Tuesday June 27, 2006

Spencer Bridge
Distance: 144km
Temperature 46 degrees

Very tired this evening-had a hell of a ride in oppressive 46 degree heat (measured on route by one of the Ozzi’s bike mounted thermometer.

We knew it was going to be a scorcher when we left at 7:30 this morning with warm air already swirling around our legs as we set off.
We’re very slow to get going in the morning, as we were the last to leave, before the galley crew who has to clean everything up before heading out.

Again, we rode beside and towards mountains that were cloaked in an early morning blue mist which seemed to evaporate near mid-morning.
The geography of the ride was noticeably different, as although it started off lush and green, the landscape gradually changed to a dryer, craggy-rock.
Our ride started off with a glorious descent, that had us wind through various canyons.
To get through the mountains, they have blasted through the rock, resulting in numerous, nerve wracking tunnels-seven of which we had to go through today; ranging up to about 600 meters in length.

For much of the early morning ride the only sound we heard was the wind in our ears, occasionally interrupted by a nearby train’s whistle echoing through the canyons.
As the day progressed, so did the traffic, which got pretty hairy in parts; most of the ride was on the Trans-Canada Highway, which hosts most of the massive logging trucks, and other ‘road trains;’ some were considerate and gave us room, but some didn’t seem to acknowledge our presence.
Since we’re riding in such remote areas these trucks are moving massive amounts of everything imaginable to far away places, often in a big rush to get there.

Usually there is a shoulder on which one can ride, but sometimes the shoulder has partially eroded, or is too full of road debris for us to ride on, forcing us onto the road where often it is a single lane.
A couple of times today I thought it was curtains as one of these trucks came screaming by; we could always tell they were coming by the high pitched whine of the engine, but judging the distance away wasn’t always easy.

The temperature kept climbing, hitting the 30’s by 10:30am.
Since we were in canyon country the climbs were very long 2-3 km, with spectacular descents-although sometimes the wind was blowing in our faces, ripping us off of our prized high-speed descents.
Cycling is a lot like investing, usually whatever you invest in (a hill climb) is rewarded with a downhill, however, much like investing sometimes the markets don’t work according to the plan and you end up losing out-that is how it felt today-not all of our work paid off.
Lewis and I kept thinking that our brakes were rubbing on our tires, or that we’d gotten a flat tire, as we were pedaling and pedaling, and didn’t feel like we were moving.

One climb; Jack-ass pass was a long 3 km climb, with the heat was bearing down on us, almost as if weighted-- the black asphalt although smooth, acts like a mirror and just throws the heat right back up at you, so you’re getting the oppressive heat from all angles.
I felt like I was in an oven; that blast of hot air you get when opening an oven door is the sensation I had all over me-near the top of the climb I was feeling quite dizzy and disorientated, and I was out of water.
Luckily this climb did pay back with a nice descent, although not quite long enough.

We stopped at Hell’s Gate (on the Fraser River) and took a cable-car across the gorge (a bit of a rip off) where we raided the café’s free sample offerings of smoked salmon and bannock.
I feigned interest in the bannock, commenting that bannock is from Newfoundland, so that I could have a second sampling to confirm my suspicions of its origins-- although I think the kid was onto my plan.
It was there we learned that a recently drowned cow had just gone by, I’m glad I missed that, but it is apparently a common occurrence, as there are cows up stream.
Apparently they don’t swim too good-the poor buggers.
Some good news was posted from 1996 when a blind cow survived the white water, and made local news.
Apparently the volume of water surging through Hell’s Gate kicks Niagara Fall’s ass.

At about this point, the scenery started to change quite dramatically; although we were riding beside the Fraser River, the landscape was noticeably starting to lose its treed quality, and was replaced by a very dry, rocky, desert like terrain.
The feeling of isolation again intensified, especially since we came through very few towns (the one town we passed through is a one-road town, with some very odd neglected stores.)
There didn’t seem to be much going on, but they did have an RCMP station, which is odd, as I can’t imagine what for.)
We briefly stopped to see where the Thompson and Fraser rivers converge, but couldn’t stay too long, as I could literally feel myself cooking.

I have developed a charming heat rash, mixed in with the symphony of bugs bites; mozzies have been having feeding frenzies on our group-securing the future generations of mozzies to come.
Lewis’ right leg is noticeably more chewed that his left, not sure why-maybe it’s a light meat/dark meat thing-me they don’t seem to mind. I think I have bites on top of bites, making me look like a join-the-dots map.
I think if I look closely enough I can see Orion on my leg.

The rest of the ride was a blur, as I seriously think I was starting to suffer from heat stroke, the rash on my legs looked angrier, and I was starting to hallucinate and see things-I swear I saw Mrs. Jerrett from The Facts of Life on the side of the road at some point.
After what seemed an endless ride in this oppressive heat we eventually arrived at our Shangri-La campsite ay 3:30 (second ones’ in, not that it’s a race, plus they left way earlier than us-but anyhow, who’s counting?), where we briefly rested, only to have to start preparing dinner for 29 hungry people (we picked up a straggler.)
Our galley crew consists of 4 people, however one of our members rolled into camp at 9:30pm, and the other one made the salad and buggered off, leaving Lewis and I to do the work.
A team meeting is definitely in order; we’re on breakfast tomorrow morning too, so we’re earlier to rise.

We’re staying beside the train tracks, so every hour or so a train come barreling through our camp site-I hope my earplugs are train-proof.
Ok, off to slather myself in goop to take away the incessant itching.

Copy and paste the link for pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?&conn_speed=1&collid=69764260306.587631389106.1151606215249&mode=fromsite

Monday June 26, 2006

Day 2: Hope
Distance: 88 km
Max speed: 75.2 km/hour
Temperature 38 degrees

We got up this morning really early (or really early for me) at 6:00am.
Turns out we are both slow (I will share some blame with Lewis) in getting ready, as we were one of the last groups to leave camp this morning.
As punishment for my slovenliness, I missed out on the hot oatmeal and was forced to eat cold slop (not really, but I wanted oatmeal.)

Off we went at about 7:30-ish, riding into a cool morning.
The route took us along country roads, and then onto what turned out to be more of a highway for a while, with monster trucks zooming by us-sucking us along in their wake for a couple of glorious seconds.

Since we knew the temperature was going to hit 38, we pushed the pace, and soon passed most of our group. This is not, I am sure, what Dale Carnegie would suggest in his classic book, ‘how to win friends and influence people’, but we didn’t want to dawdle and get caught in the upcoming intense heat (which did eventually catch us at about 10:30.)

Again, the scenery is just amazing, and almost doesn’t seem real; we passed by emerald green lakes that are nestled beside blue-ish-misty mountains.
Pancake-flat land is bracketed by these mountains, giving one a feeling of isolation, also probably owing to the fact that we’ve come across very few towns.
Of the few that we passed, a couple had shut down gas stations and stores-adding to the feeling of remoteness.

One town we did go through, Agassiz is so quaint; I was half-expecting a movie set crew to come and tear it down at any minute-it looked so much like a ‘western’ town, with all the store fronts reminiscent of all those cow-boy type towns.
We passed all kinds of interesting agriculture-hazelnuts! I don’t think I knew they grew on trees, but we passed an entire orchard, along with ‘Bob’s hazelnuts’ store or something like that.
Also markedly different is the lack of gentrification-no Starbucks, Second Cup, or even Tim’s-all the stores are still like the old days, ‘the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker’, all run by cousin Marg, or some other person whose family has likely been in the area since the beginning of time.

We had kept hearing from numerous people, including Bud, the organizer that the reason we go from west to east and not the other way around, is because of the prevailing winds. So far this theory is yet to be proven, as we’ve only been railed upon by the winds so far, slowing us down considerably near the end of our ride.
At one long stretch we happened upon a tractor who pulled in front of us; Lewis had the great idea of drafting off of it, so we jumped onto its tail and got a free ride for about 5 km.
We were traveling at about 30km/hour without hardly any effort; my heart rate was 116 beats/minute, and after it pulled away my heart rate jumped to 143 going at about the same speed-was great fun, and we were sad when he waved a friendly goodbye and turned into the next field.

The next bit of excitement was this fantastic descent into a valley; a winding road with a sharp drop took me up to a speed of 75 km/hour-what a rush!

Near the end of our ride the heat was draining and intense, slowing us down quite a bit. We pushed it hard, thinking that we’d be able to set up camp and relax; we pulled into our camp ground at 11:30 am (first one’s here!) with no truck in site.
It ended up rolling into camp at 2:00pm, so we weren’t too happy with having busted our asses to have to sit in the heat.
But all grief was quickly assuaged with beer (for Lewis) and a change of clothes for me.

We’re very near one of these emerald green lakes, where we went for a dip-just what the doctor ordered, the water cold and refreshing on our sun-seared skin.
Our camp site is very pretty, and has these carvings--we’re in ‘Hope’ the chain-saw carving capital of Canada-seriously, I didn’t know there was any competition for such a title, but sure enough there are plenty of wood carvings of the various wildlife in the area, adding to the natural charm of the place.

Now, I am starving and waiting for dinner….tomorrow is supposed to be a tough ride; big climbs, longer distance, and tough roads-bring it on....

Sunday June 25, 2006

Our first official ride of the Tour!
Our route took us from UBC to Spanish Banks where we had a group photo taken, and then did the ceremonial dipping of the tires in the Pacific Ocean-I thought that I wouldn’t care for this ceremony, but after thinking that we’d be ending our ride on the opposite side of the country on the Atlantic side, I couldn’t help myself from shoving my tire firmly into the ocean.

We then took a route that lead us through Burnaby, Port Moody, Port Coquitlam, and then I am not sure after that.
It’s nice to meet the places that I have heard about on the news for various reasons or another.

I’m running out of adjectives to describe the magnificent scenery; it really is breathtaking countryside, with the view of snow-capped mountains in the background.
It’s quite ironic riding in intense heat, with the snow within sight; I kept thinking that at any minute we’d enjoy a soothing, cool current of chilling mountain air that happened to cascade from the mountain tops-no such luck.

We haven’t had much hot weather riding thus far; our spring hadn’t quite reached summer temperatures, while here they are in the full swing of the heat-it takes a few days to get used to it, so the ride today, although didn’t include any lung or leg crushing hills, was tough just for the fact of the heat.
At one point I dumped half my water bottle on my head, and then had to ask Lewis for a top-up.

We started off with the group, but soon splintered into smaller groups; Lewis and I ended up riding with a guy who is a native Vancouverite, and later with another guy who is from Port Moody.
The three of us were first into camp at about 12:15 or so (not that it’s a race) with the last of the group coming in closer to 4:00pm.
I felt really badly for them, as most of us had already set up camp and were sitting back sucking back cold beers.

Our driver, Megan has a really tough job, as she must play nanny to 27 needy, hungry cyclists, as well as shop, organize, drive, organize, get beer, organize, and a host of other jobs that I am not sure of yet, but know that it includes organization. I don’t envy her job, but she probably doesn’t envy ours either.
I’m guessing she’s in her early 20’s, and is part of a hospitality course, where this is serving as a summer job, as well as credit.

We’re staying at a trout fishery; I think the place used to host other campers, but now only hosts us as campers, out of habit for doing it for so many years.
Our first time, out of the box tent set-up (a camping faux-pas) went well; our tent has a vestibule where we can leave our soggy things.
The Ozzies in the group win for best tent-it’s really cool and looks like a stand-up space ship.

Ok, off to socialize!