Sickness and Theft in Ontario
Day 1: 5/16/2024
209 miles, 10,358 ft. elevation gain
Dartmouth’s annual Greenkey Weekend is the highlight of most students’ Spring Term. Three days of concerts, parties (or darties: day-parties), and general debauchery were headlined this year by Shaggy. I was pretty bummed to be missing the festivities this year, but 5-months into my training I had gotten pretty used to missing out on social events in favor of training. I decided to skip class on Thursday so I would have an extra day to make my trip around Lake Ontario feasible. I set out in good company with my good friend Connor Killilea who accompanied me for the first 20 miles through Woodstock, Vermont. I immediately noticed that my body felt pretty weak, but I brushed it off and kept riding. Sometimes it takes a couple of hours for my body to warm up. By mid-afternoon, after crossing the Green Mountains and dropping down into the Hudson River Valley I realized that I wasn’t just tired, rather I was pretty sick. Regardless, I had big aspirations for the weekend, I wasn’t going to let a little sickness drag me down so early into my trip. I kept telling myself that this week was my peak week for my training block. This trip wasn’t supposed to be fun, and it definitely wasn't supposed to be easy. I had planned this trip out to be miserable and challenging. I had even designed the route to be as boring as possible to push myself mentally. As the sun started setting I hopped on the Erie Canal Trail. Stretching from Albany to Buffalo, the converted rail trail promised to provide me with 300 miles of straight, flat, boring terrain where I could soften up my legs for some big days to come. Even as the clouds started to break for a beautiful sunset I just could not rally myself mentally. I marked the day off as a throwaway, disappointed I only covered a bit over 200 of my planned 230 miles. I set out my bivy in a fallow corn field and drifted to sleep hoping for better in the coming days.
Day 2: 5/17/2024
When I woke up I told myself the day was going to be a good one. It kind of had to be a good one. I wanted to make up for lost time from the day before and hoped to cover 250 miles on the day. The gravel was smooth; I knew I could average over 15mph and a 16-hour day seemed manageable. I set out with determination but I was quickly grounded in reality. Whatever sickness I had felt brewing the day before was now a full-fledged illness. I was lightheaded and incredibly weak. I didn’t want anything to do with my bike and I certainly didn’t want to ride for 15 ½ more hours. I just wanted to go back to sleep. The day started to blend together into a foggy haze of mindless pedaling. I decided to take a long break for lunch. I wasn’t hungry and had to really force myself to eat. I managed to get back on my bike, but I immediately threw up everywhere. I stopped again to try to get more food down, but again I threw everything up. By late afternoon I was completely fried. I was repeatedly inundated with waves of lightheadedness that forced me to get off my bike and lie down to keep from passing out. I was making very little progress and decided to call it a day before the sun even set. I wasn’t even at 10 hours of moving time but decided my best option was to go to sleep early and try to get a long night of rest in hopes that my sickness would abate. I was feeling pretty defeated and to add insult to injury, it started raining. I bedded down underneath an underpass in a dry patch of rocky grass and called it a night. Though I unfortunately wouldn’t be doing much sleeping.
Day 3: 5/18/2024
187 miles, 2,700 ft. elevation gain
All night I dozed in and out of sleep. My fitful slumber was interrupted by bouts of nausea and the continual rumblings of passing trains. I had unknowingly set up camp 50 feet from a very busy freight train line. So when I got up in the morning feeling no better than when I had gone to bed I was not at all surprised. I knew I had to rally. My body wasn’t going to get any better so I accepted the reality that I was just going to have to push through the discomfort and sickness. It got a little easier once I rationalized my situation. Nobody is ever forcing me to keep biking. All my struggles are voluntary. I have no room to complain. Every day I wake up and have the amazing privilege and opportunity to ride my bike all day unencumbered by many of the realities of life. When I am having difficult days on the bike I try to remind myself of this reality. It doesn’t make biking any easier, but it makes it more manageable. I always try to contextualize my physical and mental woes on the bike with the actual suffering, anxiety, and reality of life that billions of people deal with every day. I am so privileged to have the opportunity to train and travel as I do that the idea of suffering on the bike seems silly to me when I really think about it. It is all relative.
I passed through Rochester and continued on the Erie Canal Trail. The trail was a pretty even split between smooth fine gravel and asphalt with next to no elevation gain so I was able to average over 15mph even on my mountain bike with weak legs. When I reached Lockport I left the Erie Canalway Trail for the first time in a couple hundred miles and set course to Niagra Falls. I never felt great, but I was able to keep biking and I reached Niagra Falls by mid-afternoon. I pushed my way through the throngs of people on the American side for a view of the falls lip. I’ve seen the falls once before as a child, but the power and volume of Niagra amazed me once again. I made the easy border traverse across the Rainbow Bridge into Canada and once again fought through the crowds to get a good view of the falls on the Canadian side. There seemed to be more tourists on the Canadian side which surprised me, but the views are much better from the Canadian side. I was happy to be leaving the crowds behind as I worked my way north out of town back towards Lake Ontario. I peddled along the Welland Canal all the way to the southern shore of Ontario. It was a bright sunny day out, but dense fog was rolling off the Ontario so I found myself in a thick cloud along the shore. I turned west and made my way to Burlington before slowly trending north then back east towards Toronto. It was not until the sunset around Burlington that the fog started to dissipate a little. I tried to eat some food and thought I had it down but ended up throwing up everywhere again. It had been almost 36 hours since I had last eaten. I was able to get some calories down through liquids, but not more than 1,000 calories over these 36 hours.
I had intended to get to Toronto by mid-afternoon, then cut north up to Lake Superior, but my sickness had severely hindered my progress and I was well over 100 miles behind schedule. I realized that I would need to find a place around Toronto to camp. I identified a little jut of public land striking out into the lake just a few miles west of downtown Toronto. Humber Bay Park East was to be my campsite for the night. I found my way onto the peninsular spit of land and set up my bivy under the cover of some bushes. This would be my last night using any of my camping gear.
Day 4: 5/19/2024
I woke up and once again did not feel much better. Whatever. I was excited to see Toronto. I’d never been before but I’d heard good things. I passed through the city in the early hours of Sunday morning, so not a ton was happening, but I liked the city. It was clean and easy to bike through. To be honest I was not able to enjoy it very well. I was feeling really sick and mentally I was in a different world. I was very checked out from reality mentally and physically. I knew something had to give, so I stopped at a Tim Horton’s for some solid breakfast. I just wanted to keep some food down. I sat down and took my time eating and drinking. It was Sunday and I was 620 miles from home. I had class on Tuesday morning. I was on my mountain bike. If you do the math on that I had 48 hours to ride 620 miles. This was all part of the plan. My plan for the weekend was to ride 210 miles for the first three days, then pull a 1,000km (620 miles) ride on Sunday, straight through the night, into Monday with the goal of finishing late Monday night. I wasn’t super daunted by the prospect of this ride when I planned it, but my sickness had thrown a serious wrench in this plan. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it now.
I felt slightly better leaving the Tim Ho’s on the East side of Toronto, but my condition quickly deteriorated. On the bright side, I did not throw up my food! However, I was soon rocked with violent spins and lightheadedness. I thought I was going to pass out. Then I kind of did pass out. I tried to dismount because I felt myself losing it and I was afraid I was going to crash if I passed out while riding. When I unclipped and stuck my leg out my mind totally lost it and I half crashed, half collapsed into a pile in the grass on the side of the road. I took a nice 45-minute nap, still straddling the bike with one foot clipped in before I woke back up. I was a little rattled by this experience. Had I been on a busier road and had failed to dismount when I did I would’ve been properly smushed by traffic. I was also a little surprised that nobody had stopped to check on me as I had been passed out on the side of the road in a heap for 45 minutes.
I got back on my bike, found a gas station, took down about 500mg of caffeine, and set back out on my route. I had wasted a lot of time with my breakfast break and little incident on the side of the road, but mentally I was determined to get home and I knew I had 48 hours to cover less than 620 miles, which should theoretically be easy. I tried to pretend like I was just setting out with fresh legs and a blank slate mentally. I gaslighted myself into thinking everything was going to be okay. The food that I had gotten down that morning slowly started to take effect and I did indeed start to feel better. The miles started ticking away and my mojo started to return. By early evening I was mentally prepared to bike straight through the night. I knew it was possible since my legs wouldn’t give out on me–they are in too good of shape to get tired after just a couple of days of Z2 riding. All weekend my body had been sick so my muscles hadn’t even been tested yet, they were still fresh. I was able to consistently keep down food throughout the day and was slowly gaining strength back. I was coming into Kingston, Ontario as the sun set so I decided to stop for a re-supply before making my push through the night. I didn’t realize that Kingston is a large city. It was getting dark when I rolled into town and I was just on the outskirts of the city. I didn’t think anything of leaving my bike outside of the store while I went in to get some food and water. I have left my bike outside of stores thousands of times before while I go in to get food and water. In Vermont and New Hampshire and back home in Tennessee I never give it a second thought. In a big city in a foreign country, I should have given it a second thought. I came out of the store less than a minute after entering and my bike was gone. My bike and all of my gear, including my passport. I was angry, but more than anything I was mad at myself. How stupid of me. I filed my police report and then began to wander the streets of Kingston with my head held low. I clonked around in my bike cleats and kit, having nothing else to wear. I tried to find a hotel to stay in, but I didn’t have any government ID since my passport had been stolen, so I was turned down by several hotels. Getting my bike stolen really stung, but being stranded on the streets of Kingston with no camping equipment, no ID, no nothing, that hurt. I kept myself pretty well composed all things considered, but I almost broke when I got rejected from the first hotel. I felt so hopeless and stranded. If I had been smart I would’ve realized that Queens University is in Kingston. I have friends there, or I could have at least found a university student who would have let me sleep in a common room or a dorm floor. But I wasn’t being smart and I didn’t realize this. Eventually, I stumbled into a run-down motel and begged them to let me have a room for the night even though I didn’t have an ID. The nice man at the counter said it wouldn’t be a problem and I got myself a room. I was still super mad at myself, but I knew being frustrated would only make things worse in the long run, so I tried to be even-headed and started planning my return to the US the next day. I would have to hitchhike home since I didn’t have a bike. I would call the embassy in the morning to coordinate the border crossing. Things would be ok.
Right as I was falling asleep I got a call from the Kingston Police. They had recovered my mountain bike! I met them in a nearby parking lot and they gave me back my bike. It had been stripped of all the bags, so I still had no passport or camping gear, but I had my bike! And that is the most important thing that I have to my name. Literally. I own nothing of value except my two bikes and camping gear. I was so happy to have my bike back. Unfortunately, the rear derailleur was super banged up and several spokes had been snapped. I could roll around a little bit, but biking the remaining 460 miles home was out of the question. I went to bed with my bike right next to me with the same plan: hitchhike home and hope for the best at the border. Hitchhiking with the bike certainly adds a layer of complexity to the process, but I love hitchhiking. I meet so many new and exciting people. I hitchhike a lot even when I can borrow someone elses’s car or bike. I’ve met some of the most incredible people during hitchhiking adventures.
I got up the next morning and started on my hitchhiking journey. I caught two rides to the US-Canada Border at Thousand Islands. I had called the embassy and told them I was coming. I had also reported my passport stolen. I got to the border and talked to them about my situation. I gave them my school ID and some background information about myself. After about 20 minutes they let me through and wished me luck on getting home. I then had an escort from the bridge authority across the US side of the bridge since the road is an interstate and border patrol wouldn’t let me bike it. Once back on the mainland of New York, I could begin heading home unencumbered. Between Alexandria Bay and Port Henry, I caught 12 different rides. The hitchhike took me all day. I was lucky enough to have my friend Connor offer to pick me up from Lake Champlain. Just as the sun was setting I saw him appear out of the distance and I knew I had made it home from one of the most disorienting, miserable, and upsetting trips of my life. The silver lining was all of the incredible people I met hitchhiking home. I was shown so much generosity and trust. It goes to show that for every one bad person there is on this earth (the person who stole my bike), there are scores of good people.
