Cranberries

Heavy and V-Tom over at Stromtrooper.com were planning a route North, around the Muskoka area for Sunday, October 5th. I was already planning a pretty big ride in the same area the day before and I didn't think I'd be capable (yet) of 2 back to back 500 km rides!

So it was that I decided to incorporate a few of the roads they had selected into our route.

We set off from King Road car-pool area at King Road and HWY 400. T and I met up with cosines Mark and Sharon. We brought our dog, Tiki, and they brought their dependant; their young son Matthew. T, Sharon and the "kids" would take 1 vehicle while Mark and I rode our bikes.

This was the first long ride we'd taken together, most other trips had been sub 200 km; Mark on his 2008 Kawasaki KLR650 and me on my 2008 Flat Black V-Strom 650.

A cold day to be sure, and as I don't yet have proper fall gear, I decided to bring snowboarding pants - they worked fantastically. My Joe Rocket Alter-Ego 2 jacket kept me plenty warm with just a 'T'-shirt underneath, but I was pretty cold until I put on the snowboard pants (they blocked the wind, added another layer and provided water resistance too!).

Once we got off the HWY 400 and HWY 11, just after Severn Bridge onto Southwood Road, the real journey began. The roads were great to ride, a mix of really nice ashfalt with a few sections of gravel and a few tiny bits of dirt, - even the scenery was great. This is RR-13 I believe. I'm definitly riding this route again - infact, it was so good, I changed the return route so we could ride a piece of this again. Unfortunatly I was enjoying it too much to get off the bike and actually take a photograph !!!!

Anyway, we eventually rode through Bala (beautiful place btw) and onto Johnsons' Cranberry Marsh/Farm. It's great to see cranberries being harvested, as the fields are flooded to make the berries float toward the surface, the skimming the surface for the berries. It's also a great area for a walk, and we spent 2 hours investigating the area before getting back on the bikes and heading home. The girls in the "cage" took the most direct route they could, where mark and I took the route more twisty !

Our route fairly quickly turned into a night ride - I love the silence that you get out in the country, when our bikes stop. The return route took us around the East of lake simcoe proving that the lights on the V-Strom are just fantastic; as stock. In all we did just shy of 500 kms. About 1 or 2 hours of night riding, 30 mins of rain riding and a whole load of fun!!!

Google Maps view of our Rote. We did a bunch or "riding around" that's not shown, but this is the general route taken. Originally we intended to split Lake Rosseau and Lake Muskoka and go to Bracebridge, but RR13 (AKA Southwood Rd) was just soooooo good.