Bike Trip 2011 Day 1, May 24, Hadashville, 123 km

This is the third leg of our cross-Canada bicycle trip.  In 2009, we cycled from Kingston to Halifax, and in 2010 we cycled from Nanaimo to Winnipeg.  So this year we left from Winnipeg and are on our way home to Kingston; that leaves the Halifax to St. John's leg for 2012.

We left Winnipeg bright and early this morning (around 6:30 to evade some of the traffic); the sky was overcast and the temperature was 4C.  Curtis gave us a route that avoided most of the traffic and put us onto Dugald Road, which we followed  to Hwy 11 where we turned south to join the Trans-Canada Highway at Hadashville.  Someone forgot to tell the weather gods that the prevailing winds are supposed to be from the west, so we had a headwind from Winnipeg to Hwy 11.  By the time we stopped for the day after 123 km, the temperature had risen into a comfortable range and the wind had died down.  I wanted to stop at around 100 km for the first day of riding so that we could let our bodies become accustomed to the steady pedalling.  This resulted in us staying at the Riverside Motel, which was adequate but turned out to be the least desirable of all the places we have stayed in.

The picture attached to today's posting is of the bypass that carries excess Red River water around the city of Winnipeg during spring runoff.