Sort of.
It still twinges a bit, but after 48 hours of being useless and another 48 of just being in constant pain, I'm nearly back to normal.
I still wouldn't play any sort of sport that involves twisting or jerky movements, but running and cycling seem to be fine. Thus, I am in the race and have five days to go until I get to test myself in a totally new sport. (Totally new given if I haven't done it in a decade, it's totally new)
Aside from the minor setback, training volume has been down somewhat, stress at work and such has been getting into my outside life, which always sucks, that seems to be fading though. I've got about 6 weeks until the first cross race that I can attend. The first race being on the same weekend as Susan's wedding, so I'll be in Toronto with the rest of the Ottawa crew that weekend. So 8 races this year if all goes well. Lead lap on more than one? That's the goal.
The unfortunate side to this is that since we're getting nice and close to race season, it means it's time for more and more painful workouts. Yay. Lactate acid. Fun, fun, fun!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
I hate cheap people.
Great weekend forming up here.
Pulled something in my back yesterday, so that means the physical activities I had planned are now out. It's also a week away from the tri, so that could also be shot. Yay. Nothing like riding the trainer indoors in summer because cracks in the road hurt the back too much.
Hillary is out of town, so I'm on my own, poorly timed injury on my part, socks this morning took several minutes.
To make matters better, the long awaited raise came in today. On the one hand, it was substantial, which is nice. On the other hand, I'm still being underpaid for the work I do by at least 10k. The hell of it is that the work is interesting and being the design lead is enjoyable and rewarding. Until I get told that someone who spent 6 months on a two week feature is 'valuable' or some such crap. And damn me for not being able to speak negatively about said person and just being suitably incredulous.
Okay, rant over, but it's going to be a LONG weekend.
Pulled something in my back yesterday, so that means the physical activities I had planned are now out. It's also a week away from the tri, so that could also be shot. Yay. Nothing like riding the trainer indoors in summer because cracks in the road hurt the back too much.
Hillary is out of town, so I'm on my own, poorly timed injury on my part, socks this morning took several minutes.
To make matters better, the long awaited raise came in today. On the one hand, it was substantial, which is nice. On the other hand, I'm still being underpaid for the work I do by at least 10k. The hell of it is that the work is interesting and being the design lead is enjoyable and rewarding. Until I get told that someone who spent 6 months on a two week feature is 'valuable' or some such crap. And damn me for not being able to speak negatively about said person and just being suitably incredulous.
Okay, rant over, but it's going to be a LONG weekend.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
August Update
On the athletic front, running and swimming are going well. I'm hitting the water twice a week for about 45 minutes each and running 5km two to three times per week. Though I think twice a week it's going to be upped to about 8.
I am no longer concerned about surviving the tri.
On a cycling note, I set a couple of Warren Training Records, a two hour ride at an average of 33km/h, including warmup and warm down and a 35km/h average for a 30km stretch. That included some pretty slow hills and some nasty headwinds, so that bodes well for the 30km tri ride. Average heartrate in that 30km was well below the lactate threshold (avg about 168, where 176 or so is my threshold) so that means I have at least a bit more power on tap. I haven't hit my limit since the Paris-Roubaix, so I'm getting anxious to test myself.
On a totally unrelated note, I have a wedding venue now. This is awesome, the hard part is over, now I just have to write cheques and take care of the 10 million other little things.
I am no longer concerned about surviving the tri.
On a cycling note, I set a couple of Warren Training Records, a two hour ride at an average of 33km/h, including warmup and warm down and a 35km/h average for a 30km stretch. That included some pretty slow hills and some nasty headwinds, so that bodes well for the 30km tri ride. Average heartrate in that 30km was well below the lactate threshold (avg about 168, where 176 or so is my threshold) so that means I have at least a bit more power on tap. I haven't hit my limit since the Paris-Roubaix, so I'm getting anxious to test myself.
On a totally unrelated note, I have a wedding venue now. This is awesome, the hard part is over, now I just have to write cheques and take care of the 10 million other little things.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
The next race
Though technically the 'next race' will be one of the OBC time trials, those don't really count as they are more of a fitness gauge.
So I think it's about time I do a triathlon.
The one du- that I did I was in the top 10 for the cycling leg and got killed in the run legs. I haven't done much swimming in the past couple of years, but I do have pretty good technique, so with a bit of brushing up on the atrophied upper body muscles, I might be able to do decently again.
The goal is the sprint tri on the Labour Day weekend here in Ottawa. 750m swim, 30k cycle and 5k run, all quite reasonable distances. Even better, the cycle course is basically pancake flat with a slight rise that I have to go over twice, so with my less than stellar power/weight ratio, I should be able to reel in a few people in there.
The trick will be to see if I can survive the run.
Anyhow, the first swim will be tomorrow, the rough training will be for me to continue getting ready for the cyclocross season with a pair of hour or so swimming sessions per week. Since the 'cross training will include some running, that should at least get me fit enough to figure out if I want to participate in this kind of organized torture again in the future.
On a somewhat related note, where related is in the stream of consciousness sense, I will start pulling apart the 'cross bike tomorrow. This will be the first time I embark on a project of a such... mechanical nature. We shall see how this goes.
So I think it's about time I do a triathlon.
The one du- that I did I was in the top 10 for the cycling leg and got killed in the run legs. I haven't done much swimming in the past couple of years, but I do have pretty good technique, so with a bit of brushing up on the atrophied upper body muscles, I might be able to do decently again.
The goal is the sprint tri on the Labour Day weekend here in Ottawa. 750m swim, 30k cycle and 5k run, all quite reasonable distances. Even better, the cycle course is basically pancake flat with a slight rise that I have to go over twice, so with my less than stellar power/weight ratio, I should be able to reel in a few people in there.
The trick will be to see if I can survive the run.
Anyhow, the first swim will be tomorrow, the rough training will be for me to continue getting ready for the cyclocross season with a pair of hour or so swimming sessions per week. Since the 'cross training will include some running, that should at least get me fit enough to figure out if I want to participate in this kind of organized torture again in the future.
On a somewhat related note, where related is in the stream of consciousness sense, I will start pulling apart the 'cross bike tomorrow. This will be the first time I embark on a project of a such... mechanical nature. We shall see how this goes.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
So, we're done.
Not where we wanted to, but due to technical problems and time constraints, we have had to call the ride officially over.
The descision was made in Fredericton, when we ended a day with the truck losing air in the brakes. Turns out most of our problems stemmed from a water pump with shot bearings that stretched the belt that spun the alternator and air compressor. Regardless, we lost something like four full riding days with a couple of different garages trying to figure out what was wrong.
Since we didn't carry heavy touring gear, we couldn't really leave the truck behind either. Ah well, t'was about the journey and not the destination.
We're spending the better part of a week in PEI and New Brunswick before hitting up Ottawa on the 14th or so, then back to Vancouver on the 17th for Lance's wedding. Hillary and I are planning on going on short rides most days, though what counts as a short ride may be open to debate now, 'short' means something totally different now. :)
PEI is supposed to have great riding roads, so I'm looking forward to that to say the least.
Anyhow, more updates will come as we get there.
The descision was made in Fredericton, when we ended a day with the truck losing air in the brakes. Turns out most of our problems stemmed from a water pump with shot bearings that stretched the belt that spun the alternator and air compressor. Regardless, we lost something like four full riding days with a couple of different garages trying to figure out what was wrong.
Since we didn't carry heavy touring gear, we couldn't really leave the truck behind either. Ah well, t'was about the journey and not the destination.
We're spending the better part of a week in PEI and New Brunswick before hitting up Ottawa on the 14th or so, then back to Vancouver on the 17th for Lance's wedding. Hillary and I are planning on going on short rides most days, though what counts as a short ride may be open to debate now, 'short' means something totally different now. :)
PEI is supposed to have great riding roads, so I'm looking forward to that to say the least.
Anyhow, more updates will come as we get there.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Atlantic Canada
We are here officially now, Edmundston, New Brunswick.
The road climbed up and away from the St. Lawrence, then rolled over gentle hills for the most part for the entire day. Our longest ride in a week in or two, getting close to six hours of pedalling time and well over 7 hours on the road in total.
It was nice to see a 'Welcome to Quebec' sign as well, since it seems that people crossing from Ottawa to Gatineau are not worthy of being welcomed to la Belle Province. All you see crossing the Ottawa river is a small metal sign with the single word, "Quebec".
Our goal for today is to get somewhere in the ballpark of Perth-Andover which will put us in striking distance of Fredericton for tomorrow. By my calculations we have something like 840km of riding left to us, hard to believe how close we are getting. I for one am looking forward to lobster in Halifax though.
Not much more time now, enjoy the week and all that good stuff.
Out.
The road climbed up and away from the St. Lawrence, then rolled over gentle hills for the most part for the entire day. Our longest ride in a week in or two, getting close to six hours of pedalling time and well over 7 hours on the road in total.
It was nice to see a 'Welcome to Quebec' sign as well, since it seems that people crossing from Ottawa to Gatineau are not worthy of being welcomed to la Belle Province. All you see crossing the Ottawa river is a small metal sign with the single word, "Quebec".
Our goal for today is to get somewhere in the ballpark of Perth-Andover which will put us in striking distance of Fredericton for tomorrow. By my calculations we have something like 840km of riding left to us, hard to believe how close we are getting. I for one am looking forward to lobster in Halifax though.
Not much more time now, enjoy the week and all that good stuff.
Out.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
The hills have thighs.
So, as expected, after my last comment on the flatness of Quebec, I am rapidly proven wrong.
Due to some Truck problems, we headed out of Quebec late in the afternoon and thus rode for a much shorter period. We took the official scenic cycling route out east of the city and it was awesome. It was also on the bottom of a ridge the entire way. This meant that while the road was quite tame for the most part, every turn up to the left was ridiculous. I decided that I should ride up one of the hills. 24%, officially, which makes that a Warren Record for steepness.
The climb was about 400m long and while I think the 24% wasn't constant, the average was probably closer to 20%, there were steep bits. Anyhow, that was cool.
The next day brought more, and those were unavoidable. The 362, which seemed on paper a nicer ride, and seemed even better when we saw a group of 20 or so riders coming off the road, was tough.
It started with a 5km climb at 10% and while this was the largest single sustained climb of the road, there were several pitches of 12+. Most of these weren't signed, but given the short climb of the day before, I can start making some good guesses... Suffice it to say, we successfully climbed some 15% and 18%, including one awesome climb up through a small town.
This road was awesome, but brutally hard. We ended up walking when a climb out of St. Irene hit close to 20%, the sign officially called for 18% for 1km, which is really quite silly.
Anyhow, due to further Truck troubles, we are now in Riviere-du-Loup and should hit Edmundston tomorrow, and the Maritimes.
Due to some Truck problems, we headed out of Quebec late in the afternoon and thus rode for a much shorter period. We took the official scenic cycling route out east of the city and it was awesome. It was also on the bottom of a ridge the entire way. This meant that while the road was quite tame for the most part, every turn up to the left was ridiculous. I decided that I should ride up one of the hills. 24%, officially, which makes that a Warren Record for steepness.
The climb was about 400m long and while I think the 24% wasn't constant, the average was probably closer to 20%, there were steep bits. Anyhow, that was cool.
The next day brought more, and those were unavoidable. The 362, which seemed on paper a nicer ride, and seemed even better when we saw a group of 20 or so riders coming off the road, was tough.
It started with a 5km climb at 10% and while this was the largest single sustained climb of the road, there were several pitches of 12+. Most of these weren't signed, but given the short climb of the day before, I can start making some good guesses... Suffice it to say, we successfully climbed some 15% and 18%, including one awesome climb up through a small town.
This road was awesome, but brutally hard. We ended up walking when a climb out of St. Irene hit close to 20%, the sign officially called for 18% for 1km, which is really quite silly.
Anyhow, due to further Truck troubles, we are now in Riviere-du-Loup and should hit Edmundston tomorrow, and the Maritimes.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
On the road again
The week off was fairly uneventful. Lots of chores and running around to do, coupled with me feeling pretty terrible for a couple of days lead to, well, something. By the end of the week, Hillary was doing much better and we were ready to go.
Sort of.
Got up Saturday morning to a flat tire on both the road bike and the cross bike. Great. I broke the tire levers switching the road bike tire. Before the day was out, I'd have gone through three more tubes. Time to get more I am thinking.
From Ottawa, our route was to cross into Quebec and take the 148 until somewhere before Montreal and pass north of the city. Mom's only caveat prior to setting out on this trip was that she would not drive in Montreal. This was fair as far as we were concerned. After all, north of Montreal should be pretty scenic right?
Well, turns out, if you stay south of the hills, Quebec isn't the greatest province for riding, at least thus far. The three hundred or so km after we got outside of Ottawa rivaled the flattest roads on the prairies. Which wasn't bad I suppose. We had a nice tailwind for three of those days, which lead to lots of fast cruising. Hillary seems to be stronger after the rest as well, so we're going faster even when the winds die.
It's also much more civilized as well. For the first four thousand or so kilometres of the trip, we'd get waves from truckers and random people waving at us. For the most part, this was due to where we were. Virtually anywhere on the roads we've been on, up until midway through Ontario, the only cyclists on the road were the ones who were touring in one form or another. Now that we're in much more civilized, much more populous regions, we see people out for day rides all the time.
This 'much more civilized' is also the reason I haven't really taken any pictures for a few days. We haven't really been in the wild yet and I don't really know when we'll hit it again.
So we're in Quebec City now. Seemed like a good place for a day off, which was actually probably a mistake, I really should have gone on a couple of rides around the city, there are some awesome roads and steep little climbs all over. Ah well, I will need to find some cyclosportif ride in the city and do that one day. Bodes well for the next few days of riding. Hills are slower, but much more fun.
As for the roads, the highways aren't as bad as Manitoba, the towns are worse. Much worse. Catastrophic was a word that was used in some random small town that we hit.
We also had our first official wrong turn of the trip a couple of days ago. We were riding along the 158 and the directions for the day were basically: Ride the 158 until it ends, then take the 138. Turns out the 158 is very poorly signed in a few places and we lost it. About 10km later, we realized the highway signs were showing the wrong numbers and that set off the alarm bells. Fortunately we were going only about 45 degrees off the direction we should have been going on and ended up only adding about 10km to the day's ride.
We're back on the road tomorrow barring anything weird happening. Happy Canada Day if I'm not back before then.
Sort of.
Got up Saturday morning to a flat tire on both the road bike and the cross bike. Great. I broke the tire levers switching the road bike tire. Before the day was out, I'd have gone through three more tubes. Time to get more I am thinking.
From Ottawa, our route was to cross into Quebec and take the 148 until somewhere before Montreal and pass north of the city. Mom's only caveat prior to setting out on this trip was that she would not drive in Montreal. This was fair as far as we were concerned. After all, north of Montreal should be pretty scenic right?
Well, turns out, if you stay south of the hills, Quebec isn't the greatest province for riding, at least thus far. The three hundred or so km after we got outside of Ottawa rivaled the flattest roads on the prairies. Which wasn't bad I suppose. We had a nice tailwind for three of those days, which lead to lots of fast cruising. Hillary seems to be stronger after the rest as well, so we're going faster even when the winds die.
It's also much more civilized as well. For the first four thousand or so kilometres of the trip, we'd get waves from truckers and random people waving at us. For the most part, this was due to where we were. Virtually anywhere on the roads we've been on, up until midway through Ontario, the only cyclists on the road were the ones who were touring in one form or another. Now that we're in much more civilized, much more populous regions, we see people out for day rides all the time.
This 'much more civilized' is also the reason I haven't really taken any pictures for a few days. We haven't really been in the wild yet and I don't really know when we'll hit it again.
So we're in Quebec City now. Seemed like a good place for a day off, which was actually probably a mistake, I really should have gone on a couple of rides around the city, there are some awesome roads and steep little climbs all over. Ah well, I will need to find some cyclosportif ride in the city and do that one day. Bodes well for the next few days of riding. Hills are slower, but much more fun.
As for the roads, the highways aren't as bad as Manitoba, the towns are worse. Much worse. Catastrophic was a word that was used in some random small town that we hit.
We also had our first official wrong turn of the trip a couple of days ago. We were riding along the 158 and the directions for the day were basically: Ride the 158 until it ends, then take the 138. Turns out the 158 is very poorly signed in a few places and we lost it. About 10km later, we realized the highway signs were showing the wrong numbers and that set off the alarm bells. Fortunately we were going only about 45 degrees off the direction we should have been going on and ended up only adding about 10km to the day's ride.
We're back on the road tomorrow barring anything weird happening. Happy Canada Day if I'm not back before then.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
And the unplanned
So we'll be in Ottawa in two days.
Hillary is going to be at least a couple more days in recovering before she can ride again, so directly due to that, we have elected to get closer to the family doctor, now that we've recieved the okay to handle things ourselves. From there we can do a few short rides and our planned departure from Ottawa will be Saturday for the last threeish weeks of the trip.
Dissapointing? Yes, but you can't plan for everything. Fortunately, it's not more serious and just requires some downtime to heal. It's still a nigh on three month cycling vacation, so it's really all good in the grand scheme of things.
Hillary is going to be at least a couple more days in recovering before she can ride again, so directly due to that, we have elected to get closer to the family doctor, now that we've recieved the okay to handle things ourselves. From there we can do a few short rides and our planned departure from Ottawa will be Saturday for the last threeish weeks of the trip.
Dissapointing? Yes, but you can't plan for everything. Fortunately, it's not more serious and just requires some downtime to heal. It's still a nigh on three month cycling vacation, so it's really all good in the grand scheme of things.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Lake Superior Ups and Downs
Wow.
That about sums up the scenery.
According to the 9th edition of the Lonely Planet's Canada book, "The Lake Superior shore is one of those drives you must do before you die." Much of the writing in various sources touches on the fact that the Group of Seven was inspired and spent much time in the shield around the lake. I can certainly believe that.
The roads are generally fairly good, on Hwy 17, the traffic isn't atrocious, but it doesn't matter because you're just looking around so much that you don't care much about these things, black flies aside. The combination of rock, water and trees reminds me of my favourite parts of BC mountain country. Ancient rock with plants and trees clinging to it, digging the roots in. I've tried to take some pictures to show what I mean, but really, it doesn't do it justice. Nothing does.
Suffice it to say, we are talking seriously about making a point of going for a cross country ski trip up here somewhere within a year or two, simply to enjoy the scenery without the spectre of the madness caused by insects.
We also saw a cougar. That was very, very cool, you don't often see these dudes. Cruising along the highway somewhat north of Wawa and I see a shape crossing the road. The brain quickly goes through the choices: "Wolf, no way, not a canine. Obviously not an ungulate. Way to big for a lynx. A cougar? I didn't think these were around here. Awesome!"
That took all of about a half second, then it was point fast and yell at Hillary, "Cougar, mountain lion up there, look!"
It padded across the road and up into the trees. We talked very loudly for the next few minutes (since we were climbing, we weren't riding overly fast) but I really wasn't concerned. Better to be prudent though, we were downwind.
As far as the riding goes since Thunder Bay, good, with some downs, but we're getting to that.
We cheated on our first day out of Thunder Bay. There was a long stretch of construction. We drove over it a couple of times on our trips out to the mine and Ouimet Canyon. Enough to have a long and difficult debate as to whether we should actually ride it. Basically it was the extended gravel sections with lots of traffic that did it. Given that we completely re-routed our path through BC (Hwy 1 to Hwy 3) based on construction, we elected to skip it. So we missed 30km of road. I'm hoping skipping %0.4 of the trip isn't too bad. :) I'll make it up elsewhere, I promise.
We had decent weather that day though, the first 60km flew by and then we turned into the wind at Nipigon. Due to us feeling good, we ended up doing about 140km and stopping at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park. Spectacular, as were the bugs.
From there, we continued through amazing country into Marathon, where we splurged and got a motel for the night so we could have baths for pretty much the first time in months. The hills got pretty serious on this ride, we had at least two that were upwards of 7% and somewhere in the ballpark of 3km long. Nothing compared to the big mountain passes, but still difficult. Starting to get warm as well, which is a nice change.
Marathon to White River was flatter, but definitely rolling. Hot sun beating down on us most of the time. Note that I am not complaining, we've been waiting for the chance to do this. This part of the ride was not quite as scenic, the roads were straighter and the trees were closer. The dominant feature of the day was going through an area where a massive forest fire had gone through a few years ago. The road wound through the short trees and blasted trunks for probably 15-20km.
Finally, White River to Wawa, starting to get back into the rocks and climbs. Again, not as serious as Nipigon to Marathon, but you can tell it's coming again. And that's where we are now.
And likely to be for at least a few days. Hillary took a minor injury a few days ago, which got infected and now requires some professional treatment. So until we get the okay from the doctors, we're parked.
Depending on how long that is, we may have to skip ahead to Ottawa to get back on track, or I may be riding alone for a few days. Regardless, we'll see how it goes.
That about sums up the scenery.
According to the 9th edition of the Lonely Planet's Canada book, "The Lake Superior shore is one of those drives you must do before you die." Much of the writing in various sources touches on the fact that the Group of Seven was inspired and spent much time in the shield around the lake. I can certainly believe that.
The roads are generally fairly good, on Hwy 17, the traffic isn't atrocious, but it doesn't matter because you're just looking around so much that you don't care much about these things, black flies aside. The combination of rock, water and trees reminds me of my favourite parts of BC mountain country. Ancient rock with plants and trees clinging to it, digging the roots in. I've tried to take some pictures to show what I mean, but really, it doesn't do it justice. Nothing does.
Suffice it to say, we are talking seriously about making a point of going for a cross country ski trip up here somewhere within a year or two, simply to enjoy the scenery without the spectre of the madness caused by insects.
We also saw a cougar. That was very, very cool, you don't often see these dudes. Cruising along the highway somewhat north of Wawa and I see a shape crossing the road. The brain quickly goes through the choices: "Wolf, no way, not a canine. Obviously not an ungulate. Way to big for a lynx. A cougar? I didn't think these were around here. Awesome!"
That took all of about a half second, then it was point fast and yell at Hillary, "Cougar, mountain lion up there, look!"
It padded across the road and up into the trees. We talked very loudly for the next few minutes (since we were climbing, we weren't riding overly fast) but I really wasn't concerned. Better to be prudent though, we were downwind.
As far as the riding goes since Thunder Bay, good, with some downs, but we're getting to that.
We cheated on our first day out of Thunder Bay. There was a long stretch of construction. We drove over it a couple of times on our trips out to the mine and Ouimet Canyon. Enough to have a long and difficult debate as to whether we should actually ride it. Basically it was the extended gravel sections with lots of traffic that did it. Given that we completely re-routed our path through BC (Hwy 1 to Hwy 3) based on construction, we elected to skip it. So we missed 30km of road. I'm hoping skipping %0.4 of the trip isn't too bad. :) I'll make it up elsewhere, I promise.
We had decent weather that day though, the first 60km flew by and then we turned into the wind at Nipigon. Due to us feeling good, we ended up doing about 140km and stopping at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park. Spectacular, as were the bugs.
From there, we continued through amazing country into Marathon, where we splurged and got a motel for the night so we could have baths for pretty much the first time in months. The hills got pretty serious on this ride, we had at least two that were upwards of 7% and somewhere in the ballpark of 3km long. Nothing compared to the big mountain passes, but still difficult. Starting to get warm as well, which is a nice change.
Marathon to White River was flatter, but definitely rolling. Hot sun beating down on us most of the time. Note that I am not complaining, we've been waiting for the chance to do this. This part of the ride was not quite as scenic, the roads were straighter and the trees were closer. The dominant feature of the day was going through an area where a massive forest fire had gone through a few years ago. The road wound through the short trees and blasted trunks for probably 15-20km.
Finally, White River to Wawa, starting to get back into the rocks and climbs. Again, not as serious as Nipigon to Marathon, but you can tell it's coming again. And that's where we are now.
And likely to be for at least a few days. Hillary took a minor injury a few days ago, which got infected and now requires some professional treatment. So until we get the okay from the doctors, we're parked.
Depending on how long that is, we may have to skip ahead to Ottawa to get back on track, or I may be riding alone for a few days. Regardless, we'll see how it goes.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Random Stats
I've put them all online with google spreadsheets. I'll keep this in sync with my local copy whenever I get updates. Link here and on the sidebar now.
Bunch of new pictures are up now too.
Bunch of new pictures are up now too.
Internet is scarce out here.
Long time no blog.
We supposedly had an internet connection in our campsite in Kenora, but it was... Flaky.
As it is here. I am learning that 'free wi-fi' means 'we have a cheap router and want to add the bullet point to our advertising'.
Anyhow.
The good mechanics at Olympia Cycle in Kenora were able to get my wheel back in business while I waited and the next morning, we were off. Happy days.
The route off the main highway we were taking was fairly deserted, which was a nice change after several days of fairly packed roadways. On the other hand, we had seen several signs which indicated we were entering bear country, which somewhat heightened the various senses which were responsible for scanning the woods.
About halfway through the day, Hillary starts dropping the hammer and mumbles something at me. I catch up and say, "Pardon?"
"There is a bear in the trees, on the left."
"What? Where?" as I slow down to check things out. Hillary then speeds up even more and I see her side of things and match her speed. I see nothing but trees, but whine for a few days that next time she should warn me before if some interesting wildlife is in the woods nearby.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, save for some CN workers deciding to blow what I assume was a stump when we were less than 100m from it. If you've seen footage of mortar shells hitting the dirt in WWI or WWII and that's exactly what it looked like. We were close enough that I could feel the whomp in my chest. Worrisome, especially when debris started raining down on us. Mostly water and some light dead wood by the time it hit us on the road, but that's hardly the point.
We made it to Kenora and into Ontario later that day. Home province now, w00t!
From Kenora we were basically back on highway 17 and the Trans-Canada, which in large part meant that I missed much of the scenery. The traffic wasn't overly bad for much of the day, though by late afternoon it was pretty solid. The worst part was the transports. Not one at a time, but when you'd get batches going in both directions at once. Regardless,whenever traffic got busy, I found myself just focusing on the road and not the shield in general.
Which was too bad. For the first 100km or so east of Kenora was quite nice. Short little climbs and descents winding around rocky formations and lakes. As we got closer to Dryden, the rollers became more gentle and we broke out into farmland.
The next two days, ending at the Cobblestone Lodge and English River respectively, were pretty unpleasant. We had a fairly stiff headwind that kept our speed way down and it was cold and rainy. The high point of the two days was seeing a few moose and the gift of some freshly caught trout fillets from a camper at the Cobblestone Lodge. A most excellent dinner those made.
English River, really nothing more than a little fishing lodge, was not supposed to be the destination for the day, but after a 4 hour slog to get 84km up the road and encountering heavy transport traffic, we decided to pack it in for the night. The hope was that we'd hit better weather the next day, which really didn't require much.
That night, we got a pretty serious thunderstorm that lead into a great tailwind. Power got knocked out of the entire town for most of the evening, you can see Tanya's blog for more details on that... Anyhow, to make up for our short days, we did our first imperial century of the trip. Total mileage for the day was 167km, or about 104 miles. That was exciting.
We ended the century at Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park and celebrated our lengthy ride with a couple of pints and a hike down to the falls. The falls were pretty impressive, but Mom really didn't like the idea that the power generation company basically remotely controls how impressive the falls are. Essentially the power company has an agreement with Ontario that they will keep the water flow over the falls to at least x cubic metres per second at various times. Weekdays, the falls are less impressive, weekends, when more tourists/campers are out and about, they turn up the volume. It sort of takes something away from it.
From Kakabeka, it was a short ride through Thunder Bay to Shuniah. Rather than take a rest day, we elected to do a short ride, then tour around in Truck for a bit to see some of the natural things around here we'd miss on our bikes.
First stop was an amethyst mine. Not a whole bunch to actually see there, but the best part by far, was the mining part of it. They dump their tailings and cuttings in a 5 acre pit and let anyone root through it. The ground is speckled in purple and for $3 per pound, you can carry off whatever you find. I found a nice big chunk that is going to go on my desk and we found several smaller chunks with nice colour that we should be able to get cut into earrings or something similar. Not the highest gem quality rocks, sure, but still pretty cool.
Getting to the mine involved going up, then down, a 12% or so gravel road. It was a bit hairy, but no problems, despite some stress leading up to the descent. And I saw a bear on the way down! Gone before we could get the camera out, but still.
Next stop was Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park. On our way to the park, who did we see pedalling up the 17? Tanya and Attila. (forgive me if this is misspelled, I'm going from memory, I'm writing this offline and will just cut and paste and probably forget about checking) Probably surprised them, but it was good to see that they hadn't been eaten by bears yet. :)
The canyon is also pretty cool. It's basically a glacier carved hole in the ground 3km long and 150m deep. At the bottom, it's basically it's own microclimate and has a bunch of arctic plants that you can't find anywhere south of Hudson's Bay. Due to this, you aren't allowed to walk down there, but you can overlook it.
Finally, back to the Terry Fox monument. We all know about him, so it doesn't need to be repeated here, but still. Riding across the country is much faster than running and it's taking us a long time. A marathon a day would have been beyond ridiculous. Unimaginable.
So that about brings us up to date. We're heading back into the back country, so it might be a while before the next update. We're taking a real rest day today, we're utterly covered in bug bites and could probably use a real day off to do laundry, play some mini golf and just relax.
We supposedly had an internet connection in our campsite in Kenora, but it was... Flaky.
As it is here. I am learning that 'free wi-fi' means 'we have a cheap router and want to add the bullet point to our advertising'.
Anyhow.
The good mechanics at Olympia Cycle in Kenora were able to get my wheel back in business while I waited and the next morning, we were off. Happy days.
The route off the main highway we were taking was fairly deserted, which was a nice change after several days of fairly packed roadways. On the other hand, we had seen several signs which indicated we were entering bear country, which somewhat heightened the various senses which were responsible for scanning the woods.
About halfway through the day, Hillary starts dropping the hammer and mumbles something at me. I catch up and say, "Pardon?"
"There is a bear in the trees, on the left."
"What? Where?" as I slow down to check things out. Hillary then speeds up even more and I see her side of things and match her speed. I see nothing but trees, but whine for a few days that next time she should warn me before if some interesting wildlife is in the woods nearby.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, save for some CN workers deciding to blow what I assume was a stump when we were less than 100m from it. If you've seen footage of mortar shells hitting the dirt in WWI or WWII and that's exactly what it looked like. We were close enough that I could feel the whomp in my chest. Worrisome, especially when debris started raining down on us. Mostly water and some light dead wood by the time it hit us on the road, but that's hardly the point.
We made it to Kenora and into Ontario later that day. Home province now, w00t!
From Kenora we were basically back on highway 17 and the Trans-Canada, which in large part meant that I missed much of the scenery. The traffic wasn't overly bad for much of the day, though by late afternoon it was pretty solid. The worst part was the transports. Not one at a time, but when you'd get batches going in both directions at once. Regardless,whenever traffic got busy, I found myself just focusing on the road and not the shield in general.
Which was too bad. For the first 100km or so east of Kenora was quite nice. Short little climbs and descents winding around rocky formations and lakes. As we got closer to Dryden, the rollers became more gentle and we broke out into farmland.
The next two days, ending at the Cobblestone Lodge and English River respectively, were pretty unpleasant. We had a fairly stiff headwind that kept our speed way down and it was cold and rainy. The high point of the two days was seeing a few moose and the gift of some freshly caught trout fillets from a camper at the Cobblestone Lodge. A most excellent dinner those made.
English River, really nothing more than a little fishing lodge, was not supposed to be the destination for the day, but after a 4 hour slog to get 84km up the road and encountering heavy transport traffic, we decided to pack it in for the night. The hope was that we'd hit better weather the next day, which really didn't require much.
That night, we got a pretty serious thunderstorm that lead into a great tailwind. Power got knocked out of the entire town for most of the evening, you can see Tanya's blog for more details on that... Anyhow, to make up for our short days, we did our first imperial century of the trip. Total mileage for the day was 167km, or about 104 miles. That was exciting.
We ended the century at Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park and celebrated our lengthy ride with a couple of pints and a hike down to the falls. The falls were pretty impressive, but Mom really didn't like the idea that the power generation company basically remotely controls how impressive the falls are. Essentially the power company has an agreement with Ontario that they will keep the water flow over the falls to at least x cubic metres per second at various times. Weekdays, the falls are less impressive, weekends, when more tourists/campers are out and about, they turn up the volume. It sort of takes something away from it.
From Kakabeka, it was a short ride through Thunder Bay to Shuniah. Rather than take a rest day, we elected to do a short ride, then tour around in Truck for a bit to see some of the natural things around here we'd miss on our bikes.
First stop was an amethyst mine. Not a whole bunch to actually see there, but the best part by far, was the mining part of it. They dump their tailings and cuttings in a 5 acre pit and let anyone root through it. The ground is speckled in purple and for $3 per pound, you can carry off whatever you find. I found a nice big chunk that is going to go on my desk and we found several smaller chunks with nice colour that we should be able to get cut into earrings or something similar. Not the highest gem quality rocks, sure, but still pretty cool.
Getting to the mine involved going up, then down, a 12% or so gravel road. It was a bit hairy, but no problems, despite some stress leading up to the descent. And I saw a bear on the way down! Gone before we could get the camera out, but still.
Next stop was Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park. On our way to the park, who did we see pedalling up the 17? Tanya and Attila. (forgive me if this is misspelled, I'm going from memory, I'm writing this offline and will just cut and paste and probably forget about checking) Probably surprised them, but it was good to see that they hadn't been eaten by bears yet. :)
The canyon is also pretty cool. It's basically a glacier carved hole in the ground 3km long and 150m deep. At the bottom, it's basically it's own microclimate and has a bunch of arctic plants that you can't find anywhere south of Hudson's Bay. Due to this, you aren't allowed to walk down there, but you can overlook it.
Finally, back to the Terry Fox monument. We all know about him, so it doesn't need to be repeated here, but still. Riding across the country is much faster than running and it's taking us a long time. A marathon a day would have been beyond ridiculous. Unimaginable.
So that about brings us up to date. We're heading back into the back country, so it might be a while before the next update. We're taking a real rest day today, we're utterly covered in bug bites and could probably use a real day off to do laundry, play some mini golf and just relax.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Broken
Stop location: Outside of Elma
lat 49.93799N
lon 95.90592W
alt 305m
110km
4:36
23.9km/h
Our stop location was supposed to be another 20km up the road and we were feeling pretty good, so it wasn't going to be a problem. Unfortunately, as we got past Elma, I noticed that I was getting some rubbing from my back wheel. I looked down and could see a pretty serious wobble as I rode.
Stop, lift up the rear wheel, hit the pedals, yep, wheel's damaged. Broken spoke, which was pretty much the only real mechanical I wasn't setup to handle. Alas.
Given our location we drove on to Kenora knowing that as a tourist destination it should have a bike shop. So now we're sitting in a coffee shop waiting until noon to see if the bike shop can fix the wheel within a day or so. (or even if they are open) And if that fails, we'll drive on back to Winnipeg as they have far more options for repairs. Good thing we have a support vehicle, simplifies this quite a bit to say the least.
The ride itself was great up until that point. We hit the outskirts of the shield and got to ride over a nicely flooded road. That was awesome. I've uploaded a couple of pictures of the road and one of Hillary riding through the shallowest of the three 'creeks' that were crossing it. None were too bad, but one was probably 3 inches deep.
Following that we were chased by some gigantic bugs for about 20km. They were obviously sitting in our draft trying to land. Fortunately, they didn't actually manage to do that, it was still creepy turning around and seeing a dozen or so of these things swarming behind you. I don't think they were black flies, but I really don't know. They sort of looked wasp-like, but not quite the right colour.
So yeah, we should be riding again Tuesday. Perhaps tomorrow if we get really lucky. We shall see.
lat 49.93799N
lon 95.90592W
alt 305m
110km
4:36
23.9km/h
Our stop location was supposed to be another 20km up the road and we were feeling pretty good, so it wasn't going to be a problem. Unfortunately, as we got past Elma, I noticed that I was getting some rubbing from my back wheel. I looked down and could see a pretty serious wobble as I rode.
Stop, lift up the rear wheel, hit the pedals, yep, wheel's damaged. Broken spoke, which was pretty much the only real mechanical I wasn't setup to handle. Alas.
Given our location we drove on to Kenora knowing that as a tourist destination it should have a bike shop. So now we're sitting in a coffee shop waiting until noon to see if the bike shop can fix the wheel within a day or so. (or even if they are open) And if that fails, we'll drive on back to Winnipeg as they have far more options for repairs. Good thing we have a support vehicle, simplifies this quite a bit to say the least.
The ride itself was great up until that point. We hit the outskirts of the shield and got to ride over a nicely flooded road. That was awesome. I've uploaded a couple of pictures of the road and one of Hillary riding through the shallowest of the three 'creeks' that were crossing it. None were too bad, but one was probably 3 inches deep.
Following that we were chased by some gigantic bugs for about 20km. They were obviously sitting in our draft trying to land. Fortunately, they didn't actually manage to do that, it was still creepy turning around and seeing a dozen or so of these things swarming behind you. I don't think they were black flies, but I really don't know. They sort of looked wasp-like, but not quite the right colour.
So yeah, we should be riding again Tuesday. Perhaps tomorrow if we get really lucky. We shall see.
Friday, June 1, 2007
And then there were two
First things first:
Outside Portage la Prairie
lat 49.97556
lon 98.13530
alt 267m
136km
7:28
18.3km/h
Winnipeg
lat 49.86698N
lon 97.26195W
alt 228m
68km
3:14
20.94km/h
That gives us 2852km in 126 hours and 46 minutes of pedalling.
As you can see by the hour numbers, the ride from Brandon to Portage (pronounced portage, with the 'age' part sounding like morgage, not the more franglish portahj) was our longest for pedalling time, far and away.
We started out with yet another headwind, but since the weather reports pretty much indicated suckage for the next two days, we figured we might as well get as far as we could and then have a shorter day into Winnipeg. That was a wise descision, however ridiculous the ride was. Believe me when I say that riding into the wind at 18km/h for most of the day is not the most mentally stimulating task one could do.
The traffic was also pretty heavy, so we're looking forward to getting off of the main transport truck route, which should happen for at least the first day out of Winnipeg and then again after Nipigon. An informal survey done for 20 minutes on that long day showed a roughly 2-1 ratio of civilian vehicles to transports, so there are a lot of them out there.
We're staying in Winnipeg with a good friend of my family's, Aaron MacInnes. This means comforts of a home for another couple of days, which is exceptional all around. It also means we don't have to guess what's good and not in the city. We have a guide.
Tanya also departed today. She gets to experience both types of cross Canada touring on this trip, the supported and now the unsupported touring. While I respect that, I do not envy lugging that weight up hills (or around corners, or on rough roads, or stopping, or accelerating). We were originally talking about going that route, but now that we're halfway across, I have to highly recommend the support van approach. It will be interested to follow her reports and see which one works better. :)
Tomorrow we should be just brushing the outskirts of the shield depending on how it goes and by Sunday, the prairies will be behind us for good. Now for the most desolate parts of the ride.
Outside Portage la Prairie
lat 49.97556
lon 98.13530
alt 267m
136km
7:28
18.3km/h
Winnipeg
lat 49.86698N
lon 97.26195W
alt 228m
68km
3:14
20.94km/h
That gives us 2852km in 126 hours and 46 minutes of pedalling.
As you can see by the hour numbers, the ride from Brandon to Portage (pronounced portage, with the 'age' part sounding like morgage, not the more franglish portahj) was our longest for pedalling time, far and away.
We started out with yet another headwind, but since the weather reports pretty much indicated suckage for the next two days, we figured we might as well get as far as we could and then have a shorter day into Winnipeg. That was a wise descision, however ridiculous the ride was. Believe me when I say that riding into the wind at 18km/h for most of the day is not the most mentally stimulating task one could do.
The traffic was also pretty heavy, so we're looking forward to getting off of the main transport truck route, which should happen for at least the first day out of Winnipeg and then again after Nipigon. An informal survey done for 20 minutes on that long day showed a roughly 2-1 ratio of civilian vehicles to transports, so there are a lot of them out there.
We're staying in Winnipeg with a good friend of my family's, Aaron MacInnes. This means comforts of a home for another couple of days, which is exceptional all around. It also means we don't have to guess what's good and not in the city. We have a guide.
Tanya also departed today. She gets to experience both types of cross Canada touring on this trip, the supported and now the unsupported touring. While I respect that, I do not envy lugging that weight up hills (or around corners, or on rough roads, or stopping, or accelerating). We were originally talking about going that route, but now that we're halfway across, I have to highly recommend the support van approach. It will be interested to follow her reports and see which one works better. :)
Tomorrow we should be just brushing the outskirts of the shield depending on how it goes and by Sunday, the prairies will be behind us for good. Now for the most desolate parts of the ride.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
We have arrived in Winnipeg
And that is all I have to say about that.
Windows is teh suXors.
I will post more tomorrow when hopefully I have a working laptop that can actually access the internet.
Windows is teh suXors.
I will post more tomorrow when hopefully I have a working laptop that can actually access the internet.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
And province number 4...
Welcome to Manitoba.
Out of Regina we followed the Trans Canada down to the small town (is there another type?) of
Stop location: Grenfell
lat 50.41347N
lon 102.93769W
alt 578m
121km
5:12
23.3km/h
The day was a bit... tedious. The weather and wind was nice enough and the road wasn't too bad, but it wasn't overly scenic and nothing really interesting happened. Cars and trucks went by, we saw trees and fields and birds. And I'm really stretching it here trying to find more to say. Of course, it then led into the next day...
Stop location: Sask welcome centre
lat 50.05966N
lon 101.44820W
alt 540m
121km
5:38
21.5km/h
This day was not a good day at all. The last 40km or so of the ride was through construction so it was dusty and narrow. Due to the nature of the construction, we were even further from anything really remotely resembling nature. Alas.
And now we are here:
Stop location: Brandon
lat 49.88784N
lon 99.95679W
alt 408m
126km
4:43
26.7km/h
Our to date total is 2648km in 115 hours and 44 minutes of pedalling, which means a rolling average of 22.8km/h.
Todays ride was equally not scenic, though as we got within 20km of Brandon, it got a bit more green, a bit more hilly and a bit nicer. The wind actually treated us well today, being at best a nice tailwind for about two hours, then fading into a fairly neutral position for much of the rest of the ride.
After yesterday's kicking of my hiney by the road, I felt much better today and actually was able to hammer it up the one climb of the day so that was good for the ego. I'm looking forward to getting out of the prairies though. BC was tough, but fun and the scenery was outstanding and changing. The prairies are beautiful, but very similar as you go across them, outside of a few different micro areas such as the badlands and parks like the Saskatchewan Landing.
Two days from now we'll be in Winnipeg, so here's to the restocking of gear at MEC and we're now officially within striking distance of the halfway point.
And that's hard to believe.
Out of Regina we followed the Trans Canada down to the small town (is there another type?) of
Stop location: Grenfell
lat 50.41347N
lon 102.93769W
alt 578m
121km
5:12
23.3km/h
The day was a bit... tedious. The weather and wind was nice enough and the road wasn't too bad, but it wasn't overly scenic and nothing really interesting happened. Cars and trucks went by, we saw trees and fields and birds. And I'm really stretching it here trying to find more to say. Of course, it then led into the next day...
Stop location: Sask welcome centre
lat 50.05966N
lon 101.44820W
alt 540m
121km
5:38
21.5km/h
This day was not a good day at all. The last 40km or so of the ride was through construction so it was dusty and narrow. Due to the nature of the construction, we were even further from anything really remotely resembling nature. Alas.
And now we are here:
Stop location: Brandon
lat 49.88784N
lon 99.95679W
alt 408m
126km
4:43
26.7km/h
Our to date total is 2648km in 115 hours and 44 minutes of pedalling, which means a rolling average of 22.8km/h.
Todays ride was equally not scenic, though as we got within 20km of Brandon, it got a bit more green, a bit more hilly and a bit nicer. The wind actually treated us well today, being at best a nice tailwind for about two hours, then fading into a fairly neutral position for much of the rest of the ride.
After yesterday's kicking of my hiney by the road, I felt much better today and actually was able to hammer it up the one climb of the day so that was good for the ego. I'm looking forward to getting out of the prairies though. BC was tough, but fun and the scenery was outstanding and changing. The prairies are beautiful, but very similar as you go across them, outside of a few different micro areas such as the badlands and parks like the Saskatchewan Landing.
Two days from now we'll be in Winnipeg, so here's to the restocking of gear at MEC and we're now officially within striking distance of the halfway point.
And that's hard to believe.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Regina
That is where we are.
From our last update, we've been through a couple of days of riding:
Stop location: Beasent Campground
lat 50.46177N
lon 105.96590W
alt 590m
139km
5:56
23.4km/h
Stop location: Regina
lat 50.44907N
lon 104.50904W
alt 599m
120km
6:12
19.3km/h
So the total now is 2280km in 100 hours and 11 minutes, 22.8km/h.
The day out of Swift Current was our longest yet, but overall it was one of our better rides. Though perhaps it goes without saying that most of our longer rides are ones that we're feeling good about in some way, shape or form. With the gale force winds that had been dogging us for several days now gone, our complaints now turned to the temperature, which has been hardly spring like for the past week or two. Given that we were hardly chilled to the bone, it was more a case of wanting to ride in shorts and a light jersey. Alas, one day.
From our last update, we've been through a couple of days of riding:
Stop location: Beasent Campground
lat 50.46177N
lon 105.96590W
alt 590m
139km
5:56
23.4km/h
Stop location: Regina
lat 50.44907N
lon 104.50904W
alt 599m
120km
6:12
19.3km/h
So the total now is 2280km in 100 hours and 11 minutes, 22.8km/h.
The day out of Swift Current was our longest yet, but overall it was one of our better rides. Though perhaps it goes without saying that most of our longer rides are ones that we're feeling good about in some way, shape or form. With the gale force winds that had been dogging us for several days now gone, our complaints now turned to the temperature, which has been hardly spring like for the past week or two. Given that we were hardly chilled to the bone, it was more a case of wanting to ride in shorts and a light jersey. Alas, one day.
So anyhow, we had decent, though cold, weather and the winds were not unkind to us. We also ran into our first long distance cycling compatriot on the road. Mr. Vic Lindal who was travelling from Victoria.
The stop for the night was a campsite in the middle of nowhere that was treed and had creeks and ponds. Considering the serious lack of foliage that the prairies tend to have, this was a welcome change. Shortly before we actually arrived at the place, I was longingly gazing at a suspiciously ordered grove of trees pretending that it was a wild forest.
We are still in flooding season out here and several of the lower sites at the place were actually under a small creek which was flowing happily over roads and picnic areas.
The easterlies were back with a vengance the next day though. Well, perhaps not that serious. A stiff east breeze blew in our faces all day, not enough to be totally demoralizing, but enough to make this our longest day in the saddle.
Much thanks must go to Tim de la Horton and the chili for providing sustenance for the ride. After nearly two hours on the road and covering a pitiful 38km, I decided that it would be a good idea to fuel up. I knew that the ride into Regina was not going to be a quick 80km. We had planned to stop at the Shack of Tim to get the Saskatchewan picture for Tanya (and it happened to be next to a 10 ton concrete moose, so double points for tourist trap as well) so it fell into place.
And for the jokes about seeing prairie cities from hours away? True, on a bike at least. Hillary made the first call, but we definitely were able to see Regina with close to two hours of riding left. Figure somewhere between 30 and 40km out. When facing into a headwind, watching your mythical destination for two hours is... tough.
That about brings us up to date. We took today off in Regina and are heading back onto the Trans Canada tomorrow morning. May the westerlies find us.
The stop for the night was a campsite in the middle of nowhere that was treed and had creeks and ponds. Considering the serious lack of foliage that the prairies tend to have, this was a welcome change. Shortly before we actually arrived at the place, I was longingly gazing at a suspiciously ordered grove of trees pretending that it was a wild forest.
We are still in flooding season out here and several of the lower sites at the place were actually under a small creek which was flowing happily over roads and picnic areas.
The easterlies were back with a vengance the next day though. Well, perhaps not that serious. A stiff east breeze blew in our faces all day, not enough to be totally demoralizing, but enough to make this our longest day in the saddle.
Much thanks must go to Tim de la Horton and the chili for providing sustenance for the ride. After nearly two hours on the road and covering a pitiful 38km, I decided that it would be a good idea to fuel up. I knew that the ride into Regina was not going to be a quick 80km. We had planned to stop at the Shack of Tim to get the Saskatchewan picture for Tanya (and it happened to be next to a 10 ton concrete moose, so double points for tourist trap as well) so it fell into place.
And for the jokes about seeing prairie cities from hours away? True, on a bike at least. Hillary made the first call, but we definitely were able to see Regina with close to two hours of riding left. Figure somewhere between 30 and 40km out. When facing into a headwind, watching your mythical destination for two hours is... tough.
That about brings us up to date. We took today off in Regina and are heading back onto the Trans Canada tomorrow morning. May the westerlies find us.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Route change!
So our total to date is 2021km in 88 hours at an average speed of 22.9km/h.
So over two thousand kilometres behind us now.
I have to admit with some shame that I did not get the stop point coords for the ride out of Kindersley, but I do have the distance numbers:
Camp location: Elrose
108km
4:47
22.5km/h
We got about 30km east of Kindersley and then had a bit of a brainstorm, why fight the wind if we have to go south anyhow? So we headed south and used the next two days of strong north winds to cover as much territory as we could. We are now back on the Trans Canada highway in
Stop location: Swift Current
lat 50.30733N
lon 107.76475W
alt 747m
117km
4:08
28.3km/h
From here we go east to Moose Jaw, Regina and then on to Winnipeg.
I've been fighting a cold for the last couple of days, so the turn south definitely helped my mental state. Riding at 17km/h into a vicious wind is demoralizing and not a whole lot of fun. It's too loud to really chat with anyone and you never get a break from pedalling. Once we turned south and put that wind at our back, anything remotely resembling downhill we could sit and up just coast.
Cruising at 35km/h for stretches was great for morale and made riding and feeling miserable much more bearable. The final descent down into Swift Current was pretty cool as well, without pedalling, I hit 78km/h. This was without pedalling, so if I had put some effort in, I probably would have hit a Warren Record for speed. Hillary shattered her old top speed record with something like 71km/h down that hill.
Other random stats:
New Warren Record for no hands riding, set on the day into Carbon: 3km
New Warren Record for no hands riding, high speed, yesterday while snacking: 48km/h
Number of Clif Bars dropped on the road and not retrieved due to riding at 48km/h and not wanting to turn around to pick it up: 1
Turns out snacking at nearly 50km/h is harder than at 30km/h due to much higher winds. Ah well.
So over two thousand kilometres behind us now.
I have to admit with some shame that I did not get the stop point coords for the ride out of Kindersley, but I do have the distance numbers:
Camp location: Elrose
108km
4:47
22.5km/h
We got about 30km east of Kindersley and then had a bit of a brainstorm, why fight the wind if we have to go south anyhow? So we headed south and used the next two days of strong north winds to cover as much territory as we could. We are now back on the Trans Canada highway in
Stop location: Swift Current
lat 50.30733N
lon 107.76475W
alt 747m
117km
4:08
28.3km/h
From here we go east to Moose Jaw, Regina and then on to Winnipeg.
I've been fighting a cold for the last couple of days, so the turn south definitely helped my mental state. Riding at 17km/h into a vicious wind is demoralizing and not a whole lot of fun. It's too loud to really chat with anyone and you never get a break from pedalling. Once we turned south and put that wind at our back, anything remotely resembling downhill we could sit and up just coast.
Cruising at 35km/h for stretches was great for morale and made riding and feeling miserable much more bearable. The final descent down into Swift Current was pretty cool as well, without pedalling, I hit 78km/h. This was without pedalling, so if I had put some effort in, I probably would have hit a Warren Record for speed. Hillary shattered her old top speed record with something like 71km/h down that hill.
Other random stats:
New Warren Record for no hands riding, set on the day into Carbon: 3km
New Warren Record for no hands riding, high speed, yesterday while snacking: 48km/h
Number of Clif Bars dropped on the road and not retrieved due to riding at 48km/h and not wanting to turn around to pick it up: 1
Turns out snacking at nearly 50km/h is harder than at 30km/h due to much higher winds. Ah well.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Weather is teh sux0rs
May 19
For the record, we stopped here in Richdale:
lat 51.61036N
lon 111.60322W
alt 768
So with the warnings of 50+km/h gusts and supposed tornado warnings, we elected to stay still. I mostly fought with the computer for the afternoon. The thing has a really nice lcd screen, 1280x800, but for some reason Windows thinks it's a 1024x768. So you either get a distorted full screen image or a smaller image with a bunch of unused screen real estate. It is massively annoying and fueling my hatred of all things Microsoft.
There are no monitor drivers that I can find for this thing, and the built in ones do not have 1280x800 as a default option. Madness.
Regardless, it was a relaxing day. A hot tub in the motel beside us was used for muscle relaxing and we were happy.
May 20
Stop location: Alsask, SK
lat 51.38827N
lon 109.98946W
alt 711
122km
4:54
24.85km/h
Heading out from Hanna we got most of the day finished in the real prairies. Flat, flat, flat until somewhere around the 100km mark where we got some gentle rollers. Our stop point, the town of Alsask (name came from the location, border of Alberta and Saskatchewan) was... Different.
The campsite, I hesitate to call it that, was a field with a couple of concrete patches and a few picnic tables. The town itself appeared to be a ghost town. A bit of interweb research showed that it used to be a military radar installation that was shut down in the late 80's and everyone moved out.
As for the ride, uneventful, I took a couple of prairie pictures and we hit Saskatchewan. Two provinces down!
May 21
Rainy.
Windy.
Cold.
Stop location: Kindersley
lat 51.46013N
lon 109.14436W
alt 695m
65km
3:49
17km/h
Check out that average speed. Hideous, but it really couldn't get much better.
Strong cross/headwinds for the entire day and it rained harder and harder over the course of the day. Fortunately, it wasn't overly cold, so our cores stayed warm, but none of us could unzip zippers or work the velcro on our riding shoes without serious concentration. Ten minutes after getting inside and getting changed, I still didn't have the finger dexterity to do up the button on my pants. Tanya couldn't get her gloves off and had to ask for help, it was ridiculous. For the last 10km or so, I was in the same gear since I couldn't get my fingers to work properly to shift.
Roger and Heather had soup and hot chocolate waiting when we finished, which was critical to our happiness. Hillary evidently decided that the weather was bad enough that she should sing, while riding. According to her it it was very unfortunate that she did not know more rain songs.
Kindersley was another location with relatives! That meant a most excellent dinner and a place to do laundry again. Thank you.
For the record, we stopped here in Richdale:
lat 51.61036N
lon 111.60322W
alt 768
So with the warnings of 50+km/h gusts and supposed tornado warnings, we elected to stay still. I mostly fought with the computer for the afternoon. The thing has a really nice lcd screen, 1280x800, but for some reason Windows thinks it's a 1024x768. So you either get a distorted full screen image or a smaller image with a bunch of unused screen real estate. It is massively annoying and fueling my hatred of all things Microsoft.
There are no monitor drivers that I can find for this thing, and the built in ones do not have 1280x800 as a default option. Madness.
Regardless, it was a relaxing day. A hot tub in the motel beside us was used for muscle relaxing and we were happy.
May 20
Stop location: Alsask, SK
lat 51.38827N
lon 109.98946W
alt 711
122km
4:54
24.85km/h
Heading out from Hanna we got most of the day finished in the real prairies. Flat, flat, flat until somewhere around the 100km mark where we got some gentle rollers. Our stop point, the town of Alsask (name came from the location, border of Alberta and Saskatchewan) was... Different.
The campsite, I hesitate to call it that, was a field with a couple of concrete patches and a few picnic tables. The town itself appeared to be a ghost town. A bit of interweb research showed that it used to be a military radar installation that was shut down in the late 80's and everyone moved out.
As for the ride, uneventful, I took a couple of prairie pictures and we hit Saskatchewan. Two provinces down!
May 21
Rainy.
Windy.
Cold.
Stop location: Kindersley
lat 51.46013N
lon 109.14436W
alt 695m
65km
3:49
17km/h
Check out that average speed. Hideous, but it really couldn't get much better.
Strong cross/headwinds for the entire day and it rained harder and harder over the course of the day. Fortunately, it wasn't overly cold, so our cores stayed warm, but none of us could unzip zippers or work the velcro on our riding shoes without serious concentration. Ten minutes after getting inside and getting changed, I still didn't have the finger dexterity to do up the button on my pants. Tanya couldn't get her gloves off and had to ask for help, it was ridiculous. For the last 10km or so, I was in the same gear since I couldn't get my fingers to work properly to shift.
Roger and Heather had soup and hot chocolate waiting when we finished, which was critical to our happiness. Hillary evidently decided that the weather was bad enough that she should sing, while riding. According to her it it was very unfortunate that she did not know more rain songs.
Kindersley was another location with relatives! That meant a most excellent dinner and a place to do laundry again. Thank you.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Unscheduled rest day?
Currently -6C with the windchill and winds are 30km/h gusting to 50km/h and supposed to get higher.
We might not be riding today. More on that later.
We might not be riding today. More on that later.
Friday, May 18, 2007
The revenge of the flatlands.
May 16
Stop location: Carbon
lat 51.48586N
lon 113.15094W
alt 768
138km
5:09
26.8km/h
This was a pretty fun ride, long, but we had a pretty nice tailwind for a decent chunk of it which made things go very smoothly.
After the previous post making the smart assed comment about flatlands, Alberta reared up and proceeded to prove me wrong. Turns out the praries, at least the first parts of them that we ride through are seriously rolling. In the first 35km, we had at least 3 climbs of more than 2km and a couple of 3km ones. Nothing too brutal, but a couple coming out of little valleys were pretty steep. Wonderful riding roads though, the quality of the pavement was good and the nicely rolling roads kept things interesting.
May 17
Stop location: Drumheller
lat 51.46747N
lon 112.71568W
alt 716m
39km
1:29
25.8km/h
The Tyrrell Museum is awesome. Unless you are of the young earth variety, I highly recommend hitting it if you're ever in Calgary and need an interesting day trip. Drumheller itself is kind of weird, but the museum has some very, very cool exhibits. The ride was short, Tanya put in extra miles, I was lazy and decided to eat instead.
Note in the pictures for today the warning about swimming in the 'pond' in front of the museum. Sign of the trip perhaps.
May 18
Stop location: Richdale (Forgot to get the coords when there, we parked in Hanna, so I'll get them tomorrow and update then)
102km
5:10
19.65km/h
Holy Pain Batman. So much for the prairies being easier.
The route today went north, then east. We spent the entire time pointing into a strong NE wind. The end result was essentially 5 hours of simulated climbing. Mentally an incredibly tough day to say the least for a number of reasons. At least in the hills when you go up a huge climb, you get to come down the other side, the wind was relentless and downhills we were hitting the insane speeds of 25-27km/h. Those were the steep hills. Several of the more gentle downs were taken at 22km/h or less.
Supposedly we can look forward to more of the same tomorrow, though by early afternoon, we're supposed to get a S wind, which just means it's a crosswind, not a direct headwind.
70 hours 22 minutes of riding time for a total of 1609km at an average speed of 22.8km/h.
Stop location: Carbon
lat 51.48586N
lon 113.15094W
alt 768
138km
5:09
26.8km/h
This was a pretty fun ride, long, but we had a pretty nice tailwind for a decent chunk of it which made things go very smoothly.
After the previous post making the smart assed comment about flatlands, Alberta reared up and proceeded to prove me wrong. Turns out the praries, at least the first parts of them that we ride through are seriously rolling. In the first 35km, we had at least 3 climbs of more than 2km and a couple of 3km ones. Nothing too brutal, but a couple coming out of little valleys were pretty steep. Wonderful riding roads though, the quality of the pavement was good and the nicely rolling roads kept things interesting.
May 17
Stop location: Drumheller
lat 51.46747N
lon 112.71568W
alt 716m
39km
1:29
25.8km/h
The Tyrrell Museum is awesome. Unless you are of the young earth variety, I highly recommend hitting it if you're ever in Calgary and need an interesting day trip. Drumheller itself is kind of weird, but the museum has some very, very cool exhibits. The ride was short, Tanya put in extra miles, I was lazy and decided to eat instead.
Note in the pictures for today the warning about swimming in the 'pond' in front of the museum. Sign of the trip perhaps.
May 18
Stop location: Richdale (Forgot to get the coords when there, we parked in Hanna, so I'll get them tomorrow and update then)
102km
5:10
19.65km/h
Holy Pain Batman. So much for the prairies being easier.
The route today went north, then east. We spent the entire time pointing into a strong NE wind. The end result was essentially 5 hours of simulated climbing. Mentally an incredibly tough day to say the least for a number of reasons. At least in the hills when you go up a huge climb, you get to come down the other side, the wind was relentless and downhills we were hitting the insane speeds of 25-27km/h. Those were the steep hills. Several of the more gentle downs were taken at 22km/h or less.
Supposedly we can look forward to more of the same tomorrow, though by early afternoon, we're supposed to get a S wind, which just means it's a crosswind, not a direct headwind.
70 hours 22 minutes of riding time for a total of 1609km at an average speed of 22.8km/h.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Welcome to the flatlands
Posting from Cochrane, our first stop out of the mountains and second stop in Alberta.
So here are the last couple of days:
May 13
Kootenay National Park -> Banff. As mentioned in my last post, the weather for this day was not looking overly promising. This held true. We started out in a drizzle, which turned into rain from time to time, it was also damned cold. Alas. 20 or so km of gentle uphill slog, then we took a right turn and began our final mountain pass, the Vermillion pass which took us over the continental divide and into Alberta.
The climb was fairly gentle and brought us through some rather interesting terrain, specifically, the end of winter in a forest fire wasteland. Everything was brown and dead, though the forest floor should be green in a few weeks. Again, we saw snow on the ground. And once again, we descended into a headwind, which was highly unplesant given the temperature of something like 3 or 4 C.
This was my toughest day so far I think. I was getting shelled on every little climb of the awesome Bow Valley Parkway. It's a shame the weather was so terrible and I was feeling so bad on this ride since the 1A in Banff is among the more awesome riding roads I have ever been on. No huge climbs, lots of twisty stuff, it's just built for pedalling. Alas. I will go there again with a road bike someday.
Stop location: Banff - Tunnel Mountain
lat 51.18900N
lon 115.53821W
alt 1473m
84km
3:57
21.13km/h
May 14
Rest day in Banff. Laundry, sleeping, eating and walking. Nothing to complain about here. I love this little town.
May 15
Today, up to date, is this true? I think yes. We headed out from Banff very gently since Hillary was feeling stiffer than the last couple of days. That didn't mean painful though. The highway down from Banff is just that: down. Gentle grade, but that just means you can sustain 30-35km/h for long periods at a time. This contributed to our fastest day yet, 103km at and average speed of 27.5km/h.
We had planned on going all the way to Calgary today, an extra 20-30km, but ran into a bit of a snag. A tractor trailer overturned a km or two ahead of us on highway 1A about 4okm west of Cochrane. Hillary and I were the second people on the scene, and the wheels were still spinning when we arrived. Since we had a cell, I got the honour of making the 911 call. By this time, the driver of the truck was out and walking around, banged up, but no serious injuries.
The road is not designed for trucks, it's narrow and with no shoulders, so what likely happened was he dropped a wheel off the edge slightly and that was all she wrote. We learned from a local (the first on the scene) that this was a somewhat popular alternate route that skipped the scales on highway 1.
Long story short, this killed something like an hour where we had to stand around until the emergency crews arrived and asked us the usual questions. By the time we got going again, the wind has shifted into a minor headwind and I was just looking forward to food. We met up with the RV in Cochrane and decided to call off the rest of the day and call it good there. So here we are:
Stop location: Cochrane
lat 51.17508N
lon 114.45703W
alt 1140m
103km
3:45
27.5km/h
And our cumulative totals to date:
58 hours 34 minutes of riding time for a total of 1330km at an average speed of 22.7km/h.
Today, we head towards Drumheller with our likely stop in Acme or Carbon.
So here are the last couple of days:
May 13
Kootenay National Park -> Banff. As mentioned in my last post, the weather for this day was not looking overly promising. This held true. We started out in a drizzle, which turned into rain from time to time, it was also damned cold. Alas. 20 or so km of gentle uphill slog, then we took a right turn and began our final mountain pass, the Vermillion pass which took us over the continental divide and into Alberta.
The climb was fairly gentle and brought us through some rather interesting terrain, specifically, the end of winter in a forest fire wasteland. Everything was brown and dead, though the forest floor should be green in a few weeks. Again, we saw snow on the ground. And once again, we descended into a headwind, which was highly unplesant given the temperature of something like 3 or 4 C.
This was my toughest day so far I think. I was getting shelled on every little climb of the awesome Bow Valley Parkway. It's a shame the weather was so terrible and I was feeling so bad on this ride since the 1A in Banff is among the more awesome riding roads I have ever been on. No huge climbs, lots of twisty stuff, it's just built for pedalling. Alas. I will go there again with a road bike someday.
Stop location: Banff - Tunnel Mountain
lat 51.18900N
lon 115.53821W
alt 1473m
84km
3:57
21.13km/h
May 14
Rest day in Banff. Laundry, sleeping, eating and walking. Nothing to complain about here. I love this little town.
May 15
Today, up to date, is this true? I think yes. We headed out from Banff very gently since Hillary was feeling stiffer than the last couple of days. That didn't mean painful though. The highway down from Banff is just that: down. Gentle grade, but that just means you can sustain 30-35km/h for long periods at a time. This contributed to our fastest day yet, 103km at and average speed of 27.5km/h.
We had planned on going all the way to Calgary today, an extra 20-30km, but ran into a bit of a snag. A tractor trailer overturned a km or two ahead of us on highway 1A about 4okm west of Cochrane. Hillary and I were the second people on the scene, and the wheels were still spinning when we arrived. Since we had a cell, I got the honour of making the 911 call. By this time, the driver of the truck was out and walking around, banged up, but no serious injuries.
The road is not designed for trucks, it's narrow and with no shoulders, so what likely happened was he dropped a wheel off the edge slightly and that was all she wrote. We learned from a local (the first on the scene) that this was a somewhat popular alternate route that skipped the scales on highway 1.
Long story short, this killed something like an hour where we had to stand around until the emergency crews arrived and asked us the usual questions. By the time we got going again, the wind has shifted into a minor headwind and I was just looking forward to food. We met up with the RV in Cochrane and decided to call off the rest of the day and call it good there. So here we are:
Stop location: Cochrane
lat 51.17508N
lon 114.45703W
alt 1140m
103km
3:45
27.5km/h
And our cumulative totals to date:
58 hours 34 minutes of riding time for a total of 1330km at an average speed of 22.7km/h.
Today, we head towards Drumheller with our likely stop in Acme or Carbon.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Type Fast! Low Battery!
May 12
Unreal. So we have internet and I have a low battery. But the access is in a most awesome place. Currently, we are here:
Kootenay Park Lodge
lat 51.02530N
lon 115.98053W
alt 1278m
Well, not actually right there, if you pull that thing up with google maps or whatever, we're actually parked just on the other side of the highway, there's a little lunching area there. I have access here though.
Access where there is no phone landline and no cell network. The guys at the lodge here have a satellite internet connection and have Vonage for phones, VOIP in the middle of nowhere, quite literally. Highway 93 is one of the more desolate stretches in southern Canada. The "Do you have gas?" sign said no services for about 130km, which was the record thus far.
New high speed record for me today as well: 78km/h according to the computer. That was fun, pretty nice highway descending from the Sinclair pass. Photos from that hill will go up hopefully tomorrow when we stop in the Banff townsite itself.
We've been hitting some good luck with weather since the nastiness of Manning Park, but it looks like that is about to change. Possible snow and highs of 6, time to break out the winter riding gear again.
Unsorted and I haven't calculated it all out (will edit this if my battery doesn't die) but here is the last few days of riding:
Stop location: Outside of boswell
lat 49.50744W
lon 116.78619W
Alt 545m
106km
4:39
22.98km/h
Stop location: Yahk
lat 49.08024N
lon 116.09980W
alt 871m
97km
4:15
22.86km/h avg
Stop location: Cranbrook
lat 49.50143N
lon 115.79488W
Alt 959m
73km
2:58
24.43km/h avg
Stop location: Fairmont Hot Springs
lat 50.32549N
lon 115.84386W
alt 980m
112km
4:26
25.22km/h
Stop location: Kootenay Park Lodge
lat 51.02530N
lon 115.98053W
alt 1278m
104km
4:28
23.1km/h
Posting now, below 5% battery life.
Unreal. So we have internet and I have a low battery. But the access is in a most awesome place. Currently, we are here:
Kootenay Park Lodge
lat 51.02530N
lon 115.98053W
alt 1278m
Well, not actually right there, if you pull that thing up with google maps or whatever, we're actually parked just on the other side of the highway, there's a little lunching area there. I have access here though.
Access where there is no phone landline and no cell network. The guys at the lodge here have a satellite internet connection and have Vonage for phones, VOIP in the middle of nowhere, quite literally. Highway 93 is one of the more desolate stretches in southern Canada. The "Do you have gas?" sign said no services for about 130km, which was the record thus far.
New high speed record for me today as well: 78km/h according to the computer. That was fun, pretty nice highway descending from the Sinclair pass. Photos from that hill will go up hopefully tomorrow when we stop in the Banff townsite itself.
We've been hitting some good luck with weather since the nastiness of Manning Park, but it looks like that is about to change. Possible snow and highs of 6, time to break out the winter riding gear again.
Unsorted and I haven't calculated it all out (will edit this if my battery doesn't die) but here is the last few days of riding:
Stop location: Outside of boswell
lat 49.50744W
lon 116.78619W
Alt 545m
106km
4:39
22.98km/h
Stop location: Yahk
lat 49.08024N
lon 116.09980W
alt 871m
97km
4:15
22.86km/h avg
Stop location: Cranbrook
lat 49.50143N
lon 115.79488W
Alt 959m
73km
2:58
24.43km/h avg
Stop location: Fairmont Hot Springs
lat 50.32549N
lon 115.84386W
alt 980m
112km
4:26
25.22km/h
Stop location: Kootenay Park Lodge
lat 51.02530N
lon 115.98053W
alt 1278m
104km
4:28
23.1km/h
Posting now, below 5% battery life.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Internets!
We've had a couple of days of sparse connection and I don't have the laptop handy which means my stats updates are going to be at least a little bit behind this. Rest assured, I do have all of that saved elsewhere...
So, the last threeish days...
May 7
The rest day in Castlegar was, as noted, definitely needed. Hillary, my mom and I stayed for the two nights with my relatives, Rick and Donna Armstrong. The place was wonderful and a great base for the two days we were there. Of important note was the exceptional fruit salsa and steaks. (Not consumed together, though that would be interesting...mmmmm Strawberry Steak) The very good red wine was also opened.
We've only been on the road for a week at that point, but we were already missing the comforts of a real home, so this was a very nice break. Most of our other rest days are going to be based out of the RV, so we made sure to really enjoy this one.
Then, onward.
May 8
The next day was probably the most scenic ride we've done so far. We left Castlegar and headed along the Kootenay River. The river is deep, fast and cold, and is to me one of the more quintessential BC rivers. (Yes, it technically does spend time in the USA, but let's not quibble.)
After Nelson we continued on to Balfour and crossed Kootenay Lake on the longest free ferry in the world. 40 minutes later, we got our one real climb of the day. Nothing like an hour and a half rest (45 minutes early for the ferry, rest fueled by a monstrous brownie), then with cold legs grinding up an 8%-9% grade. Yay.
Our stop point was a little resort that had much potential. It was also for sale... Hmmm... Bayshore Resort, outside of Boswell, we had a spectacular view of the Nelson mountain range across the lake. It was, admittedly, sketchy, but damn it had potential. We supposedly had internet there, but due to the fact that the proprietor of the resort did not know the wireless password, we did not get it until the morning, just before leaving. ("I don't know the computer stuff, my brother does, but he works on the other side of the lake")
May 9
The next morning, after a giant grease bucket breakfast, for me anyhow, we headed out on what was supposed to be one of our shorter days. To the bustling metropolis of Yahk! The route wound through Creston, home of Kokanee. Due to Hillary's rapidly degrading knee injury, we took an extended lunch in Creston while we debated continuing on for the additional 45km or so into Yahk. After lunch, we figured we might as well do it since it meant a fairly short ride into Cranbrook. Hah. Short. 70km short, perspectives change...
Started to get warm that day as well, primarily noted by me by the lack of bathroom breaks taken. I'm guessing summer is really coming at this point.
Yahk is kind of a wierd place. I knew it was small, but I think it got smaller recently. I believe the town consisted of two motels, two camp/RV sites, one gas station, two convenience stores and a soap store. No restaurants, which complicated some things, since we were awaiting the triumphant return of Truck. Dad finally rolled into Yahk a few hours later than expected, with all of us sleeping in the car on the side of the road, bikes propped against the rear quarter panels.
So a short sleep last night, which lead into today...
May 10
Yahk to Cranbrook, shortest day, other than our ill fated climb up Mount Allison which was cut short in the rain and cold. Beautiful day for riding, probably high teens, low twenties for the entire time we were on the bike and only some gentle rollers as far as hills went. Trucks a plenty though. Evidently Yahk has a major truck border crossing and our last day on highway 3 was one with a lot of traffic. Not fun at all, that.
So we have arrived and now officially have Truck back full time, so hopefully we can finally get into a real routine. Tomorrow we head north and will spend a day or two getting to the boundary of Kootenay National Park and then assult our final mountain pass. Due to the continuing knee pain, we're not scheduling very tight right now. Flats seem to do well with her, so we're trying to take it easy until we hit the flatlands...
Enough for now, when I have the laptop, the stats and distances will be done along with whatever I've forgotten.
I'm hungry again.
So, the last threeish days...
May 7
The rest day in Castlegar was, as noted, definitely needed. Hillary, my mom and I stayed for the two nights with my relatives, Rick and Donna Armstrong. The place was wonderful and a great base for the two days we were there. Of important note was the exceptional fruit salsa and steaks. (Not consumed together, though that would be interesting...mmmmm Strawberry Steak) The very good red wine was also opened.
We've only been on the road for a week at that point, but we were already missing the comforts of a real home, so this was a very nice break. Most of our other rest days are going to be based out of the RV, so we made sure to really enjoy this one.
Then, onward.
May 8
The next day was probably the most scenic ride we've done so far. We left Castlegar and headed along the Kootenay River. The river is deep, fast and cold, and is to me one of the more quintessential BC rivers. (Yes, it technically does spend time in the USA, but let's not quibble.)
After Nelson we continued on to Balfour and crossed Kootenay Lake on the longest free ferry in the world. 40 minutes later, we got our one real climb of the day. Nothing like an hour and a half rest (45 minutes early for the ferry, rest fueled by a monstrous brownie), then with cold legs grinding up an 8%-9% grade. Yay.
Our stop point was a little resort that had much potential. It was also for sale... Hmmm... Bayshore Resort, outside of Boswell, we had a spectacular view of the Nelson mountain range across the lake. It was, admittedly, sketchy, but damn it had potential. We supposedly had internet there, but due to the fact that the proprietor of the resort did not know the wireless password, we did not get it until the morning, just before leaving. ("I don't know the computer stuff, my brother does, but he works on the other side of the lake")
May 9
The next morning, after a giant grease bucket breakfast, for me anyhow, we headed out on what was supposed to be one of our shorter days. To the bustling metropolis of Yahk! The route wound through Creston, home of Kokanee. Due to Hillary's rapidly degrading knee injury, we took an extended lunch in Creston while we debated continuing on for the additional 45km or so into Yahk. After lunch, we figured we might as well do it since it meant a fairly short ride into Cranbrook. Hah. Short. 70km short, perspectives change...
Started to get warm that day as well, primarily noted by me by the lack of bathroom breaks taken. I'm guessing summer is really coming at this point.
Yahk is kind of a wierd place. I knew it was small, but I think it got smaller recently. I believe the town consisted of two motels, two camp/RV sites, one gas station, two convenience stores and a soap store. No restaurants, which complicated some things, since we were awaiting the triumphant return of Truck. Dad finally rolled into Yahk a few hours later than expected, with all of us sleeping in the car on the side of the road, bikes propped against the rear quarter panels.
So a short sleep last night, which lead into today...
May 10
Yahk to Cranbrook, shortest day, other than our ill fated climb up Mount Allison which was cut short in the rain and cold. Beautiful day for riding, probably high teens, low twenties for the entire time we were on the bike and only some gentle rollers as far as hills went. Trucks a plenty though. Evidently Yahk has a major truck border crossing and our last day on highway 3 was one with a lot of traffic. Not fun at all, that.
So we have arrived and now officially have Truck back full time, so hopefully we can finally get into a real routine. Tomorrow we head north and will spend a day or two getting to the boundary of Kootenay National Park and then assult our final mountain pass. Due to the continuing knee pain, we're not scheduling very tight right now. Flats seem to do well with her, so we're trying to take it easy until we hit the flatlands...
Enough for now, when I have the laptop, the stats and distances will be done along with whatever I've forgotten.
I'm hungry again.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Rest day and yesterday's ride
A day late, but here is the tale of the second last major mountain pass. An hour and a half or so to the base of it by Christina Lake and then two long hours slogging up it. The reward: nigh on 30km of uninterrupted downhill. That about does it for the tale.
We saw a bumblebee. Hillary sprinted and dropped it like a stone.
The summit came about 5km after the worst of the climb was over, an extended period of 8% grades. From there we rolled around the highlands and saw some spectacular high mountain valleys and peaks. I'm currently unsure if this was the highest summit of the trip at just over 1500m. Vermilion pass in the Kootenay National Park may be slightly higher.
The shorter day was much appreciated by all I think and the rest day was fairly uneventful. Uneventful aside from my bike computer going through the washing machine and discovering a gash in my front tire after descending down into Castlegar with a personal Road Bike Record of 76km/h.
And the daily stats:
102km
4:54:00 ride time
20.8km/h average speed
Cumulative:
651km
30:06:00 total ride time
21.6km/h average speed
Stop location: Castlegar
Lat 49.30063N
Lon 117.65315W
Altitude: 464m
We saw a bumblebee. Hillary sprinted and dropped it like a stone.
The summit came about 5km after the worst of the climb was over, an extended period of 8% grades. From there we rolled around the highlands and saw some spectacular high mountain valleys and peaks. I'm currently unsure if this was the highest summit of the trip at just over 1500m. Vermilion pass in the Kootenay National Park may be slightly higher.
The shorter day was much appreciated by all I think and the rest day was fairly uneventful. Uneventful aside from my bike computer going through the washing machine and discovering a gash in my front tire after descending down into Castlegar with a personal Road Bike Record of 76km/h.
And the daily stats:
102km
4:54:00 ride time
20.8km/h average speed
Cumulative:
651km
30:06:00 total ride time
21.6km/h average speed
Stop location: Castlegar
Lat 49.30063N
Lon 117.65315W
Altitude: 464m
Rest day 1
More detailed updates later after I get some serious resting done, but I've got the first few pictures up now. Check out the links on the right hand side, there will now be a link to the image galleries.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
The Monster...
But it wasn't the Anarchist.
If you've read the entries by Tanya or Hillary, you'll have learned that the Anarchist wasn't as bad as we had feared. We hit it fresh in the morning and took it easy right off the bat and didn't get into trouble. Still, it was long, 30km from the front door of the hotel to the summit sign with roughly 1000m of vertical gain. The end result was the longest day in both time and distance.
The monster of the day was the Eholt summit (1028m). Not particularly steep or high, we got onto it at something like 80km in and proceeded to climb for 30km, pretty much absolutely what we didn't need at this point. Two days in a row we hit serious climbs right at the end of the day. For what it's worth, the one we hit at the 100km mark yesterday was called the Richter pass.
The long grind up Eholt was pretty unpleasant. We were fairly tired at the time and were expecting rolling hills, not a long uphill slog. The worst part was that the total elevation gain wasn't overly huge, but the grades were 0.5% to about 2% at most. You can't really go fast up those, but you don't get up very fast either. At least if the climb was at 5% or something like that, you'd get up and you'd feel the pain and be done with it.
On this hill, you'd ride for twenty minutes at a pretty slow pace, turn around and see that you'd had hardly gone up at all. Or gone very far at all. Then you put your head down and do it again. At least with the big passes, you hurt, you go slow, but when you turn around, you see the cars way below you and that is at least motivating. The Anarchist was awesome for this since it switches back on itself a couple of times and after an hour of climbing we could still see our hotel from the night before.... Way below us.
So yeah, mentally tough day.
Then Hillary turned on the juice coming into Grand Forks and I had to struggle to get her wheel. Then she sat up and waited for me and Tanya and when I motioned that she should continue to pull, dropped the hammer again and made us sprint to catch up. That was totally uncalled for.
And for the daily stats:
125km
6:07:00 ride time
20.5km/h average speed
Cumulative:
25:12:00 total ride time
21.7km/h total average speed
549km
Stop location: Grand Forks
Lat 49.02388N
Lon 118.47147W
Altitude: 541m
If you've read the entries by Tanya or Hillary, you'll have learned that the Anarchist wasn't as bad as we had feared. We hit it fresh in the morning and took it easy right off the bat and didn't get into trouble. Still, it was long, 30km from the front door of the hotel to the summit sign with roughly 1000m of vertical gain. The end result was the longest day in both time and distance.
The monster of the day was the Eholt summit (1028m). Not particularly steep or high, we got onto it at something like 80km in and proceeded to climb for 30km, pretty much absolutely what we didn't need at this point. Two days in a row we hit serious climbs right at the end of the day. For what it's worth, the one we hit at the 100km mark yesterday was called the Richter pass.
The long grind up Eholt was pretty unpleasant. We were fairly tired at the time and were expecting rolling hills, not a long uphill slog. The worst part was that the total elevation gain wasn't overly huge, but the grades were 0.5% to about 2% at most. You can't really go fast up those, but you don't get up very fast either. At least if the climb was at 5% or something like that, you'd get up and you'd feel the pain and be done with it.
On this hill, you'd ride for twenty minutes at a pretty slow pace, turn around and see that you'd had hardly gone up at all. Or gone very far at all. Then you put your head down and do it again. At least with the big passes, you hurt, you go slow, but when you turn around, you see the cars way below you and that is at least motivating. The Anarchist was awesome for this since it switches back on itself a couple of times and after an hour of climbing we could still see our hotel from the night before.... Way below us.
So yeah, mentally tough day.
Then Hillary turned on the juice coming into Grand Forks and I had to struggle to get her wheel. Then she sat up and waited for me and Tanya and when I motioned that she should continue to pull, dropped the hammer again and made us sprint to catch up. That was totally uncalled for.
And for the daily stats:
125km
6:07:00 ride time
20.5km/h average speed
Cumulative:
25:12:00 total ride time
21.7km/h total average speed
549km
Stop location: Grand Forks
Lat 49.02388N
Lon 118.47147W
Altitude: 541m
Friday, May 4, 2007
Day 4, The Real Thing
May 4
123km
5:02:00 ride time
24.42km/h average speed
Cumulative:
19:05:00 total ride time
22.3km/h total average speed
424.9km
Stop location: Osoyoos
Lat 49.02834N
Lon 119.45742W
Altitude: 290.00m
So the RV broke. The power steering fell apart, which isn't really a good thing for a 34' vehicle. Alas. Fortunately, everything is under control, we're carrying gear one day at a time until the thing is back in business, which should be a day or two. My mom is ferrying stuff from motel to motel until then. Currently we have a rest day scheduled for early next week so we really only have two days of riding and one night in a weird place before then.
The ride today was awesome. We had a nice tailwind for the first 80km which were fairly flat along the Similkameen river valley. From there things got a bit hilly, and then we took a left turn and got REALLY hilly. 2km climb, brief downhill, 2km climb, 2km downhill, 5km climb and then the big downhill into Osoyoos.
Stopped for a nice lunch at a little cafe in Keremeos, which was a nice surprise, the peach cobbler was highly tasty.
Sleep is going to be important tonight, first thing tomorrow morning, we tackle the Anarchist, a ridiculous climb out of Osoyoos to the east. Good luck? Yes.
123km
5:02:00 ride time
24.42km/h average speed
Cumulative:
19:05:00 total ride time
22.3km/h total average speed
424.9km
Stop location: Osoyoos
Lat 49.02834N
Lon 119.45742W
Altitude: 290.00m
So the RV broke. The power steering fell apart, which isn't really a good thing for a 34' vehicle. Alas. Fortunately, everything is under control, we're carrying gear one day at a time until the thing is back in business, which should be a day or two. My mom is ferrying stuff from motel to motel until then. Currently we have a rest day scheduled for early next week so we really only have two days of riding and one night in a weird place before then.
The ride today was awesome. We had a nice tailwind for the first 80km which were fairly flat along the Similkameen river valley. From there things got a bit hilly, and then we took a left turn and got REALLY hilly. 2km climb, brief downhill, 2km climb, 2km downhill, 5km climb and then the big downhill into Osoyoos.
Stopped for a nice lunch at a little cafe in Keremeos, which was a nice surprise, the peach cobbler was highly tasty.
Sleep is going to be important tonight, first thing tomorrow morning, we tackle the Anarchist, a ridiculous climb out of Osoyoos to the east. Good luck? Yes.
Catchup posts...
May 3
113km
5:45:00 ride time
19.6km/h average speed
Cumulative:
14:11:00 total ride time
21.3km/h total average speed
302.3km
Passes:
Mount Allison Pass 1352m
Sunday Summit 1282m
Stop location: Princeton
Lat 49.44154N
Lon 120.53370W
Altitude: 767.00m
Long painful day with some awesome scenery. Yes, the image gallery is coming... Tired so not posting much here, suffice to to say, the summits were crazy high, we got snowed on and froze on the 30km descent down the other side.
And extended 8% downhills on a road bike is not fun. That's steep enough that you get going stupid fast way too quickly. On unknown roads, that's not cool. Give me a nice long 3-5% grade and I'm a happy man.
May 2
66km
3:21:00 ride time
19.8km/h average speed
Cumulative:
8:26:00 total ride time
22.35km/h total average speed
188.7km
Stop location:
Sunshine Valley
Lat 49.27572
Lon 121.23592
Altitude: 674.00m
High point of the day was the Hope Slide at 750m above sea level.
The weather hasn't really co-operated thus far in the trip. Granted, we're two days in, but that's hardly the point.
Today started a bit later than we really should have, mainly due to us trying to wait out a pretty heavy rainfall. It did clear up and we were off. We started out with a pretty smooth ride out to Hope, the weather held out and while we got sprinkled on a bit, we didn't have any other problems.
Hillary and I are now kicking ourself with getting the cheap rainpants instead of something more breathable. The rainpants we have don't actually let any wetness out, so you end up just as wet from sweat as you would from the rain. Slightly warmer, but after stopping for a break or snack, it's pretty painful.
After Hope the climbing started and all timing plans were thrown out the window. Even worse, the rain returned with a vengance after about 7km of uphill with lots to go. We made it to the Hope Slide for a rendezvous with the RV which turned out to be an excellent call. It was cold and we decided to find the next reasonable place to call it a day. We'd traveled something like 20km in an hour and a half and were drenched.
The worst part of the Allison Pass is now behind us, supposedly anyhow, and we're dry and warm. An earlier start tomorrow will see us up to one of the highest points of the trip at 1350m, then a tour through Manning park and down to Princeton. Behind schedule two days in! We're awesome!
113km
5:45:00 ride time
19.6km/h average speed
Cumulative:
14:11:00 total ride time
21.3km/h total average speed
302.3km
Passes:
Mount Allison Pass 1352m
Sunday Summit 1282m
Stop location: Princeton
Lat 49.44154N
Lon 120.53370W
Altitude: 767.00m
Long painful day with some awesome scenery. Yes, the image gallery is coming... Tired so not posting much here, suffice to to say, the summits were crazy high, we got snowed on and froze on the 30km descent down the other side.
And extended 8% downhills on a road bike is not fun. That's steep enough that you get going stupid fast way too quickly. On unknown roads, that's not cool. Give me a nice long 3-5% grade and I'm a happy man.
May 2
66km
3:21:00 ride time
19.8km/h average speed
Cumulative:
8:26:00 total ride time
22.35km/h total average speed
188.7km
Stop location:
Sunshine Valley
Lat 49.27572
Lon 121.23592
Altitude: 674.00m
High point of the day was the Hope Slide at 750m above sea level.
The weather hasn't really co-operated thus far in the trip. Granted, we're two days in, but that's hardly the point.
Today started a bit later than we really should have, mainly due to us trying to wait out a pretty heavy rainfall. It did clear up and we were off. We started out with a pretty smooth ride out to Hope, the weather held out and while we got sprinkled on a bit, we didn't have any other problems.
Hillary and I are now kicking ourself with getting the cheap rainpants instead of something more breathable. The rainpants we have don't actually let any wetness out, so you end up just as wet from sweat as you would from the rain. Slightly warmer, but after stopping for a break or snack, it's pretty painful.
After Hope the climbing started and all timing plans were thrown out the window. Even worse, the rain returned with a vengance after about 7km of uphill with lots to go. We made it to the Hope Slide for a rendezvous with the RV which turned out to be an excellent call. It was cold and we decided to find the next reasonable place to call it a day. We'd traveled something like 20km in an hour and a half and were drenched.
The worst part of the Allison Pass is now behind us, supposedly anyhow, and we're dry and warm. An earlier start tomorrow will see us up to one of the highest points of the trip at 1350m, then a tour through Manning park and down to Princeton. Behind schedule two days in! We're awesome!
Day 4 lunchtime
We've been out of Internet range for a couple of days and happened to stop for lunch in Keremeos at a cafe that had a connection.
More details will come when I have a bit of time to actually write more, but for now, a location update.
We're going to be in Osoyoos this evening, it's 49km up the road, so if the weather holds, figure we'll be there in a couple of hours, which is highly exciting. Wildlife spottings today included a couple of bald eagles out duck hunting. At least, that's what it looked like to us as we went by. First mechanical also happened today, I got a flat about 45 minutes in.
No major hills today, though we had our share yesterday with the Mount Allison Summit and the Sunday Summit, 1342m and 1282m respectively. Worst single climb was a 1km or so section of 9%, that thing hurt a lot.
Enough for now, peach cobbler is waiting assuming Hillary hasn't finished it. More later if we can find an Internet shop in Osoyoos.
More details will come when I have a bit of time to actually write more, but for now, a location update.
We're going to be in Osoyoos this evening, it's 49km up the road, so if the weather holds, figure we'll be there in a couple of hours, which is highly exciting. Wildlife spottings today included a couple of bald eagles out duck hunting. At least, that's what it looked like to us as we went by. First mechanical also happened today, I got a flat about 45 minutes in.
No major hills today, though we had our share yesterday with the Mount Allison Summit and the Sunday Summit, 1342m and 1282m respectively. Worst single climb was a 1km or so section of 9%, that thing hurt a lot.
Enough for now, peach cobbler is waiting assuming Hillary hasn't finished it. More later if we can find an Internet shop in Osoyoos.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
One day of victory
May 1
Not a bad ride overall, a bit longer than expected, but not by a whole lot. We did a bit of a detour from the initial route, mainly due to the fact that we decided we really should
hit the ocean on day one.
Aside from that, it didn't really seem like we were on the first day of a Cross Canada trip. For the most part, it just felt like going on a nice long bike ride. Something like the Rideau Lakes Tour. The hard part is going to be when it starts sinking in that we're not riding home tomorrow, but are going further and further away from civilization.
The day was spent in the agricultural area of the Lower Mainland for the most part, which meant lots of farms. Decent scenery I suppose, but I have to admit that I was impressed at the
fact we saw at least 3 llama farms and one pretty cool poultry farm that was very obviously free range. Or free something anyhow.
There were several dozen ducks, a few chickens and a couple of turkeys just wandering around, with no fences between them and the road. You can't herd birds, so I'm guessing they do lose
some to, well, losing.
Worst sign of the day is a toss up: "We sell plastic barrels!". The other possibility is one which I will never be able to actually quote. This was a road sign and in hindsight, I should
have taken a picture. Regardless, it was a standard orange diamond warning road sign... With somewhere in the ballpark of 30 words in small font on it. Riding at 20km/h past it, I couldn't
read the whole thing. At the speed limit, I don't think you could read enough to know what you should be looking out for.
And now we're getting ready to head out for day 2, up to Manning park over the Mount Allison pass. Weather reports indicate that it's going to rain. Climbing and raining, together at long last.
May 1 on the bike stats:
1.5 bagels
2L liquid
1 cliff bar
1 small coffee
1 peacock, 2 peahens at campsite
122km
5:05:00 ride time
24.13km/h average speed
5:40:00 total time from white rock beach
Stop location:
Harrison Hot Springs - Sasquatch Springs RV Park
Lat 49.29949
Lon 121.78619
Altitude: 24.00m (according to my gps thing. Accuracy is questionable)
Not a bad ride overall, a bit longer than expected, but not by a whole lot. We did a bit of a detour from the initial route, mainly due to the fact that we decided we really should
hit the ocean on day one.
Aside from that, it didn't really seem like we were on the first day of a Cross Canada trip. For the most part, it just felt like going on a nice long bike ride. Something like the Rideau Lakes Tour. The hard part is going to be when it starts sinking in that we're not riding home tomorrow, but are going further and further away from civilization.
The day was spent in the agricultural area of the Lower Mainland for the most part, which meant lots of farms. Decent scenery I suppose, but I have to admit that I was impressed at the
fact we saw at least 3 llama farms and one pretty cool poultry farm that was very obviously free range. Or free something anyhow.
There were several dozen ducks, a few chickens and a couple of turkeys just wandering around, with no fences between them and the road. You can't herd birds, so I'm guessing they do lose
some to, well, losing.
Worst sign of the day is a toss up: "We sell plastic barrels!". The other possibility is one which I will never be able to actually quote. This was a road sign and in hindsight, I should
have taken a picture. Regardless, it was a standard orange diamond warning road sign... With somewhere in the ballpark of 30 words in small font on it. Riding at 20km/h past it, I couldn't
read the whole thing. At the speed limit, I don't think you could read enough to know what you should be looking out for.
And now we're getting ready to head out for day 2, up to Manning park over the Mount Allison pass. Weather reports indicate that it's going to rain. Climbing and raining, together at long last.
May 1 on the bike stats:
1.5 bagels
2L liquid
1 cliff bar
1 small coffee
1 peacock, 2 peahens at campsite
122km
5:05:00 ride time
24.13km/h average speed
5:40:00 total time from white rock beach
Stop location:
Harrison Hot Springs - Sasquatch Springs RV Park
Lat 49.29949
Lon 121.78619
Altitude: 24.00m (according to my gps thing. Accuracy is questionable)
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
5 Minutes of Power
So time today is going to be a bit tight, mainly due to last minute packing, purchasing and planning. We did, however, want to get out for a bit of a ride today to make sure that the racks were working well and that we'd installed everything right.
Head out of the driveway, turn right. I go down the hill and turn around, Hillary is a ways behind me, which isn't odd, since she tends to descend at a lower rate. Call it survival instinct perhaps. I go a dozen or so metres further and glance around again and she's gone behind a parked vehicle. Uh-oh.
Blown tube. So Hillary got to repair her first ever flat tire. Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned short of time, the tube replacement time combined with re-pumping time kind of killed about half of our allotted cycling time. So our round trip ended up being 5 minutes.
Now that's training.
Head out of the driveway, turn right. I go down the hill and turn around, Hillary is a ways behind me, which isn't odd, since she tends to descend at a lower rate. Call it survival instinct perhaps. I go a dozen or so metres further and glance around again and she's gone behind a parked vehicle. Uh-oh.
Blown tube. So Hillary got to repair her first ever flat tire. Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned short of time, the tube replacement time combined with re-pumping time kind of killed about half of our allotted cycling time. So our round trip ended up being 5 minutes.
Now that's training.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
White Rock
I had forgotten how hilly BC could be. I mean, one would think that this wasn't the sort of aspect that you would forget. Though perhaps forgetting is the wrong word, as I knew in theory that flat land was at a premium in an easy loop around town.
I had also forgotten that the Tour de White Rock Hill Climb climb, really was a Hill Climb. Thing hit %16 and I felt sad in my legs. On the one hand, I'm seriously concerned that I don't have enough gears (34-27) to get up the monsters. On the other hand, the worst grades that we're likely to see is something like 8-10, and the 10s aren't sustained for too long.
The bike feels pretty good other than some minor issues with brakes being on. Always. At least that's what I tell myself.
We're getting a goodbye turkey tonight, at the Taylor household, any sort of family related event requires the baking of a turkey. I've been doing my best to make sure I have a massive calorie surplus for the past few days and I intend to continue the trend tonight. Again, it is amazing what you can justify to yourself when you are going to be spending the next two and a half months riding a bicycle.
I had also forgotten that the Tour de White Rock Hill Climb climb, really was a Hill Climb. Thing hit %16 and I felt sad in my legs. On the one hand, I'm seriously concerned that I don't have enough gears (34-27) to get up the monsters. On the other hand, the worst grades that we're likely to see is something like 8-10, and the 10s aren't sustained for too long.
The bike feels pretty good other than some minor issues with brakes being on. Always. At least that's what I tell myself.
We're getting a goodbye turkey tonight, at the Taylor household, any sort of family related event requires the baking of a turkey. I've been doing my best to make sure I have a massive calorie surplus for the past few days and I intend to continue the trend tonight. Again, it is amazing what you can justify to yourself when you are going to be spending the next two and a half months riding a bicycle.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Bikes and Code
Bikes and Code, seems like a good way to go, assuming that I have the dedication to keep posting following the trip. I suppose it probably goes without saying that this will mostly be about bikes for the foreseeable future, but I will make no promises regarding tangents.
Today is my last day of work for the next three months. Starting May 1st, I am riding my bike across Canada. Riding the full distance along with me is my fiancée, Hillary and one of her co-workers, Tanya. We're flying out to Vancouver tonight so we can start in my hometown of White Rock and will end in Halifax, sometime in July. There are also a few other riders who may be joining us for a few days here and there. When and where is still unknown.
But no fully loaded touring this will be. This will be a tour in style. An RV, driven by parents for various stretches will be accompanying us for the distance. This will simplify many of the classical logistical problems of a cross Canada tour. We can pretty much pack everything we think we need and not have to worry about lugging it over the Kootenay Pass.
We expect to average something in the ballpark of 100km per day, though we'll probably have at least one imperial century somewhere along the road. (100 miles = 160km) Roughly speaking, our route will be hwy 3 through BC to Cranbrook, then taking a turn for the north to go through Banff. From there, Calgary, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. That pretty much covers the month of May, so I'll get into the next stage once we're closer.
So that's it for now. More info once we get the bikes together in BC.
w00t.
Today is my last day of work for the next three months. Starting May 1st, I am riding my bike across Canada. Riding the full distance along with me is my fiancée, Hillary and one of her co-workers, Tanya. We're flying out to Vancouver tonight so we can start in my hometown of White Rock and will end in Halifax, sometime in July. There are also a few other riders who may be joining us for a few days here and there. When and where is still unknown.
But no fully loaded touring this will be. This will be a tour in style. An RV, driven by parents for various stretches will be accompanying us for the distance. This will simplify many of the classical logistical problems of a cross Canada tour. We can pretty much pack everything we think we need and not have to worry about lugging it over the Kootenay Pass.
We expect to average something in the ballpark of 100km per day, though we'll probably have at least one imperial century somewhere along the road. (100 miles = 160km) Roughly speaking, our route will be hwy 3 through BC to Cranbrook, then taking a turn for the north to go through Banff. From there, Calgary, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. That pretty much covers the month of May, so I'll get into the next stage once we're closer.
So that's it for now. More info once we get the bikes together in BC.
w00t.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Paris - Roubaix
In what was likely my last real ride before heading out to Vancouver, I, for the first time, cracked, popped, blew up, reached deep into the suitcase of courage and found there was nothing left. Feel free to add your own favourite Phil Liggettism, but you get the point. An interesting experience, to be sure.
The event was the Ottawa Bicycle Club's annual Paris-Roubaix This Is a Cyclo-Sportif, Not A Race Race. (Race map here) In a possibly poor pre-race plan, I elected to do a 110km ride on Saturday, the afternoon before, and while it wasn't a hard ride, it was long and probably depleted some reserves. Considering how I'm spending the next few months, I saw mileage over the weekend as the better option.
In any case, I went into the race a bit tired, but feeling pretty good. I know I'm in better shape than I have been at this time of the year before, albeit a few pounds heavier, which hasn't been a real concern yet. My main goal was to stick with the main pack until getting shelled, then just do a nice, comfortable TT for the rest of the day. Things don't always work as they are planned.
As I'm not a serious racer, I stayed in the middle of the main field, such as it was, through the neutralized start and up the first hill. I was aiming to be right near the end of the group of fast people and sit in for a while. I misjudged. At about the 5 or 6km mark, there was a crash and suddenly the main group was pulling a bit ahead and I was one of the leaders of the chase. I spent much of the next several km trying to catch the field again, occasionally working with other dropped riders, or people coming up behind. Unfortunately, I never made contact again. After 15 or 20 minutes of chasing, my heart rate monitor was showing 96%, with 2ish hours to go, I figured that this kind of effort wasn't sustainable and backed off. It's time trial time!
Sometime shortly thereafter, I was picked up by a largish group of 15-20 riders and stuck with them until just before the aptly named Middleville. For the previous climbs, I had worked my way to 2-4 place in the group, then drifted back over the climbs but stayed in contact. In the final climb up into Middleville, the last steep section, I just popped. Before I knew it, the group was 50m in front of me and that was all she wrote.
For the rest of the ride, I went very, very slowly up the hills and decently on the flats and downhills. Still, while the final results aren't up yet, I believe I was about 5 minutes faster than last year, so I have no real complaints.
And now my racing is done until August, realistically, until September when the 'cross season starts again!
The event was the Ottawa Bicycle Club's annual Paris-Roubaix This Is a Cyclo-Sportif, Not A Race Race. (Race map here) In a possibly poor pre-race plan, I elected to do a 110km ride on Saturday, the afternoon before, and while it wasn't a hard ride, it was long and probably depleted some reserves. Considering how I'm spending the next few months, I saw mileage over the weekend as the better option.
In any case, I went into the race a bit tired, but feeling pretty good. I know I'm in better shape than I have been at this time of the year before, albeit a few pounds heavier, which hasn't been a real concern yet. My main goal was to stick with the main pack until getting shelled, then just do a nice, comfortable TT for the rest of the day. Things don't always work as they are planned.
As I'm not a serious racer, I stayed in the middle of the main field, such as it was, through the neutralized start and up the first hill. I was aiming to be right near the end of the group of fast people and sit in for a while. I misjudged. At about the 5 or 6km mark, there was a crash and suddenly the main group was pulling a bit ahead and I was one of the leaders of the chase. I spent much of the next several km trying to catch the field again, occasionally working with other dropped riders, or people coming up behind. Unfortunately, I never made contact again. After 15 or 20 minutes of chasing, my heart rate monitor was showing 96%, with 2ish hours to go, I figured that this kind of effort wasn't sustainable and backed off. It's time trial time!
Sometime shortly thereafter, I was picked up by a largish group of 15-20 riders and stuck with them until just before the aptly named Middleville. For the previous climbs, I had worked my way to 2-4 place in the group, then drifted back over the climbs but stayed in contact. In the final climb up into Middleville, the last steep section, I just popped. Before I knew it, the group was 50m in front of me and that was all she wrote.
For the rest of the ride, I went very, very slowly up the hills and decently on the flats and downhills. Still, while the final results aren't up yet, I believe I was about 5 minutes faster than last year, so I have no real complaints.
And now my racing is done until August, realistically, until September when the 'cross season starts again!
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