The Elephant Lake 200 route was the last of the triple with Bancroft 300 and Matawatchan 300 ridden in May and June. I chose to start in Barry’s Bay and do the route in reverse, that way the controls would be located evenly at 50-60 km from each other and the last in Combermere just 18 km from the finish. Barry’s Bay sits in the middle of the area that was populated in 1850s by mostly Polish and also Irish settlers. The first Canadian-Polish town of Wilno was on my route when I rode one of my previous brevets here. This time the historic Irish founded Maynooth was going to be my first rest stop. Out of Barry’s Bay the road turned onto the Kartuzy road, which turned out to be a sketchy stretch of short and sharp gravel hills that lasted for almost 10 km. This was the only gravel section and one of many distractions that made the ride engaging. The whole route was pretty much removed from the civilization, with constant hills and fast descents, the road on both sides hemmed in with a wall of trees. This is the main character of all Bancroft series and a reward received if you wish to do a 2 hour drive from Ottawa.
Although, it’s not entirely as ideal as that because inevitably it’s impossible to ride without passing through some town, you still need a general store or cafe and make a stop. So the roads coming into and out of two main towns and controls on the route, Maynooth and Bancroft, became busy with traffic and devoid of trees replaced with crowds of people. Nevertheless, the local topography never made you feel tired or tired of monotony.
Out of Bancroft, the route turned off the highway onto one empty and scenic road that ran above the landscape through the meadows with all the forest masses now shrinked to a vague wavy shapes slowly vanishing in the endless sequence. The last bit of the day was a punch through the remaining portion of the hills with one big peak at 177 km mark that has finally ended all the uphill struggles. Once on the top of it it was all downhill to the last control into Combermere and a relaxing rolling back to the finish.
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