6/17/09: Off segment to get back on schedule: Edmonton, Alberta to Vegreville, Alberta on Rt. 16 east; 66 miles
When you soar with the night owls, you cycle with the hangover! At least that was my excuse. Having hit the bed around 1:30am, and being woken up by that damned 5am sun, that gives me a total of 4.5 hrs of sleep. So I try to snag another couple hours with on and off sleep. That takes me to about 7:30am. Ryan’s been up for a good couple of hrs, having had a tough time sleeping. Could be yesterday’s hard ride really took it out of him. Kim is off to work, so we bid her a very big thankyou.
Ken whips up some breakfast of Muslix, toast with some great homemade apple jelly and some fresh cheese. We down some good, strong coffee and get ready for another day on the flats, and an interesting start to the day by figuring a route out of Edmonton that is not in the crazy Rt 16 morning rush. Ken suggest we try the bike and hike trail along the Saskatchewan River, and that sounds like a great idea to us having managed to just stay alive on Rt 16 last evening on our trip into Edmonton. So we gear up, and Ken gets in his car to escort us to the bike and hike. We pull out the drive and Ryan is way off the back, then shouts down to me that he has a flat. I mean this guy just cannot get a break here with the bike issues. So we turn around and go back to Ken’s garage to fix the rear flat.
It’s a slow leaker, and I have to use Ken’s rain barrel in the back yard to find the damned hole. We get it and then I put a glueless patch on it. We find the culprit in the tire – a very small piece of wire, probably the fine wire bead of a rotted truck tire on the berm. As we’re doing this Ken’s neighbor Gary pull in on his recumbent. Now Gary knows the area pretty well, and offers to guide us through a good bit of the bike and hike out of Edmonton and back up to Rt 16. DONE. So we bid Ken a farewell with a couple of hugs and handshakes. This man treated us like we were his kids, so it was somewhat of a tearful moment for both of us as we took off. Another awesome couple of people we’ll always remember – and hopefully see somewhere down the road (you know where Ken!!!).
We get on the bike and hike with Gary, and do these little climbs, tight turns, and long descents down to the shore of the Saskatchewan River. And Gary notices how slow we are climbing, on even the slightest of grades.
He tells us that in a few K that the trail will climb long and steep back up the the bluffs, and then it will undulate for many more K along the river and out of town. Gary thinks we may want to reconsider, and go back to the roads. We tell him we’ll ride the trail a bit more and then decide. And the scenery along the river is breathtaking. We go right through the middle of downtown Edmonton along the river, and then cross the river on a fantastic old RR trestle that has been converted to bike and hike. I mean this pup is 200 yrd or more long. And then comes decision making time: lots of climbing on the trail, or one climb on a road and then secondarys all the way to Rt 16. We opt for the roads with one climb.
Thanks to Gary and we’re on the road again, dropping it in the little cookie and climbing out of the Saskatchewan River Valley and up onto the flats. We use Gary’s directions up to a point and then screw up. I ask directions and we’re back at it again, pedaling out of Edmonton and into the burb of Sherwood, and then past Sherwood and into the country again. Finally we take a left and hook back up with 16 way east of Edmonton, and way past all the heavy, industrial traffic. On the road again!
But our legs were nothing but goo, trashed, heavy, lifeless goo! And we still had 40+ miles to go on 16. Couple that with a nasty headwind, and what seemed like a neverending false flat and a very hot day, and, well, you get the picture. This would be one of those days where it’s just one K at a time, into the headwind, through the heat.
And again, the terrain is continuing to change. Now we feel that we’re really getting onto the plains, as the landscape is much flatter, and much of what we see is farm or cattle land. And you can just see further and further into the distance, riding up this constant false flat, watching cars and trucks disappear over the horizon, only to reappear again still going up. It was crazy and I was wondering if I was imagining this. So we’re about 3 hrs in and I ride by a National Park, and I see this guy standing out on my right hand side of the road taking a picture of me………it’s Ken!
This man took the time to drive all the way out there to chew the fat with us for a couple more min and to get some pictures of us on the road. It was great to see him, and we hung out for a good half hour. We all took some more pics and then it was time to go. I had decided that I was pretty useless today and that I had just enough gas what with the headwind and the false flat to make Vegreville, some 30 more miles down the road. Ryan concurred, and was pretty happy that I wasn’t on another suicide mission as I was yesterday to get in 90-100 miles. So Vegreville it was.
Let me tell you, that was one of the longest 30-mile rides I have ever done. I mean the wind was just relentless, and the false flat was not false, it was real. This was such a mental challenge to get done. I was in and out of the saddle, just trying to give my war torn arse a break every five or so min. And we kept just going, every so slightly, up, up, up. And you’d see a patch of trees or something way off in the distance, and I was kind of measuring the time it would take to get there, 15, 20, 30 min down the road. Once the wind gusted so hard that it nearly blew us off of the road – now that’s serious. Ten miles down, 20 to go. And we’re averaging 12-14mph, depending on how hard the wind blows at any one particular area. It seemed to blow harder at the crests of some of the false flats.
Twenty miles down and ten to go. My water is about gone, and my mouth is dry, my lips parched and sticky. We get waves and horn honks occasionally to spur us onward. More wind, more up, more heat. Then a sign: Vegreville 7K. And it felt like 20K as we turned onto the 16A business route and in toward the town. We get into town and ask the first person we see if there’s a Subway in town. YES……..and we do a 1K sprint to the Subway. We each get our usual, and fill up with fountain coke and ice water. Stuff is gone in under 10 min – seriously!
Ryan asks about internet, and the young man behind the counter tells us they have it there. Golden. I do my work in the subway while Ryan finds a place to stay. The young lady at Subway suggested the local church, so Ryan goes there. I work for a couple of hours in my Subway office.
A bit later Ryan comes back and says we were given permission to camp behind the church, where there’s a water spigot and a big shady area. They even give him some salmon spread sandwiches and apple pie that he saves for me. Now this is a very nice setup. We’re in a big field, behind the church, and surrounded by small houses on three sides. It feels very safe and secure. We even have electrical outlets for the computer, so I’m working on this blog as I’m sitting up against the back wall of the church.
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