So we left the flat lands and sunny skies of the prairies for the hills, unseasonably cold weather and bugs of northern Ontario. After several days of rest and recuperation we left Thunder Bay on July 03. It was Amy's birthday so I discreetly decorated her bike with pink tassels and duct taped a princess tiara to her helmet for the day. She continues to have both attached as you will see in some of the photos. Thank goodness for duct tape. We were both feeling pretty good and excited about being on our way again as we left the KOA campground. Weather was a bit cloudy and the highway was better than we thought it would be.
We ended up that evening at a great campsite on a river. The quietest yet that we have had. Celebrated Amy's birthday with a bottle of wine and birthday gifts from Paul and me. Yes, we (Amy) carried the bottle of wine all the way from Thunder Bay.
Next day we made it to Nipigon. We met up with Bob and Jean who are normally retired golfers who decided to bike from coast to coast. Bob is towing a trailer like me which we seem to see more and more in our travels. They were pretty much the first group of cyclists we were able to sit down and compare notes with. It just so happened that another pair of cyclists showed up that same evening at the campsite. This couple is doing the trip in style. They bought some very fancy touring bikes. Bought a van. Hired a driver. The driver drove the van to the west coast while they flew. They ride about 150 to 200 km per day. The driver comes along behind and pretty much does what ever they ask of him. Not a bad way to do it I guess. Not as big an adventure but they can say they did it.
Have I mentioned there are many hills in northern Ontario. Like a lot of them. The winds after Nipigon were mostly in our favor on this day. We had to do a couple of doozy hills today. One was at least 3 km long. The roads here are curvy so when you climb hills you are never sure where the summit is going to be. Each hill we have approached has at least 2 if not 3 summits to them. After the first couple of hills we have learned to accept that what we see as the top is not the summit.
There is very little in the way of towns that we go through. On this day we came across only one gas station that was open. Pretty much every little store we passed that looked like it used to be open is all bordered up. We ended up in Rossport and stayed in the provincial campground here. We were right on the lake. Sandy beach with small pebble rocks. The big rocks (shoals) kind of reminded me of some of the terrain you would mountain bike on in Moab. That night it did spit rain on us. And that is pretty much how the rest of the trip has now been. Rain. Will talk about that later.
Have I mentioned the unseasonably cold weather that Ontario has been hit with this year. Great for riding as it is not too hot. But I have to tell you when in camp in the evening it can be cold. We have had a couple of nights where we have been cooking our dinner in all of our clothes. Luckily we both now have wool long underwear top and bottoms. Hard to believe we would have needed them in the summer. We have summer sleeping bags that are good for down to 9 degrees. We have had a couple of nights where the temperature went down to 2 degrees. We both had all of our clothes on and pretty much shivered during the night.
By this time you are probably wondering are those 2 having fun yet. Have to say a little bit nicer weather would be nice but we are having a great time. We look at the weather forecasts pretty much every day and ask anyone we see for updates. It is pretty much the same the whole way. We have this rain cloud that is following us across the province. We are kind of like Charlie Brown's Linus character.
So after a week of cold weather we finally broke down and decided to book into a motel to get warm again. Stayed in Marathon which is another depressed little town. Marathon does have this great long beach called Pebble Beach. The rocks on this beach are all rounded pebbles about 3 to 5 inches big.
Did I mention the unseasonably cold weather yet? Well this cold snap is also doing something to change the wind pattern. We should be having tail winds but instead the winds are coming mostly from the East. Either the East or just all over the place. So we are not putting in the miles we wanted to do plus it is a lot of effort riding into the winds. Amy is having a much harder time than I am with these head winds. Amy has front and rear panniers and I am towing the Bob trailer. What this means is that I am much more aerodynamic than Amy. Her panniers give her a lot of wind resistance and she really has to put a lot of energy into keeping the bike in a straight line and has to work harder going into the wind. The cross winds can be brutal as well as they will push you all over the road if you are not careful.
So you may think I am having a pretty easy time of it. Not so. While Amy is fighting the winds, any time we go up a hill I have this thing I am towing that wants to drag me down the hill. This is minor though. When I see what Amy is going through I am very happy to have the Bob now.
When I decided to go with the Bob rather than using the panniers I was pretty excited. Have to tell you though that the first couple of days me and Bob did not get along very well. He is great for packing. Just throw everything in the big duffel bag and you are good to go. When you are riding you hardly know he is there except for when you are going up hills. However, as soon as you stop Bob seems to have a mind of his own. He is very hard to control. It has taken me this long (almost 3 weeks) but I think I have figured out his cantankerous ways and I have him sorted out. It seems that when stopped he wants to go one way and me another. We have this mutual understanding now where he knows I am the boss and does what I tell him to do. He is like a 3 year old though. I have to watch him all the time or he (me) gets in trouble.
Have to sign off now as I am getting kicked from one computer to another. Just to say we have had a couple of nice days of sunny weather and when we do they seem to be on our rest days. Had a great day on the beach in Pancake Bay. The beach was sandy and you would have thought you were in Mexico or Hawaii or even Kits Beach without the people though. Even managed a dip twice in the frigid waters of Lake Superior.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
On the Road again
Hi everyone a quick update to let you all know we are on the road again. We left the flat plains and sunny skies of the priaires for the hills, bugs and cold of northern ontario. More importantly we are both in good health and the bikes are working great. Not much chance to pop into librarys to catch up on the blog. Will hopefully do a decent update next week.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Some photos
Susan has got you caught up on what we've been doing the last couple days, so I'm just posting a few photos from along the way.
Resting in Thunder Bay
Our flight from Calgary to Thunder Bay was pretty uneventful. The staff at WestJet in Calgary were amazingly helpful in getting our bikes packed and ready for the plane. We arrived in TB at about 3:30 Pm and proceeded to put our bikes back together again. We were rolling along the highway by 5. My gears right from the get go were not working properly. About 4 km into the ride my back wheel seized up and I came to a complete stop. Luckily I was going up a hill.
When we turned the bike over to have a good look at what was going on we saw that I had chain suck and my jockey wheel was stuck in one of my rear spokes. For those of you who do not know much about bikes I can tell you this is not a good thing. We got the tools out fiddled around and finally were able to get the jockey wheel free. This happened 2 more times before we figured out that my hanger was really bent. At this point we decided I had to do a major manoeuvre to fix the problem. So I bit the bullet, Amy looked away and I yanked on the derailer and hanger to try to straighten them out. It looked better for sure after I had done this and luckily nothing broke off. A hanger can snap right off if you try to bend it to much.
TB is fairly flat. At least what we could see from the plane coming in. So we decided to put the bike in the front and rear middle ring for the rest of the ride. Essentially turned my bike into a one speed. No changing gears for the rest of the ride as this is what seemed to precipitate the chain suck.
We made it into the KOA campground about 15 km later. There were a couple of hills along the way but not a bad ride with only one gear. I rode mostly with my right leg to give the left leg a rest. This detour is all about resting my left leg so I tried to do what I could even while riding.
On the way we stopped at the Terry Fox Memorial. Seeing the memorial was very inspiring and kept me pushing on. Standing there looking at the memorial I thought of all my patients who have fought brave struggles and for those who continue to do so in their own battles with their cancer. This disease does need to be conquered. (Anita, I said a special little prayer for you while at the site).
Next day (Tuesday) we rode into town to try to find a bike shop that would deal with my bike. The first bike shop (Rolling Thunder) does not deal with Norcos but the technician made a call for me to the next bike shop (Fresh Air Experience). They had one hanger for my bike. So off we went. This shop was at the other end of town. Remember I am still only in one gear and am supposed to be resting my leg. Staff again at this shop were very helpful. The bike was fixed and I now have all my gears with a new hanger and a lot of yanking on the derailer and jockey wheel to straighten them out. The tech at the shop did not seem to think I needed new ones. So off we go but I am changing my gears very gingerly. I am going to get Rob to send me 2 new hangers for my bike just in case. We think that the issues with the bike arose from the plane ride from Calgary to TB. The bike was probably mishandled in transit. It does not take much to cause damage to bike parts.
I rode back to camp from here and Amy continued on with the day doing all the errands we needed done such as food and supplies. With the bike fixed the emphasis is now on resting.
Amy is doing great. Her ankle is significant better thank goodness. Her main issue right now is the cold at night. It is unseasonably cold out here. The wind is coming from the east and it is cold. And every now and then it rains. With the easterly winds it is a good thing we are not riding right now anyways.
Canada Day was spent at the campsite. The KOA staff had activities going on pretty much all day. They included tye-dyeing your own t-shirt. We did not participate as we did not want the extra weight on the bikes. Balloon toss and sack race for the kids. A BBQ at dinner with a magic show as entertainment. Then fireworks at night. The day went by so fast. We pretty much spent the whole day wearing all of our clothes because of the inclement weather.
Today is day 2 of full rest days. I can tell you my leg is now significantly better but not 100%. It is only morning though. Amy has gone into town to run errands. Get food and supplies. And hopefully some more wine.
The plan is to start riding tomorrow morning again. We are both anxious to get riding as this is what this trip is all about. Amy is going with the flow a little bit better than me. She keeps reminding me we are on vacation so it does not really matter what happens. She is right. I am still very excited about tomorrow.
When we turned the bike over to have a good look at what was going on we saw that I had chain suck and my jockey wheel was stuck in one of my rear spokes. For those of you who do not know much about bikes I can tell you this is not a good thing. We got the tools out fiddled around and finally were able to get the jockey wheel free. This happened 2 more times before we figured out that my hanger was really bent. At this point we decided I had to do a major manoeuvre to fix the problem. So I bit the bullet, Amy looked away and I yanked on the derailer and hanger to try to straighten them out. It looked better for sure after I had done this and luckily nothing broke off. A hanger can snap right off if you try to bend it to much.
TB is fairly flat. At least what we could see from the plane coming in. So we decided to put the bike in the front and rear middle ring for the rest of the ride. Essentially turned my bike into a one speed. No changing gears for the rest of the ride as this is what seemed to precipitate the chain suck.
We made it into the KOA campground about 15 km later. There were a couple of hills along the way but not a bad ride with only one gear. I rode mostly with my right leg to give the left leg a rest. This detour is all about resting my left leg so I tried to do what I could even while riding.
On the way we stopped at the Terry Fox Memorial. Seeing the memorial was very inspiring and kept me pushing on. Standing there looking at the memorial I thought of all my patients who have fought brave struggles and for those who continue to do so in their own battles with their cancer. This disease does need to be conquered. (Anita, I said a special little prayer for you while at the site).
Next day (Tuesday) we rode into town to try to find a bike shop that would deal with my bike. The first bike shop (Rolling Thunder) does not deal with Norcos but the technician made a call for me to the next bike shop (Fresh Air Experience). They had one hanger for my bike. So off we went. This shop was at the other end of town. Remember I am still only in one gear and am supposed to be resting my leg. Staff again at this shop were very helpful. The bike was fixed and I now have all my gears with a new hanger and a lot of yanking on the derailer and jockey wheel to straighten them out. The tech at the shop did not seem to think I needed new ones. So off we go but I am changing my gears very gingerly. I am going to get Rob to send me 2 new hangers for my bike just in case. We think that the issues with the bike arose from the plane ride from Calgary to TB. The bike was probably mishandled in transit. It does not take much to cause damage to bike parts.
I rode back to camp from here and Amy continued on with the day doing all the errands we needed done such as food and supplies. With the bike fixed the emphasis is now on resting.
Amy is doing great. Her ankle is significant better thank goodness. Her main issue right now is the cold at night. It is unseasonably cold out here. The wind is coming from the east and it is cold. And every now and then it rains. With the easterly winds it is a good thing we are not riding right now anyways.
Canada Day was spent at the campsite. The KOA staff had activities going on pretty much all day. They included tye-dyeing your own t-shirt. We did not participate as we did not want the extra weight on the bikes. Balloon toss and sack race for the kids. A BBQ at dinner with a magic show as entertainment. Then fireworks at night. The day went by so fast. We pretty much spent the whole day wearing all of our clothes because of the inclement weather.
Today is day 2 of full rest days. I can tell you my leg is now significantly better but not 100%. It is only morning though. Amy has gone into town to run errands. Get food and supplies. And hopefully some more wine.
The plan is to start riding tomorrow morning again. We are both anxious to get riding as this is what this trip is all about. Amy is going with the flow a little bit better than me. She keeps reminding me we are on vacation so it does not really matter what happens. She is right. I am still very excited about tomorrow.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Back to Calgary
My heel seems much better, although I won't really know if I'm fully recovered till I do another long day of riding. Susan's still not 100% either, so we've decided to rest for a while and let these ailments fully heal. Continuing to ride will likley just aggravate them more and slow us down further. This means we've fallen behind schedule and will continue to fall further and further behind if we sit it out here in The Hat. But it's still a vacation and so after discovering all the nooks and crannies of Medicine Hat (a sunny patio serving cold beer, the world's biggest teepee, the wave pool with hot tub and steam room, Starbucks etc) we've come up with Plan B. We're renting a car, driving back to Calgary and flying across the prairies. It seems like cheating, but the only other option we have is to rest here for a week and then go as far as we can. Given north of Lake Superior is supposed to be the prettiest part, and our return flights are out of Ontario, we're skipping the prairies and heading to Thunder Bay. We'll rest there for a few more days before resuming our riding. It will be inspiratinal to start again in Thunder Bay - it's where Terry Fox had to stop on his epic cross country journey.
It would have been nice to drive across the prairies and drop the car off when we felt good again, but no car rental agencies would allow an out of province drop off. The train wasn't an option - we needed to get to Edmonton to take the train, and it was going to be slower and more expensive than flying, and Susan is a bit averse to the Greyhound after already having taken a bus ride once so far on this trip.
I've logged only just over 600km so far and am keen to ride again. Bring on Thunder Bay - not sure what's there but I'll let you know in a couple days.
It would have been nice to drive across the prairies and drop the car off when we felt good again, but no car rental agencies would allow an out of province drop off. The train wasn't an option - we needed to get to Edmonton to take the train, and it was going to be slower and more expensive than flying, and Susan is a bit averse to the Greyhound after already having taken a bus ride once so far on this trip.
I've logged only just over 600km so far and am keen to ride again. Bring on Thunder Bay - not sure what's there but I'll let you know in a couple days.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Is it Only Sunday
So much has happened since Tuesday morning. Meeting with Amy at the airport we were both excited and nervous about taking off. Excited to finally be on our way after months of planning and training. Nervous, wondering if we/I would be able to put the bike back together. It all went well and thanks to Rob's helpful instructions all was put back together and the bike was in working order.
We had a pleasant ride thru Calgary on the bike paths. We finally made our way to Hwy 1 after a quick stop at Tim Horton's (wonder how many of those stops we will do along the way?). We had to use the handy compass initially to get our bearings as there were no mountains around to say yes that is North. We found our way onto hwy 1 and after about 500 meters realized we were heading into the sun and the winds were against us. Thank goodness for the compass. The mountains sure are handy on the west coast. Hopefully this is not a sign of what is to come.
We managed to ride 68 km on our first day. Pretty good considering we started riding after 2 pm. We were both pretty happy with that and thought we had had a good start to the trip. We both felt pretty good. I was having some shin pain which I had developed on day 2 of the Ride to Conquer Cancer trip but it was not holding me back in my cycling on this first day out.
We started riding on day 2 from Strathmore and our destination was for Brooks almost 120 km away. We stopped along the way for short little breaks. It is pretty much open country now with lots of fields and occasional cattle. Every time we stopped I was having more pain in my shin and walking was becoming unbearable. In Bosano we stopped for lunch. We talked about my leg and decided that if I was to continue on the trip I needed to have some serious rest days. The day after the Ride to Conquer Cancer I was on my feet all day and really had no time to look after my leg.
Amy wanted to keep riding as she was feeling pretty good. It was a very hard thing to do for me to leave Amy behind and separate so early on in the trip. We put together a game plan of where we were to meet on the Thursday and I boarded the Greyhound bus and went into Medicine Hat. That was another days ride for Amy.
When I arrived into Medicine hat I was totally disoriented. I was so used to seeing flat country side. Medicine Hat is in a river valley and surrounded by hills. Very interesting topography. The bus drove right by my campground and deposited me at the opposite end of town at the bottom of the hill. When I got back on the bike I knew I had to go up and head back West. Luckily I met up with a local who gave me instructions on how to get back up those hills the easiest way. My derailer had been damaged on the bus so I did not have any easy gears to use on the up hills. It was a long, hard day and rode into camp at about 7:30 PM. My leg was not happy at the end of this day.
I had enough food in my pack so the next day I did not move at all other than the BR and the office to get ice for my leg in an effort to get the leg healing. I only moved 50 ft from the tent. I expected Amy to roll in that evening but she never showed up. I was not too worried as the winds were pretty fierce on Thursday. They were coming from a southerly direction and I knew Amy was riding south west so I suspected she had stopped earlier for the day and settled in somewhere for the night.
Amy and I met up the next day. Oddly enough she has been having similar experiences with her leg as me except for her it is the achilles tendon that is bothering her. She ended up spending Thursday as a rest day as well in Brooks. It is weird sometimes with us. What Amy does Susan must do and vice versa.
Once we met up the discussion ensued about what we were going to do as it seems unrealistic for us to continue to plan to ride the number of kilometers each day. With our overuse injuries they will not heal if we continue to ride the number of kilometers we are planning to do.
There were so many options but the only option that worked for us is driving back to Calgary and flying to Thunder Bay and restarting our ride from there. Less mileage per day (about 70 Km). We had wanted to rent a car and continue the trip with driving across the country for the next couple of days until our injuries healed but you are not allowed to take rental cars out of the province.
So how are we both dealing with this. Of course there is extreme disappointment for the both of us. The positive side to this is that we are both injured so it does make the planning somewhat easier. I am a little stressed out about all this as I like to have things planned out and know what is going to happen. I am trying to let this all go. Amy is being calm and bringing my stress level down. What will be will be.
Next post will come from Thunder Bay.
We had a pleasant ride thru Calgary on the bike paths. We finally made our way to Hwy 1 after a quick stop at Tim Horton's (wonder how many of those stops we will do along the way?). We had to use the handy compass initially to get our bearings as there were no mountains around to say yes that is North. We found our way onto hwy 1 and after about 500 meters realized we were heading into the sun and the winds were against us. Thank goodness for the compass. The mountains sure are handy on the west coast. Hopefully this is not a sign of what is to come.
We managed to ride 68 km on our first day. Pretty good considering we started riding after 2 pm. We were both pretty happy with that and thought we had had a good start to the trip. We both felt pretty good. I was having some shin pain which I had developed on day 2 of the Ride to Conquer Cancer trip but it was not holding me back in my cycling on this first day out.
We started riding on day 2 from Strathmore and our destination was for Brooks almost 120 km away. We stopped along the way for short little breaks. It is pretty much open country now with lots of fields and occasional cattle. Every time we stopped I was having more pain in my shin and walking was becoming unbearable. In Bosano we stopped for lunch. We talked about my leg and decided that if I was to continue on the trip I needed to have some serious rest days. The day after the Ride to Conquer Cancer I was on my feet all day and really had no time to look after my leg.
Amy wanted to keep riding as she was feeling pretty good. It was a very hard thing to do for me to leave Amy behind and separate so early on in the trip. We put together a game plan of where we were to meet on the Thursday and I boarded the Greyhound bus and went into Medicine Hat. That was another days ride for Amy.
When I arrived into Medicine hat I was totally disoriented. I was so used to seeing flat country side. Medicine Hat is in a river valley and surrounded by hills. Very interesting topography. The bus drove right by my campground and deposited me at the opposite end of town at the bottom of the hill. When I got back on the bike I knew I had to go up and head back West. Luckily I met up with a local who gave me instructions on how to get back up those hills the easiest way. My derailer had been damaged on the bus so I did not have any easy gears to use on the up hills. It was a long, hard day and rode into camp at about 7:30 PM. My leg was not happy at the end of this day.
I had enough food in my pack so the next day I did not move at all other than the BR and the office to get ice for my leg in an effort to get the leg healing. I only moved 50 ft from the tent. I expected Amy to roll in that evening but she never showed up. I was not too worried as the winds were pretty fierce on Thursday. They were coming from a southerly direction and I knew Amy was riding south west so I suspected she had stopped earlier for the day and settled in somewhere for the night.
Amy and I met up the next day. Oddly enough she has been having similar experiences with her leg as me except for her it is the achilles tendon that is bothering her. She ended up spending Thursday as a rest day as well in Brooks. It is weird sometimes with us. What Amy does Susan must do and vice versa.
Once we met up the discussion ensued about what we were going to do as it seems unrealistic for us to continue to plan to ride the number of kilometers each day. With our overuse injuries they will not heal if we continue to ride the number of kilometers we are planning to do.
There were so many options but the only option that worked for us is driving back to Calgary and flying to Thunder Bay and restarting our ride from there. Less mileage per day (about 70 Km). We had wanted to rent a car and continue the trip with driving across the country for the next couple of days until our injuries healed but you are not allowed to take rental cars out of the province.
So how are we both dealing with this. Of course there is extreme disappointment for the both of us. The positive side to this is that we are both injured so it does make the planning somewhat easier. I am a little stressed out about all this as I like to have things planned out and know what is going to happen. I am trying to let this all go. Amy is being calm and bringing my stress level down. What will be will be.
Next post will come from Thunder Bay.
From start to now
Getting ready for a trip like this takes time, and time was the one ingredient missing on the only day set aside to get ready for this trip. After the ride to Conquer Cancer I thought it would be fairly easy to re-pack for the big trip - but easier said than done. I wouldn't recommend anyone doing 2 big events back to back like this unless they were extremely organized. And even then, I still doubt it's possible or can happen stress-free. Those of you who know Susan (and how organized she is) will understand the true extent of the logistics required when even she found it near impossible to get ready in time.
But we made it - due largely to our respective men helping us out with packing and keeping us sane along the way as we forced bikes, camping gear and clothes into our bike boxes - although I'm sure we drove them crazy all day.
The flight to Calgary was uneventful. I sat beside a classmate I did my MBA with who was heading to Calgary to do a sales pitch - it's a small world except, I'm finding, when you're trying to pedal your way across it.
Getting the bike back together then loaded up took about an hour and half and then we were off on a bike path we found heading towards town. We worked our way south east toward Hwy 1 to get out of Calgary and our first wrong turn was quickly identified as we noticed we were cycling into the sun and it was late afternoon. The first night was spent in a camp at Strathmore (68km) followed by a long day to Brooks the next day (138km). Susan's sore leg from the Conquer cancer ride had flared up so after lunch she took the bus to Medicine Hat to get a couple days rest while I continued another 50km to Brooks. The last hour was into a head wind that kept increasing.
The next day I contemplated the bus as well since after cycling about 7km I realized my sore achilles from the cancer ride was too inflamed to continue. Fortunately, my little voice of reason won over the "I can do it, just suck it up" voice as I had been unclipping my left foot and pedaling with only my right leg for quite a while (a bad sign and not sustainable over 100km - at least not by me). Also, brutal cross winds were slowing me down to around 12km/h which would have required about 12 hours of solid riding to reach my destination. Since there is nothing between Brookds and Medicine Hat, I turned around at the 10km mark and coasted back to town for a day of R&R. The winds got stronger throughout the day, to the point where branches were breaking off trees and skipping along the road and I could barely walk upright. Turns out a tornado touched down north of where I was, so my decision to stay and rest proved to be a good one. It would have been a miserable day.
My heel was good enough to ride this morning, so I got an early start and made it the 110 km to Medicine Hat by 2pm. I had a lot of strong cross winds and some good tailwinds along the way and didn't stop much since I was by myself. There wasn't much to see along the way although I had a staring contest with a deer during lunch. I guess I won as he evnentually cantered away across the highway leaving me to finish my lunch alone. My iPod kept me happy along the way, but I regret to say that so far Eminem is the best music to cycle to. I really hate to admit I like Eminem.
But we made it - due largely to our respective men helping us out with packing and keeping us sane along the way as we forced bikes, camping gear and clothes into our bike boxes - although I'm sure we drove them crazy all day.
The flight to Calgary was uneventful. I sat beside a classmate I did my MBA with who was heading to Calgary to do a sales pitch - it's a small world except, I'm finding, when you're trying to pedal your way across it.
Getting the bike back together then loaded up took about an hour and half and then we were off on a bike path we found heading towards town. We worked our way south east toward Hwy 1 to get out of Calgary and our first wrong turn was quickly identified as we noticed we were cycling into the sun and it was late afternoon. The first night was spent in a camp at Strathmore (68km) followed by a long day to Brooks the next day (138km). Susan's sore leg from the Conquer cancer ride had flared up so after lunch she took the bus to Medicine Hat to get a couple days rest while I continued another 50km to Brooks. The last hour was into a head wind that kept increasing.
The next day I contemplated the bus as well since after cycling about 7km I realized my sore achilles from the cancer ride was too inflamed to continue. Fortunately, my little voice of reason won over the "I can do it, just suck it up" voice as I had been unclipping my left foot and pedaling with only my right leg for quite a while (a bad sign and not sustainable over 100km - at least not by me). Also, brutal cross winds were slowing me down to around 12km/h which would have required about 12 hours of solid riding to reach my destination. Since there is nothing between Brookds and Medicine Hat, I turned around at the 10km mark and coasted back to town for a day of R&R. The winds got stronger throughout the day, to the point where branches were breaking off trees and skipping along the road and I could barely walk upright. Turns out a tornado touched down north of where I was, so my decision to stay and rest proved to be a good one. It would have been a miserable day.
My heel was good enough to ride this morning, so I got an early start and made it the 110 km to Medicine Hat by 2pm. I had a lot of strong cross winds and some good tailwinds along the way and didn't stop much since I was by myself. There wasn't much to see along the way although I had a staring contest with a deer during lunch. I guess I won as he evnentually cantered away across the highway leaving me to finish my lunch alone. My iPod kept me happy along the way, but I regret to say that so far Eminem is the best music to cycle to. I really hate to admit I like Eminem.
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