Pleasant Bay

After departing Cheticamp the work for the day was going to start. We rode inland from the coast into Cape Breton Highlands National Park and the hills started coming fast. The first two were relatively short, 1 km with 80 m of elevation (7.8% grade) and 0.85 km with 30 m of elevation (3.6% grade). The biggest climb of the trip was next and it didn’t disappoint. It was 5.4 km with 393 m of elevation (7.2% grade). We stopped a couple of times to take in the amazing views along the climb.

As we crested the climb, the view continues to be amazing. The clouds cleared as we started climbing and it was quite lovely out. The wind also died down a bit as we went inland, however, even on some of the descents a gust would slow us down significantly. The final decent into Pleasant Bay was epic. Super twisty, fun and fast!!! As we approached the bottom we finally saw some other bikers. They were fully loaded for a trip and had panniers, one of them was even pushing their bike up the hill. I’m very glad we went fast and light for our trip as that didn’t look like a fun ride.

I have to say, once we entered the national park the roads were much better and had a should that allowed us to ride side by side. There was also very little traffic in comparison to the first half of the ride which was really nice.

The plan for the evening is to head out to the Rusty Anchor for dinner and the come back to the room to rest and relax for another day on the bike tomorrow.Read more