5/31/09 Segment 7: Tsawwassen, BC to Chilliwack, BC. Ray, our friend from yesterday evening, told us this would be flat – nice and flat. Apparently Ray is not accustomed to living in Ohio where flat is really FLAT. We did have 3-4 gradual ups that we totally didn’t expect, forcing us to work out of the saddle again for the umpteenth time. We had a couple of Vancouver Island climbs that worked us pretty well. So Ray, we’ll talk to you about your definition of flat when we hook up with you in Kelona later this week. But by and large, with a fantastic westerly tailwind blowing, and fairly flat roads, we flew. Made 62 miles in 4:08, roughly 14.8mph average with 29’er mt bikes loaded to the gills with gear. Sweet indeed! We were on the bikes at 8:30am and done by 1pm – with just one stop at a nice little fresh fruit and vegetable market at about the 2 hr mark in the ride.
I just couldn’t believe it when I’d look down at the speedo and see 20.2 mph, 19.8 mph, 18.9 mph. It was wonderful indeed. Now mind you, we were riding on Trans Can 1, an interstate. Yup, in Canada you can ride your bike on the QEW and the Trans Can. Now don’t get the idea that it’s fun, what with semi’s and travel trailers zooming by at 60-70mph, but it’s fast and efficient. And we had to get into the right mindset once we got on Rt 1. The berm is as big as a lane thank God, and when you ride more to the right, you’re in pretty good shape. The only hassle is when you’re crossing the entry and exit ramps……..you have to merge back to the right very carefully, so as to not get taken out by traffic entering and exiting. The crossing over the exiting lanes is the most the gnarly of the two!
So just imagine yourself riding down the I-80 Turnpike, say Clev to Toledo – that’s us for all of today and half of tomorrow. The traffic is so bloody loud that you have to shout to communicate to one another. So it ends up that you just ride solo and don’t talk.
The really cool thing today was watching the Canadian Rocky Range get bigger and bigger as we rode east. It started out as a kind of mirage when we first got on TC 1, and over the next several hours the range just got bigger and bigger. Finally, after 4 hrs of riding you could make out the individual glaciers, the jagged peaks, and the V-shaped glacially cut valleys on the mountains. Right now, at camp, the mountains are right up in your face, dominating the eastern landscape like a massive wall. Tomorrow, around Hope, BC, we get our first taste of the Canadian Rockies.
What with our early finish to the day – a way we’d like to ride each and every day from here forward – we had plenty of time to work on our “Jobs” and do some repair work. Ryan had broken a rear spoke, the first casualty of the trip, and we needed to pull the rear wheel, tire, tube, and replace the spoke. This was a new one to me what with the disk brake rotars to wiggle the spoke around and through. By the time we had the spoke through the hub and rotar, and ready to mount to the nipple, it was a bent up like a piece of pretzel. But once we got it screwed into the nipple it straightened up quite nicely. But then we noticed that the axel was too tight, way too tight. So we had to loosen the lock nut on the axel and re-true the hub.
Then it was shower time, what with the temps in the low 80’s today. It felt more like a day in Northern Florida than in southern BC! We were happy to be off of the bike so early today with the temps going through the roof out here. The forecast is for more of the same for the next couple of days. Heck, I’ll take this over the winter weather we started with – anyday!
Finished the day at…………….well, plan was to go to a supermarket and get some food to cook. Then, on the ride into town, we saw dag gone freaking Mickey D’s. I blurted out to Ryan: “ Heck, I can just as well much down on 4-5 cheeseburgers and not cook”. And he was on it just as fast. Then, as we got closer, I saw a Chinese Restaurant sign just beyond the Mickey D’s sign. And on that sign it read: “Buffet”. Well, those of you who know me, can pretty much sign off on this one. I was inside of the place and working through three plates of food, 2 big bowls of soup, and a big dish of strawberry ice cream. Buffet takes precedence over everything in my eating world, especially after turning a 430 mile week of riding!
A few glasses of cheap Merlot wine for me here at the picnic table and it’s off to my cushy, roomy Hilleberg for nighty night. Tomorrow we really begin to hit the mts, our home for the next two weeks of riding……..Pete
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