Pictou, NS

Pictou, NS August 13
Today, 80 km, Total 1766
Bit of a slow start this morning. This was partly attributable to the generosity of our new friends in the pub last night - they set us up with another round of drinks just about the time we had reached our respective theoretical limits.
After sitting up in bed for half an hour pecking at yesterday's blog, I decided to test a new personal threshhold, the foot-long mega breakfast sub. No trouble putting it away, but not really my thing. Give me the Gaspesian special with a side of porridge any day.
WARNING: boring biker guy stuff coming. On our way to the pub yesterday, we spotted a promising bike shop, so we decided to take the time this morning to check it out. We both had some things that needed to be fixed before we tackle the highlands of Cape Breton in a couple of days. Pete has had a persistent wheel wobble since his last broken spoke episode, and I have been concerned about the condition of my drive-train.Pete's wheel waqs quickly fixed. My chain had stretched out to its critical limit, as I suspected, and I decided to replace it as well as the rear cluster, as it is always best to replace them as a unit. This also let me go from a 11-25 cluster to a 12-27, which should give me a little more reserve on the big climbs.
I had also been developing some shifting problems, which I expected waere due to a stretched cable, but when the mechanic started to adjust it, he found that the cable had frayed down to a couple of strands, ready to break any second. Lucky I didn't have to deal with that on the road!
Finally got going at noon, which was too late to do the 60+km to the 14:30 ferry to Nova Scotia from Wood Island, so we set our sights on the 16:30.
Don't let anyone tell you that PEI is flat! Right off the bat we were into an endless series of power climbs, which were pretty draining even though we kept a fairly conservative pace. The last 20km or so was back on a section of the Confederation Trail, but even though the gradients were less, we still had what seemed like a never-ending false flat climb to deal with.
By the time we got on the ferry for the 90-minute crossing, we were both bagged, and fell asleep at a table in the cafeteria. I'm sure I was the centre of attention; at least once I woke myself up with a loud snore.Disembarking, there was no sign of an info booth, and we didn'n have a map, so we followed the signposts to a provincial campground. The attendant told us that the nearest place to eat was at Pictou village, 8km down the road, so after some grumbling we left our gear at the gatehouse and headed off on unloaded bikes.
Pictou is an attractive little village with lots of old buildings, said to be the birthplace of New Scotland. A nice steak and a couple of beers set us straight, and we even summoned the energy for a little time-trial back to the camp-ground!
A useful day in all, putting us in a good position for the coming challenge of Cape Breton.
Good Night to All
Barney
Don't forget to check Pete's blog at www.transcanada09.blogspot.com