6/26/09: Off Segment; Narrows of Lac Manitoba to Ericsdale Manitoba; 43 miles.
We ended up getting a massive triple scoop of Canadian Maple Walnut ice cream last evening with a coupon, courtesy of a lady who gave us some bug spray while we were down on the beach of Lac Manitoba yesterday. It was a father’s day thing she had left over from last weekend. Ryan sweet talked the waitress into another double scoop. Me, too old to get away with that from a young lady anymore, and anyway, I was pretty full what with the big dinner at the Narrows Lodge, and the several beers I drank. So we ambled off to the Hotel Hille’s for sleep. I put in another hour on the computer doing some workout material, and then it was beddy by.
Forgot to mention that we stopped at a farm yesterday to buy some home made bison jerky, this we found out about from our friend at Heavenly Scoop the café/ice cream store. She had told us to look for the bison head on a stick when we got to the junction of Rt 68 and Rt 5. And sure enough it was there. So we pulled in the drive and kind of surprised the lady there. She kind of appologised that the jerky was now being produced by a different outfit, but that made no difference to us – we wanted that bag of jerky to munch on, and I’d been thinking of it since we left Heavenly Scoop.
The lady invited us in, gave us some great, ice cold lemon aid, and went into the basement to grab a pound of bison jerky sticks. She was very nice inviting us in, etc, and we talked for a bit about our trip, our day, and our travels. I broke open a stick for Ryan and I and this stuff was just great. Very good idea to stop by and sample some of the regional food. I love doing this kind of stuff while on the road. It really gives you a flavor of what kinds of food are available in other areas of the world, especially the home made variety. So this turned out to be a great little rest stop to. We paid 25 bucks for the jerky, and munched on half of it during the rest of the day.
Ok, to today. The wind had picked up last night, blowing in a front, and by morning, the cloud deck was right over us, and the winds were very gnarly and out of the south. Another ominous start was ahead of us. We hurriedly packed and jumped straight on the road, with Ryan having made some coffee in the vestibule prior to our departure. And from the get go it was slow going into the crosswind. The road did 90’s and 180’s all over the place making the riding uneven in the average speed – very slow and laborious into the headwind, and just a bit better in the crosswind. And for the time being, the Bulldogs were nowhere in sight, maybe the result of the cooler weather, the wind (nope, they thrived in all winds yesterday), and maybe the overcast weather. Who knows, but they were absent, and that was very good.
The road is totally flat, or very, very gently up and down, and it’s almost imperceptible if not for watching the cars either just continue down the endless stretch of highway until they disappear, or until they kind of drop off the horizon line suddenly. If they drop off you know you’re climbing and will later descend just as slowly. If they kind of turn into a smaller and smaller dot, and then just disappear, then the road is dead flat. And some of these stretches just seem to go on into the horizon for as far as the eye can see. You can play mind games with yourself on long stretches of road like this. There are kind of like optical illusions that occur in this environment to – like you see the road just going on forever, and then you get up to a certain point and it’s a side road that continues straight, while the road you’re riding on is actually turning to the left or right. So sometimes you just don’t know. But I will tell you this, this area is some of the flattest land I’ve ever ridden on.
Even the lakes are flat, with no rises around them, no banks to them, no nothing. The lakes just lay there like a blue splotches on a mirror. The vegetation is more of the northern bush variety, and the locals even call this backcountry “the bush”. Much of it is marshy, and a tangle of wetlands and bogs that stretch on for hundreds of miles, connecting to lakes, and flat land bridges, and fields and meadows. It’s staggering to look at the vastness of these lake and wetland areas.
So we rode on, twisting and turning on this Rt 68, through the Narrows and past Lac Manitoba, along the south shore of Dog Lake, and through these amazing stretches of marsh and bog. The clouds got thicker and we ran into just a light drizzle of rain, with both of us wondering if that was the signal to an impending downpour as we had riding to Saskatoon nearly a week ago. I’m still a bit gun shy from riding through that deluge, so I was constantly scanning the horizon for the wall of black, but only a light drizzle hung with us.
We got on a great, brand new section of asphalt, and got just a bit of a rhythm going into the crosswind, when a farmer came up to us on a ATV pulling a trailer. He chatted with Ryan for a bit as we road, and then bit us a good trip and fired up the road to put in fence posts with his partner. And round about then Ryan mentioned the lack of the Bulldogs. And I shushed him just like a fan would shush another fan if the pitcher in the baseball game they’re watching was pitching a no-hitter – bad karma to mention it. And damn, wouldn’t you know it, one bulldog, two, 10, 20…….THEY’RE BACK! Now it could have been that the sun came out for a bit, and the temps went up significantly, enough for these harpies to get out of bed and commence to maligning all living mammals in their vicinity.
And right about that time we had a road change to Rt 6 south, and rode smack dab into the headwind, and it had gotten even worse than when we had started. It was vicious, fighting the headwind at 10 mph and dealing with the swarms of bulldogs again. Today I just did not have the zeal and passion to smash these creatures as I had on the two previous days. I was tired, my legs were totally cooked for nearly 700 mile of riding in one week, and I was hungry and out of gas. In the saddle, out of the saddle, in and out, in and out, for 11K, battling the headwind. And to add insult to injury, I got nailed by two of the bulldogs, a nasty little bite between my shoulder blades and a doosy to my right side. So this caused me to constantly swat at my back and shoulders just to be safe. All this created one tired puppy. I was hoping to make Arborg after we stopped in Ericsdale for lunch, but half way into the gnarly 11k I was really wanting to just cash it in and go to sleep.
That 11K seemed to go on forever, and I kept telling myself it’s just about the same distance from Hampton Hills to downtown Peninsula, with with a horrible headwind and these flies from hell. And I kept looking for signs, buildings, anything that spoke of a town coming up. But all I could see was miles of empty bush out in front of me, as far as the eyes could see. A half hour later I began to see those signs and a gas station off in the distance. Did it! I pedaled a bit further to a gas station/store/restaurant, and went in for a Dr. Pepper and a big triple chocolate muffin. Went into the restaurant section and guzzled the soda and devoured the muffin. I waited for Ryan to come in, and when he did, he looked just as bedraggled as I. We were whipped, dead tired, hungry as heck, and barely able to converse. Those 11 K’s were the final butt whoopin to the 7 tough days of riding, and we both agreed that we needed rest, and that we’d get a cheap motel.
We ordered a lunch, ate, and then headed to the motel, one of two available in the “blink and you’re through it” town. A trucker inside the gas station recommended the place we rode to, saying the other was pretty bad. Now we pulled up to this one, and let me tell you, it looks more like a cheap crack motel, or “rent by the hour” place than a place to rest and relax. But no choice – next town……….43 miles away. This was home for the rest of the day. We ended up with 43 miles today, and I’m happy we made something out of the day, but a bit concerned that with tomorrow’s rainy forecast, we may have further to ride in the rain to stay on track, or worst case – to stay put in this place for a day of hard rain.
We got the place for about 50 bucks, and opened the door, pulled out bikes and yaks in, and we both collectively collapsed on our beds, taking a TKO for about 30 min. I had all my gear on, my cycling shoes on, hit the bed face first, with ankles and feet dangling off of the end of the bed and face buried into the edge of the pillows. I felt as though I’d been up for days on end with zero sleep. Ryan – same thing. He finally was able to get up, turn on the cable, and watch a movie with the sound turned way down. I eventually managed to shake off the hard crashed and went into the bathroom to shave and shower.
We’re going to venture out of our crash pad now and get some dinner. We’re both so hungry that I’m sure we’ll have a goofy story here. Back in a few.
No real goofy stories on food, other than the fact that we can eat and eat and eat and still be hungry. I got a mushroom burger, a bacon cheeseburger and a chicken sandwich from the little place where we got lunch, munched them down like a starved dog, and I was right back out the door, back to the gas station, and came out with a big triple chocolate muffin and Bugles corn snacks……and………still hungry. Curse this appetite!! And now from Ryan on today.
Ryan Adds:
Tired-the Greek word for don’t go on a bike ride. I am typically talkative for the first 2 hours of our ride. No thanks to the colossal amounts of instant coffee, sugar, and non dairy creamer I put in my water bottle which acts as my coffee mug each morning. On these trips you have to have multiple uses for each item. I put so much coffee, sugar, and creamer in each cup that it fills up ¼ of each bottle. This gives me jabber jaw each morning for 2 hours. I was thankful today because I knew the ride was gonna suck. It was overcast. Bad headwind. Tired legs. I did not wanna get up. So Pete and I talked about all sorts of things. Then after about 2 hours I put my Ipod on which is what I normally do after I’m chatted out. We went for a while and then I just suffered the last 11k. Pure misery. I thought Pete was gonna tell me he wanted to ride another 100k. Lucky for me he was thrashed to so we ended the day right then. Lunch. Motel. Nap. Movies. Get cleaned up. AKA-manscaping. Nothing much today. I am just whooped. Gonna crash early and eat a whole box of cookies I bought at the store. CYA.
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