Day 24: Truro Rest Day

Day 24: Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada

July 6, 2016

Miles:0 (its another rest day!)


We took a rest day today.  It probably seems we spend more days not riding than riding our bicycles.  Perhaps you may even venture to guess that we spend half our days not riding.  Well, you would be very wrong, because of the last nine days, we have actually ridden only three of them.    That means lately we've been riding only 33.3% of the time.  That's a little shameful.  However, I have no regrets about that.

We decided to take a rest day for a number or reasons.  First, we rode really hard yesterday to get into Truro before it was completely dark.  Our average speed for the last 47 miles was 12.5 mph, which is pretty good for fully loaded touring bikes.  Second, we are ahead of schedule by about four days, so we have some days to burn.  Third, our bikes could really use a visit to a bike shop for some TLC.  Fourth, we felt lazy and easily succumbed to the allure of hanging around Truro drinking coffee and exploring.

We arose around 8:45 and went to the hotel restaurant.  They offered a menu as well as a buffet breakfast, but as we were not in a hurry we opted for the menu.  Di and I both ordered the veggie skillet breakfast (I'm a sucker for anything made in a cast iron skillet) and we shared a bowl of fruit.

Breakfast at the Holiday Inn

Then it was off to visit the local bike shop and have my bike attended to.  My seat post clamp won't tighten enough and this causes my seat to keep lowering itself as I ride until I feel like I am riding a little kids bike.  Once it gets too low for me to ride comfortably, I have to loosen the clamp, raise the seat and retighten the clamp.  I guess the many times of performing this ritual over the years caused the bolt to fatigue and that is why it snapped yesterday.  I wanted to ask a professional mechanic what was causing this and how it could be fixed.  We went to Hub Cycle, which is an actual bicycle and not motorcycle shop, and they provided the answer.  The seat post had become compressed and was now of a diameter too small for the seat tube!  The seat post slides into the seat tube and then the seat tube is compressed by the seat post clamp to keep the seat post in place.  If the seat post diameter is too small compared to the seat tube, the clamp can't compress the seat tube enough to hold the seat post in place.  In other words, it was time for a new seat post.  So, the good folks at Hub Cycle fitted me with a new seat post.  I also bought a spare seat post clamp so I will have a solution if I ever break the bolt again. Then Di pointed out to the mechanic that each of our bikes had frayed wires sticking out of one of our cable shifters.  I had been finding this particularly annoying because these wires often poked holes in my fingers.  I thought this was a poor design decision by the bike manufacturer.  I was wrong about this, however, because the bike mechanic said this is really an indication that the cables are wearing out and should be replaced.  So we had our shift cables replaced and it was a good thing we did because the mechanic said they were very worn it could have completely snapped at any time.  In retrospect, perhaps we should have realized that open-ended wires poking holes in our fingers and causing them to bleed actually was a sign something was wrong with our bikes, but then again, we think riding in the rain is fun, so how smart can we be?

With the owners of Hub Cycle (they're happy because we just paid)

With Kyle, one of the mechanics (seat post fixer)

With the shift cable mechanic

Di leaving Hub Cycle

We left the bike shop and I told Di I wanted to ride around and explore the town a bit.  We came upon a statue of a lumberjack, which, for some reason, didn't surprise us.  A huge statue of a lumberjack does not seem out of place in Nova Scotia; our only surprise is we haven't seen more lumberjack statues.

Di and her lumberjack friend

When I told Di I wanted to ride around town and explore, I was being only partially truthful.  On the way into town I had espied the NovelTea Bookstore Cafe and I had to check it out.  So, after meandering around town for a while, imagine Di's surprise when suddenly there appeared before us the Bookstore Cafe.  Heh-heh-heh!  The cafe was a real bookstore and not one of those bookstore cafes that pretends to be a bookstore cafe by having a few useless books by Barbara Taylor Bradford that nobody would ever buy just to lure you in to buy coffee.  No, there was a great selection of books, both hardcover and soft, and quality titles.  I was very happy.  I bought Anne of Avonlea because I miss Anne Shirley and want to visit with her again. I loved Anne of Green Gables and found I couldn't wait to discover the next outrageous thing Anne said or did.  Di bought a book of short stories by Alice Munro, which is good for me also because Alice Munro is great and I can read those stories when Di is done.  And, the coffee was great.  (I apologize to fans of Barbara Taylor Bradford. I've not read any of her books but I mistrust her prodigious output.)

Happiness is a good bookstore cafe

Every city and town should have one

By now it was around 5pm and we were getting in the mood for some dinner.  Diane, the hotel clerk that checked us in and said Di was in the one N club, had suggested we check out the farmer's market in town.  It is held every Wednesday from 4:30 to 6pm.  We thought it was going to be the typical farmer's market with produce from local farms, but it was actually a fund raiser for the local food bank.  It is a weekly event that is quite popular with the townsfolk.  The way it works is you pay $15 and you get six $2 coupons.  So, three dollars goes to the food bank.  You are given a tray, a serving of strawberries over lettuce and a piece of bread (yes, they offered gluten free).  Then you go into the dining area and check out the offerings of the different vendors and choose how to spend your $12 dollars.  Di and I both chose the seafood chowder, which was steeply priced at $8, but well worth it.  It also came with a homemade biscuit.  Di then purchase a plateful of Lancashire hotpot for $6.  It was basically a beef stew with peas poured on top and purple cabbage to distract you from the beef stew with peas poured on top.  Despite the effect caused by actually viewing such a dish, it tasted pretty good.

Hanging at the weekly Truro Farmer's Market Dinner

Close-up of Lancashire Hot Pie

We gave the remaining $2 we had left to a young girl that was having dinner with her father.  We noticed that the best part of the dinner for the kids was choosing their dessert from the bakery booth, so we thought the extra two dollars would dramatically affect this young girls happiness.  Okay, maybe not dramatically, but at least momentarily.

After dinner we headed back to our hotel to call it a night.  Really, after Lancashire hot pie, what could possibly be done to top that?  Tomorrow we head to Pictou (rhymes with 'and how', as in "You going to Pictou?" "And how!").  It is a little over 60 miles away and it is supposed to rain in the afternoon, so it will be a little like yesterday's ride, without the bike troubles, hopefully.  (And yes, we did smile through the broken bike ordeal!)