So next time I buy all black shorts.
My riding partner wanted to do part of the Elora Cataract Trailway in south western Ontario.
Elora Cataract Trailway Association | A trailway along the Grand River Watershed linking communities
The plan was to go to the village of Erin to pick up the trail, ride to Belwood, get off the trail and ride to a trailer park where my riding partner's friend would have lunch waiting, then after a leisurely lunch, ride back.
As we started out, the path looked fine, old railway line turned into a trail with limestone screenings. I normally ride on roads. My tires, and my partners were 25mm, which in hindsight was not the right equipment.
But there were areas where grass grew in the middle, and areas where the stones gave way to mud.
After a few kilometers, we had just crossed a road, and then hit a totally shaded area, and there boxwwas a slick sheen of mud, and somehow I found my rear wheel sliding out from under me. I had one of those slow motion moments where I felt myself bounce and then hit again. My elbow scraped hard, and my knee, my hip took much of the brunt. But the bike was fine. I used much of my water to wash the mud out of my wounds, luckily there were a few picnic tables nearby to recover.
Even though we were not close to half way, we decided to continue on.
At every road crossing, there were barriers to prevent ATVs and snowmobiles from using the trail, and a narrow space between two concrete pillars to allow bikes and pedestrians through.
My partner was leading out, and he came to one of the barriers, turned his wheel, and it sunk in about 3 inches and grabbed the wheel. He and the bike avoided the barrier, but ended up in the bush. His head did hit a sapling, but he was ok. Again we decided to keep going forward.
As we left a fairly flat trail, we had a few rolling hills just for fun, then arrived at the trailer.
We took our time, ate, hydrated, bandaged my elbow and got a tour. We were just preparing to leave when the rain started. We had offers to shuttle us to our vehicles, but since it wasn't too hard, decided again to go forward.
The rollers were easier since in the end it was mostly downhill.
We finished relatively strongly, though not as fast as we started out.
All in I think we did 50 kms, 40 on the trail. The trail had markers every km in some sections.
I'd suggest you not tackle in a road bike unless it hasn't rained in a while. A cross bike would be fine.