Inability to Ask Directions Spans Gender
I got myself thoroughly lost on the bike yesterday. My aim was to take the Grand Concourse trail either along the outside of, or through, Mount Pearl, then from the Kenmount Road/Topsail Road junction, to continue out Topsail Road, cross over to Portugal Cove via either Paradise Road or St. Thomas' Line, and head back to town either straight down Portugal Cove Road or over to Torbay Road via Major's Path and head down that way - getting groceries on the last leg. Well, it didn't turn out quite that way. Many lessons were learned.
First, the outside-Mount Pearl trail is very badly marked. I got as far as where it divides and either crosses Park Avenue or continues on past the Experimental Farm. I took the Farm route, but brought up short at a soccer pitch; I wandered around the area for a bit, crossed a large vacant lot, and came out near Commonwealth and Ruby Line. I followed Ruby Line west to the Arterial, and rather than ride on the highway, took a nasty rocky path by the roadside and finally bailed into a suburb that turned out to be Westminster. That was off Old Placentia Road, so I continued on OPR until I got to Donovan's - took several wrong turns there are well - but finally landed at my goal, Kenmount/Topsail. There I rejoined the Grand Concourse trail that I would have had no trouble with if I had crossed Park Avenue to begin with, and since there was a good bike path alongside Topsail Road, I followed it. According to a sign in Donovan's, it was 11:30 (so I'd been riding for about two hours) and 13 degrees.
This was a lovely ride until after I'd passed Karwood Estates. Instead of getting back on the road there, I kept following the trail as it led further and further from the road, and the trail worsened considerably. I realized that this was now an ATV track: alternating 6- to 10-foot stripes of piled-up golf-ball-size loose rock and barer, sometimes muddy, ground in a fairly deep depression in between. Horrible, horrible stuff to bike on. I didn't actually wipe out, but only due to sheer luck. If I didn't get enough speed when my wheels were in the dip, that I wouldn't have the momentum to make it over the hump of loose rock, and would bring up short and would have to put my feet down. Not to mention that my hands were pretty much numb. This must have gone on for about an hour, and I passed no exits at all - looking at the map afterwards, I really was in the middle of nowhere. Luckily I met no ATVs - I might not have heard them since the ride was so noisy, and visibility was not very long, due the twistyness of the trail and overgrowth of the trees.
At long last, I saw the backs of houses near the trail, and found a driveway where I could get back on the road. This turned out to be Three Island Pond Road, very close to the end of Topsail Pond and the Topsail Pond Road intersection. I was really excited at this point - I had actually ridden my bike to the area of Nanny and Grampy's country house, which, in the seventies, was a very long drive and major excursion. I had ridden over the route of the very same railroad track behind the house on which we had walked as kids - the track itself is no longer there, obviously. What I always thought of as the back of the beyond was somewhere I could go on my bike. I was impressed with myself!
In this state of euphoria I was feeling much better about continuing my ride, even after the unpleasant rattling I'd endured for the last hour or so, so I turned left to continue out into Topsail. This was my biggest mistake - I thought, hazily, that if I didn't see St. Thomas' Line on my way out to the bay, I'd just cross over at the coastal road... but there wasn't one. I had a bite of lunch at a Marie's Minimart nearby, and rode blissfully on out Topsail Road. No St. Thomas' Line - naturally. That intersection was quite a ways further in the road than where I emerged. If I had taken the road instead of the trail, I couldn't have missed it.
I rode through Topsail for a long while before I got to any intersection that I thought might have brought me back east. The signs saying "Chamberlains" were a little disconcerting, but not knowing exactly where I was didn't make them significant. Finally I found a "T" intersection, and gratefully turned right, hoping that this would at least bring me back to Topsail, if not to the mythical coastal road to Portugal Cove. Problem was: this was the intersection of the Manuals' Access Road and the Conception Bay Highway. My right turn sent me due west. I passed through Villanova Plaza in Manuals, and the next community I saw was Foxtrap. It had started to rain by then, and I realized that I was in trouble.
Foxtrap is a long, long way from St. John's, but since I figured I'd been out for over four hours now, backtracking looked like a very long option indeed. I found the Foxtrap Access Road, and had the choice there of "Route 2" or the Trans Canada Highway, both leading to St. John's. Due to the rain and the greater probability of big trucks on the TCH, I chose Route 2. This turned out to be a smarter decision, not only because of trucks but because it was a lot shorter, as I found out later. If I had taken the TCH I might not have made it.
The highway was miserable, grueling, very very cold, and very very wet. The rain was incessant, varying only from heavy drizzle to hard pelting downpour, and the wind was mostly easterly, although not strong enough to be a huge bother, relatively speaking. I had mittens, which were soaked through not very long after the Route 2 ramp, and my yellow bike jacket, which was soaked before that. I breathed in rainwater more than once, and had to stop several times to wipe the water out of my eyes. There were two hills that I probably could have managed to ride up in better conditions - and earlier in the ride! - but had to walk for a ways under the circumstances. Cloverleaves are a pain to traverse, since in the rain I wanted to stop to make sure that the way was clear before crossing an on- or off-ramp. I think the uphills stopped near the first exit to Mount Pearl, to my relief. My hands were in lots of pain by this time from the cold, and my knees were complaining. I bypassed the Mount Pearl exits, with the rationale that there would be more traffic in the city, therefore I'd be more likely to get splashed, and it wouldn't be any quicker. I knew I couldn't ride all the way in on the Harbour Arterial - bikes are not allowed, sensibly since there's nowhere to jump - so I got off at the entrance to Kilbride, and took my usual route home from work in the Southside Road. I got off at Water and Waldegrave to walk across the intersection there, and just couldn't bring myself to get back on. So I walked the last kilometer or so, probably a good idea to stretch my biking muscles, and collapsed in the door at 3:30. I needed Bob's help to change into dry clothes since my hands were completely useless, and curled up in bed for an hour or so until my body temperature finally came back up to sensible.
Over several large cups of hot liquid I went back over the map of the route and had it made clear to me just how stupid I really was. I'm dying to find out how far I went in those six hours. It seems a lot longer than my Bauline Line ride, but it's hard to tell due to the long time on the rough trail. Yahoo Maps says it's 25 km from Foxtrap to St.John's via the highway, so that was at least half my trip. From my very rough estimate of half the time at "intense" level and half at "moderate", I burned 4500 calories. Next time I'm taking a map and compass, I promise. In a ziploc bag. Good thing I didn't have the camera, or it would have been ruined for sure. I didn't manage to get groceries, either.