Baddeck, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
Final home of Alexander Graham Bell (more on that to come)
9/30/23. 68* and sunshine, wind 4mph🥰
It looks as though the weather gods are shining upon us for our final week… Week 7… of our Canadian ride! We couldn’t be more excited and delighted about the weather. God knows the Cabot Trail will be challenging enough!
Layover days are great! No rush for breakfast and packing panniers. We hung around in bed this morning finishing up airplane details and figuring out our grocery list for the week. Since we have indoor beds lined up all week, we needed to scope out the closest dinner restaurants and maybe breakfasts… if they existed. Based on that, we decided the groceries for the next 5 riding days. We need to make 3 breakfasts and 5 lunches… plus road snacks.
As for airplane details… 2 legs of our trip are Air Canada. We needed to pre-arrange our bicycles as baggage with a phone call. And.., you have to pay for your seats on Air Canada…who knew? The Allegiant Air method I guess. Everything except your body will cost you extra! Oh well… it’s just $$ we say to each other… often. Hahaha!
Alexander Graham Bell historical center…
He was born in Scotland, moved to London, was discovered as a genius and his family moved to Ontario. His father invented a way to teach the deaf to speak and Alexander perfected it. It was his life passion…. including eventually helping Helen Keller. He was awarded substantial money for his accomplishments with the deaf. He used this money to work on his other interests…basically the telephone! Once he was done with the phone, he moved on to other forms of communication, such as sonar. But he also worked on flying humans with kites, then hovercrafts on the lake at Baddeck and eventually airplanes. Genius really. Somewhere along his accomplishments he discovered Baddeck which reminded him of home…Scotland. He and his wife built a huge house out on a prominent point overlooking the water and raised their family in this rural Scottish place.
the Baddeck Harbor
you see in the distance.
The first airplane to fly in Canada was in Baddeck.
Bell was part of this invention too!
After the museum and the grocery store we are back at our nice little motel overlooking the lake. We are out on the waterfront gazebo and Jim (the mechanic) is cleaning off bikes, cleaning and lubing chains for the week. The afternoon is calm and warm. Indian summer at its best.
Second trip into Baddeck today just for dinner. We were there early at 5pm and already the place was busy. Tonight was lobster night! This is the first place we’ve noticed that had full lobster dinners. So when in Cape Breton…one must eat lobster. I love lobster but honestly haven’t eaten it in years. Not a whole lobster… crack the shell and dig it out of the claws and eat the roe kind of lobster! It was fresh and delicious. The sides were tiny little boiled potatoes with seasoning, a simple leaf lettuce salad with yummy vinaigrette and a coleslaw that wasn’t all mayonnaisy and sweet. All of it was delicious! Worth every Canadian dollar.
Note the compost bucket for the shells.
The Mount and dismount …
The way I see it I have only so many years to ride this bike with panniers. It’s based upon my flexibility as I age…and balance of course! In my future (near or far), I envision that I’ve earned my pedal strokes and will someday join the e-bike legions! It will be more of a step through e-bike and of course, by then, the batteries will be lighter and last longer…at least I will hope so😊
The Rawdon Hills…
I promised more about this area that I struggled to find any joy in one day about 1 1/2 weeks ago. Since that day while talking to people we’ve come to learn more about this area of Nova Scotia. One particular older man told us they call West Rawdon, Rawdon Gold Mine and East Rawdon “The Rawdon Hills”. Notorious for backwoods, hilly, winding roads. Another man that worked for the power company as a lineman worked in that area told us that semi trucks take it as a shortcut from Sydney/Truro to the Annapolis Basin! Hah! That just added to the challenges of riding that day. There is even a Canadian folk singer that had a done entitled The Rawdon Hills. There’s gold in them hills… he sings.
In retrospect it was those hills that have prepared me/us for the big climbs we will have this week. And with that I’m going to let you in on a big secret I’ve been keeping from you for about one week now….
Major Reveal…Cabot Trail Shuttle!!!
Let’s start with the facts. 282 miles, over 17,000 ft elevation gain…5 days!
You can see the PEAKS and the valleys.
Days 2, 3, 4 are formidable. 12% or more on the grades.
total elevation gain is 17,000 ft in 182miles!!
It was about 2 weeks ago when Jim found on a web search a bicycle shuttle service on the Cabot Trail. He knew it existed but didn’t investigate it. For the last 6 weeks everyone we talk to exclaims about the BIG climbs… hard in a car… they say! Even my client, Jeff, who traveled by a car a couple years ago made this comment to me! It started to sink in… and as you know, made me doubt my abilities to climb all those hills with the extra weight of panniers. It’s a valid concern. I don’t want it to be a “sufferfest” and always having to “push/poussee my bike up every steep hill… for a long way! I already know how hard it is for every single step. And what if the weather is bad or really windy???😱
Jim found our answer to the difference between challenging and misery on the Cabot Trail! His name is Andre and his business is VeloMax. He will shuttle our baggage from inn to inn. He will also check up on us periodically during the day… mechanically or emotionally. He’s got water and snacks if we need anything. He told us if it was really bad weather or whatever misery requires a bicycle and body shuttle… he could provide that too! We caught him in the 3 weeks of “off-season” between summer (ends Labour Day) and Celtic Colours (starts next weekend Oct 8). He was really flexible with our schedule and it’s going to make a huge difference to me/us! This was all finalized last week. As I said earlier… it’s just $$. Andre will be what my bicycling friends Shelagh and Jana call the “vulture van”. I am beyond delighted to tell you about this change in our routine that starts tomorrow…Sunday morning. 5 days babyyyy😜
Below are the current weather forecasts for the week. Notice it doesn’t show any rain until next Sunday. We will hope that holds. It looks like perfect riding temperatures too.
Tomorrow…
We leave Baddeck and head north to Indian Brook. A nice little AirBnB is expecting us. We meet Andre at 8:30am for our departure!
cinnicrew 
Wow your new week is going to exciting so glad you will have someone to take your load off your bike. There are not many that can do this. I’m so cheering you and Jim on. Everyday I will be thinking of you guys. The lobster 🦞 look d amazing. You will do great you both will. Your drive for challenge has been with you for years. Glad the weather looks great.
LikeLike