Elevation gain: 2600 feet (it felt like more)
Average speed: 15.6 mph (16.4 before the final 2 kilometers)
The breakdown for today looks like this:
30 miles of amazing
20 miles of tolerable, but not great
7 miles of pain
The first 30 miles were fantastic. The road was smooth, the shoulder wide, the hills rolling, which we enjoy. We averaged 17.4 mph for the first 20 miles it was so great. Then, as we've experienced multiple times throughout this trip, the shoulder reverted back to the older chip seal. Now, this wouldn't have been a big deal the first couple days, but on day 6 of riding believe me when I say our posteriors did not appreciate the additional bumps. We just focused on riding as quickly as we could to get to the hot springs. We didn't see much in the way of animals today. We saw another eagle, and a few buzzards. I have an appreciation for buzzards after working summers at the Oregon Zoo and hearing the bird show about 1000 times.
We were doing pretty well, until the last 7 miles. At about 7-8 miles out we had a descent. Normally this is a plus, but it coincided with the shoulder getting more gravelly and bumpy, and an increase in traffic. Not pleasant. At this point it was also getting quite warm, and our destination did not appear when we expected, so we had to just keep riding. We finally made it to Fairmont Hot Springs, only to discover that the resort is 2 kilometers up a roughly 10% grade hill. The sun was really getting to us, and we got to the top and collapsed for awhile. We were not happy people.
Luckily tomorrow is a rest day, and we can relax and soak in the hot springs. Believe me, it is much needed. My legs need a rest, and my butt seriously needs to not sit on a saddle tomorrow. Unfortunately we'll have to backtrack about 3 miles Saturday, which makes our ride roughly 71 miles with a major mountain, but by then we should be rested. Or at least more rested than we currencly are.
A few nice things about Canada - The construction workers let us through before the rest of the cars
- The trucks are especially polite
- There's wayside garbage cans everywhere
- There are posters telling people to report polluters and not let their cars idle, there's also an enormous recycling bin in our hotel room
No comments:
Post a Comment