sure “canadians ” were happy to see Dela’s Jersey.. or were they?
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