Day 20
I'm at the Bear's Den B+B (excellent and inexpensive at $35 CD) having had a great meal at Charlotte's Gift Shop and Cafe (this is a really good restaurant), so life is pretty good. It isn't perfect because my bike seat's rail broke about 25 miles before I reached Shelburn. There is a (?) bike shop here so I may be able to get an adequate seat tomorrow. The last 25 miles of my first days riding in Nova Scotia were on a seat supported by a rock between the seat post and the bottom of the seat. Not an ideal way to ride.

Today's ride, other than the seatpost problem, was great. The ride along the Lighthouse Route (the blue-green background on this page is the color code for this route)from Yarmouth to Shelburn was quite pleasant, some of the views were very nice, and the cars were, almost always, very polite. NS did live up to its billing as a cyclist's paradise. The ride was also the easiest day of this tour (see the small amount of climbing) despite some wind. I even met four tourists, two from New Hampshire, one from NS, and one from Quebec. The only problem for the day, other than the seat, was that services were rather scarce.

My book says "restaurants can be found in most towns," so I started out the day by eating what little food I had as breakfast before I left Yarmouth. Then, as I pedaled along, I began to wonder about the wisdom of that act. It was Sunday morning and very few shops were open in Yarmouth. Outside of Yarmouth, there were no shops of any kind. Hmm, I'm thinking I may get pretty hungry before I find a place to eat my 'real' breakfast.

I overtook a NS rider about 12 miles out of Yarmouth. He was an experienced tourist who was riding 60 miles or so to visit a friend. I asked him about places to eat and he responded that it was 30 miles or so to a restaurant. Luckily for me he was a little out of date, and it was only another 10 miles to a restaurant/B+B that is just starting its second season. The Old Argyle B+B is located on a bay about 24 miles from the Yarmouth Ferry Terminal. It is a resort style B+B, with rates from $90 to $150 CD (roughly $70 to $115 US), but they sold me their 'continental' breakfast (a good one!) for $4 CD. Nice. If you want a nice B+B to cycle to after getting off the ferry, this would be a very good one. It is an easy ride from Yarmouth (I didn't even use my granny ring for the first 20 miles) and in a great location at the head of a beautiful bay. If you want cheaper rates, there were several more modest B+Bs in the next mile or two, but they weren't restaurants as well.

After breakfast I rode another 30 miles before finding a restaurant for lunch. There were not even any stores open (I saw a few that were out of business) along the way. The riding was easy today, so the services were close enough. If the weather was bad, it would have been a pretty hard ride without carrying food.

At about 75 miles, the left rear rail on my Selle Italia Max Filte seat broke. It broke about half an inch behind the clamp. This seat has maybe 20,000 miles of riding on it, but I still am annoyed that it broke. Were not talking silly light here. Or maybe we are. Anyway I was able to find, after several tries, a suitable rock that supported the seat in such a way that it was (uncomfortably) rideable.

NS roads are not all that smooth and a rock under the middle of a nylon shell is not a great way to build a seat, but it got me to Shelburn. If the seat hadn't broken I think I would have ridden for another 20 or 30 miles since the riding was so good and so easy. That would have got me half way from Yarmouth to Halifax and I'd be trying for Halifax tomorrow. Now I'll try for Lunenburg, assuming I can get a usable seat here. Note that I have a nice room and had an excellent supper here. Shelburn is a good place to stop, better than anything 20 or 30 miles down the road.