Day 1. Toronto to Port Perry.

Monday 9 May. Toronto to Port Perry. 85 km/53m, 5hrs 28mins, 15.6kph/9.69mph, 710m/2343ft of climbing.

Flew into Toronto on Wednesday 4 May and spent four extremely convivial days with Paul and the Gearys. Really enjoyable - so enjoyable, in fact, that my intended start on Sunday morning had to be deferred for 24 hours due to a subsequent engagement with premiership football in a pub. Proper pub, too, I was impressed.

So, the tour started this morning in downtown Toronto. Having consulted my bicyclist's atlas of Ontario, I ignored the most direct route and instead left Toronto along the waterfront, skirting Lake Ontario to Oshawa before turning due north for Port Perry. Slightly fiddly route but didn't get lost too often, and never for very long. And a simply beautiful day, around 20C, sunny, light winds.

The bike looks as if it is going to live up to expectations, too. It's not the sportiest, and when ridden unladen feels pretty dead compared with a road bike. But it's built for load carrying, and with 90-odd kilos of me and another 25 of luggage it is as steady as a rock and handles beautifully.

Obviously, with all that weight I'm not going to break any speed records. Even moderate hills had me moving down through the gears and working quite hard, and though I deliberately took it fairly easy - there's a long way to go - an average speed of 10mph sets new standards of slowness. Having said that, Ontario isn't quite as flat as I had been led to believe. From Lake Ontario to Lake Scugog is rolling countryside with a distinctly upward trend.

Port Perry is a pretty little lakeside town and the Piano Cafe has very decent rooms. Tomorrow to Bobcaygeon another 50 or so miles north. And, remarkably, the forecast is for an even more beautiful day than today. Joy.