Day 5 of my 9-day, 770-mile Ontario cycling adventure saw me take on the rolling hills surrounding Port Hope and notching a record 4,140 feet of elevation gain.
I cycled 75 miles over 7 hours and 40 minutes between Newcastle and Cobourg, including a 30-km stretch knows as the Glorious Ganaraska Cycling Route.
I had been anticipating more water views of Lake Ontario and got a rude awakening when I cycled west out of downtown Port Hope and climbed a steep, seemingly interminable hill.
It was the first of many hills – climbs so long and arduous that I would clip out of one pedal in case I ran out of steam and had to put my foot down to avoid toppling over. It never came to that, but it was certainly close.
‘Glaciers,’ I would mutter to myself as I climbed a ridge I thought was the apex of some monster hill only to see more road rising in the distance, ‘these punishing hills must have been made during the last ice age.’
A Google search later in the day confirmed my hypothesis! No one told me that in the tourism brochures!
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