Well, one thing I learned on this trip is NEVER to expect you expect. If you do it will sometimes bite you in the arse – as it did today. Yes, we expected a leisurely ride to Kelowna today, along the lakeshores, on relatively flat roads. We deserved it, having covered nearly 700 miles already, and having Ryan test out that sore ITB on the road again. Great, we’ll get it rolling out of Penticton at somewhere between 11am and 12 noon for this easy little spin. That way we could take our time in the morning, have breakfast with Barney and Valerie, and then dilly dally our way to Kelowna. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!
I’ll digress first because I think you know what’s coming.
Ryan finished his test at about 8am, after 2-3 hrs on the computer up at the camping pavilion. Then Valerie cooked us some porridge with berries and maple sugar for a breakfast. We all dined, relaxed, soaked in the already hot morning sunshine, and just talked about our trip, Barney’s future Trans Can once he get’s his business situation taken care of. By 10am the temps had soared into the 80’s, with not a cloud in the sky.
It was a pretty amazing scene riding off from Barney and
Valerie, people whom we had only known now for 2.5 days, but people who we had really come to love as great friends and wonderful people. I’ll have to admit that I had a tear in the eyes as we parted, and Ryan and I both hope that there’s a chance we cross paths again this summer, maybe somehow hooking up with them for a stint of cycling later in our trip. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that his business deal works out so he can become a “free bird.”
Ok, so we pull out of the camping area, on to Rt 97, and go through Penticton, a great little vacation town, and home to one of the most famous IM triathlons in the world – Ironman Canada. The lake, the people, the atmosphere, collectively make this a premier area. So we round town, and get along the west side of the lake, and it’s as if the headwind machine suddenly got turned on. I mean a crazy hard headwind, blowing white caps on the lake, bending tree branches, and pushing the weeds down to ground level. It was sick, a cruel joke on us, and a total blowup of our little ninny ride for the day. I was putting it down on the flats just to maintain 9-10 mph. And to add insult to injury we see a road sign that says: Kelowna 66 K. Sixty bloody K, I could have swore that we saw a sign yesterday, 5-8 K south of Penticton, that said: Kelowna 43K?
Now I’m doing the old math game in my head: “so we’re going from 43K, and what I thought would be a 2 hr ride – on the flats at a mellow 12 mph pace – to 66 K, into a headwind at a 9-10 mph pace. Now we’re talking 4 hrs of riding.” Ok, deal with it, and we both just kind of laughed it off, until the first climb, a 20 min gig outside of Penticton, into a headwind. Add another 15 min to that 4 hr ride!
Back into the headwind again at the top, as the temps sore into the 90’s by now. We’re talking a kind of dry, blast furnace type of heat, the kind that sucks the moisture out of your mouth, that sears your skin to dark brown leather, that radiates off of the road surface like an oven. And we’re in BC for God’s sake, not Lake Powell, Flaming Gorge, or the Grand Canyon. But that’s the kind of heat we felt. We pass several towns, still battling the headwind, and there, off in the distance we see cars going up the mountainside, higher and higher, these tiny little things disappearing into the top of the mountain. I look back at Ryan and give him the good news: “Dude, looks there’s our future,” as I point to the scar in the side of the mountain that’s our road.
And sure enough, that was our road. Out of the saddle, for easily 1 mile of climbing in the middle ring, and then I had to sit for another half mile, pulling my 85 lbs of useless crap up another mountainside! Stand, sit, stand, sit for nearly 30 min on this one. Brilliant fool that I am, I didn’t bother to fill both waterbottles for this “dandy little easy day,” and by this second climb, I had one swig of warm water left. So I take a hit, swish it around and top out – right back into the headwind.
And by now we’re talking about this easy ride metamorphosing into something on the epic side. My odometer said 40 miles in, and still no Kelowna. Then 2-3 power climbs kick our butts even worse. With my mouth sticky, dry and swelling for lack of water I say to Ryan: “you want to hit a gas station or just ride on to Kelowna?” “Let’s just take it in” he said. Ok, I can gut this thing out. Besides we have to be near Kelowna, and very close to Ray’s house, where we were invited to stay this night. And we ride on.
Finally in Kelowna, I just had to give in to the thirst, dry mouth, and torrid temps on the road. I pulled into a gas station and pulled out Ray’s directions to his house – 9 more miles from where we were at! Now I’m doing this for a challenge, and for sure it is, but sometimes you know when you’re getting a royal ass kicking, and today was my day. I was just crushed by the heat, and dreaded taking even one more pedal stroke down the road, but what’s the alternative? So we smash a coke and some cold water and push on, into the headwind, the heavy traffic, and pass the 4 hr mark in the ride.
So much for that easy day for Ryan to get his legs back, and for me to noodle. The breeze we ride through is warm to hot, and has no cooling effect whatsoever. And we begin to look for the Kelowna Airport, which is around where Ray and his wife Chalreen live. Finally, after 4:35 hrs of riding we hit the airport, make the turn and begin this gradual climb, and then another turn, and this this looks like a beast, way worse than oak hill, and more like the first descent on a rollercoaster ride. Ryan shifts into the little cookie. I have to get off and manually make the change, then turning the bike downhill, mount, do a U turn and begin to climb out of the saddle. I’m on the edge of falling off of my bloody bike from the heat, thinking: “I could very well be walking on this neighborhood road hill climb.” And that’s when I saw his street number. Ryan road all the way to the top, snaking his way from side to side. I mean this road is one of the sickest little climbs I’ve ever ridden.
And I just didn’t have it in me to chase him down to tell him to stop climbing. Yup, I just waited at the intersection, head bent over, leaning on the bars, feeling like still warm roadkill. Ryan rode back down to within shouting distance, and I just signaled, like a wounded soldier, pointing to the nearest escape route.
We found the house, parked our bike, and I managed to wipe about a gallon of sweat and a shaker’s worth of salt off of my face, arms and legs prior to knocking on the door. I was concerned about meeting Ray’s wife looking so disheveled and beat to hell. But Charleen was so nice, greeting us by name and then asking kind of sheepishly, if Ray had told us about the hill climb to their house!
Shower, water, coke, fruit salad greeted us, and took the sting off of one of the hardest days I’ve ridden out here. Then we went and watched a Crit that Ray was riding in. Had a blast doing some sports shooting, as we walked around the course.
Within this, we met Ray’s friend – Eric. And Eric told me about spending time in the states back in the 60’s when he hitchhiked around the US rockclimbing. And it rang a bell with me: the 60’s……..that was about the time when all these famous climbers were bringing rock climbing into the mainstream. People like Yvon Chouinard, Laton Kore, and Royal Robbins. And so I joking asked Eric if he ever climbed with Chinnard. And dude say: “oh yes, I still see him now and then.” And I look at him and say: “you’re not joking are you?” And he wasn’t. He climbed with some of the most famous climbers of the 20th century. This strong looking, hardy 70-year old Brit, out here in Kelowna, BC was a living legend in the climbing world! I immediately asked him if Ryan could take a picture of him and I, and he laughingly agreed.
Great race, got some descent pics, and were all invited to dinner at Eric’s house tomorrow. Ray and Charleen had asked if we wanted to stay through Friday, as we were planning on an easy day or rest day for tomorrow. We kicked it around and accepted what with Eric’s invitation.
Did a massive dinner of salad, pasta, garlic bread, and water, water, water.
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