It was the long and short of it.

Going from Sault Ste. Marie to Sudbury involved the longest leg of our trip and the shortest. First of all, though, let’s go back to where we last left off.

Clive was looking for a chain ring and found a store in Sault Ste. Marie called Vélorution. Since the city is in the epicentre of cross-country riding – not only east west but a north-south connection into Michigan across the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge – there’s lots of riders coming through looking for work to be done.

They’ve actually got a little wooded area behind their store – and in back of the Walmart – carved out for cyclists to camp. They also provide a shower for them to use and access to their WiFi. It’s all free, so Clive took advantage of it for two nights. I, however, wanted some creature comforts like electricity and a television so I wussed out and opted for a motel.

While I did my laundry there, Clive sought out a laundromat. He ended up at one in downtown Soo where to his surprise the attendant was a Williams Lake native who was taking native dance courses at Sault College.

On the advice of Vélorution, we took a different route out of town than the normal busy Highway 17, the so-called Ontario portion of the Trans-Canada. They told us to take the old 17B which, to our surprise, had a nice wide shoulder and ran through the flat land of the Garden River Indian Reserve. They then had us go a bucolic back road through dairy and pastoral Amish farmland. It made for a pleasant break of 60 kilometres where we didn’t have to battle big trucks as we rode a narrow shoulder. We even met up with some American riders going the other way who had scoped out the route. But all good things must come to an end, and it was back to the two-lane Highway 17 and its itsy-bitsy shoulders.

Before we even pitched our tents at Clear Lake Campground, a third-generation operation, that afternoon we were offered a beer by an 85-year-old man from south of Toledo, Ohio, who had been coming to the camp with his family since the 1950s. Our tents were tucked in amongst the many long-term trailers, RVs and campers that line the meticulously kept grounds overlooking a beautiful lake.

The next morning, a Friday, one of the owners said it was too bad we weren’t staying for the weekend because a family was holding a big reunion and the whole park was being treated to a fish fry that night, a pig roast Saturday night and a big breakfast Sunday morning.

As much as that tickled our tastebuds we hopped on our bikes anyway. As we rolled out of Iron Bridge, an Amish man pulled up in his buggy to the corner and set up a stand to sell homemade bread and other goodies while his horse grazed nearby.

Our goal that day was to reach The Chute provincial campground just outside of Massey, Ont. (You may have never heard of Massey but it does have both a Home Hardware and a Rona so it can’t be too small). That would leave us more than two-thirds of the way to Sudbury and give us time for Clive to search for the chain ring he couldn’t find in The Soo on Saturday.

Well, we got to Massey in good time (despite the horse droppings and narrow shoulders), except we were exceptionally thirsty. It was the first hot day we’d had in a while. I found a store and bought a cold ice tea. Clive had been content downing the water from the bottles we filled every morning. But on Friday that was way too tepid. When he arrived I was curious to see what he’d buy. But he emerged empty-handed. That threw me for a second. He then reached into the huge Ice For Sale machine out front of the corner store, pulled out a big bag of ice cubes, opened it up and began pouring ice into his water bottles. It was a brilliant idea! Simply brilliant!

For the price ($2.25) of less than a bottle of pop he created several bottles of ice water. We were like little boys gleefully putting the ice in our water bottles, swirling it around and then slurping back really cold water. Finally! We used up about three-quarters of the bag – some of it went to cooling off my back and his bald head – giving us quite a few bottles of ice water.

Since we’d arrived so early, having gone more than 100 kilometres, we decided to press on another 25 to the fairly large town of Espanola. We figured for sure there would be a campground there since the Highway 6 junction connected travellers to a ferry down to Southern Ontario.

When we arrived we headed to the Timmies/Wendy’s to connect to their free WiFi to find out where the campgrounds were. There were none in town. Turned out there was one 25 kilometres to the south, which was not an option, and another 21 kilometre to the east. So we headed toward that one. Well, if it exists there’s no signs to tell anyone about it.

Befor the day was done we racked up 169 kilometres – granted over mostly flat terrain with only a few small hills – before we finally found a campground near the community of Whitefish run by the City of Sudbury. It was packed with Sudbury-ites enjoying swimming on the Vermilion River at the foot of some rapids and a stone bridge.

That meant we’d only have to go about 25 kilometres further to enjoy a Sudbury Saturday night. (I know, a bad reference to a Stompin’ Tom Conners classic.) First stop was Pinnacle Sports in Lively (must be a cousin to Likely, B.C.). While they didn’t have the chain ring Clive wanted he found a shop in Sudbury proper that did. The Outside Store was very helpful in getting Clive set up for the rest of the trip. They were so nice they gave us some slices of the pizza they order for lunch every Saturday. It put a nice touch to the shortest leg of our journey which ended up being 40 km by the time we reached Carol’s Campground a few kilometre south of the city.

Now it’s time to go chasing Brody. Earlier in the week, he took a train from Sioux Lookout to Sudbury, arriving on Thursday. He’s now pushed ahead to North Bay, about 125 kilometres from Sudbury, so we should catch up to him before Ottawa. Hopefully riding with him this time will be all about the long, and no short.

• For the record, Sudbury Saturday Night was spent grocery shopping, dinner at an Ontario franchise favourite East Side Mario’s, and blog writing.

Kilometre count

Day 48: Sault Ste. Marie to Iron Bridge 113 km. Total: 4,269 km.

Day 49: Clear Lake Campground (5 km. west of Iron Bridge) to Centennial campground in Whitefish, 25 km east of Sudbury) 169 km; Total: 4,440

Day 50: Centennial to Sudbury 40 km; Total 4,480 km.