Day 55 - Sudbury, Ont. to Sturgeon Falls, Ont.

July 7, 2026 

Start Time: 5:00 am 

Stop Time: 10:30 am 

KM Travelled: 89.8 km 

Elevation: +427/ -501 m 

Special Stuff: Early starts, Country sides, Cute country farms, People who 'join me' along the way

Last night I went to bed at 7:00 pm, so when I wake up before my alarm at 3:00 am I am well rested. This morning I am departing at 5:00 am because the temperatures will be reaching 30 degrees Celsius by noon and I expect to be travelling a lot on Highway 17 – which continues to have a very small shoulder. It looks like I might be able to get off the highway onto alternate routes towards the end of the ride. 

I am out the door BEFORE the sun gets up! I take the recommended alternate route to meet up with Highway 17 (which is just outside my door). It seems silly, but I don’t feel like arguing with BOTH Ride with GPS and Google Maps this morning. The twilight ride takes me back into Sudbury – and I enjoy checking out the city a bit more during a cooler part of the day. Just before Highway 17, the railway crossing alarm goes off and I get to watch a train, that feels like it goes on forever, cross by in front of me. I don’t mind – it gives more time for the sun to rise. I love it when I am not bothered by stuff like this. Slow living is a pace I can learn to love. 

A good part of the ride I am on Highway 17. A few kilometers have a wide shoulder, and then, ‘poof’, it’s gone – and with no rhyme or reason, I am back to the skinny shoulder and using my defensive driving skills. Augh! 

At 36 km, I am gifted with a rest stop. Leaving the rest stop, I start to ride along and notice a hole in the highway. On the surface, it looks like a regular pothole, I look into it and see that the ground below the pavement has somehow eroded – below the pavement is a sink hole. When the pavement gives way, it will surely cause damage to a vehicle, it may cause an accident. I report this to the police (non-emergency line) when I get to the campsite because that is the responsible thing to do. 

The last 1/3 of the ride, the traffic has picked up and thankfully my route takes me off the highway down a country road – I'm back in my happy place. I enjoy hayfields with their hay all fluffed up almost ready to be baled. I see fields of wheat, corn and some yellow flowered plants (maybe canola?). I get a chuckle about how I can see a cloud of dust out two kilometers – which indicates that a vehicle is coming my way. Thankfully the wind is blowing from the south and blows the dust away from the lane where I am biking. 

 There are such cute farmhouses that are cared for with love – it shows with manicured lawns and beautiful flowerbeds. I enjoy the wildflowers.

My whole ride across Canada, I’m surprised with how many old barns, sheds and houses are left to gradually fall down when they are no longer safe to use. It is almost as if people don’t want to let go of the past. Maybe it’s an insurance thing. Or maybe it’s too dangerous or expensive to dismantle the old buildings. Just an observation as I’ve been riding along. 

I feel close to many people I know or have known on this on this ride. I feel like they speak to me through other people I meet along the way, and sometimes they come to me with as a thought – at just the perfect moment. Today when I pass little homestead with a lovely garden, I noticed an older man come out of a small barn. I shouted out a friendly “Good Morning” to him and he shouts back a “Hey!”. In that moment, this man, with his loosely fitting button-up shirt and baggy pants and the way he shouted his greeting back to me, he could have easily been my grandfather (my mom's dad)! I’m sure that if I went to talk to the man, he would have been nothing like my grandfather, but in that moment he IS my grandfather. This creates a surprising strong emotional response for me. Like my grandmother (who could cry quite easily with emotional stuff), I just let the waterworks flow. With the sunscreen, the dust, the sweat and now the tears, anyone who would have come across me surely would have thought I’d come unhinged. 

I get to Sturgeon Falls in great time and find a restaurant to have breakfast and sort out how to get to the campsite. I ask a couple sitting outside a restaurant if the food here is any good, they say it “sure is”. I ask them to watch my bike as I go in to order my breakfast that I will eat on the patio. After a bit of chatting with the couple, the fellow gets up and goes inside and his partner informs me “he’s the cook”. I chuckle. 

After a fabulous breakfast, I make the long trek to the campground where Brian has been set up at since yesterday. He’s busy (as usual) taking calls and connecting with his team while I come up with my game plan for tomorrow’s ride. It looks like after North Bay there are some decent country roads that I can take for the rest of tomorrow’s ride. 

In the evening, we sit in the shadow of the RV as Mother Nature gradually turns the temperature down and evening sets in.