Friday, July 3, 2009

Day 42





7/3/09: Segment 40 http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment40.html Dryden, Ontario to Iglace, Ontario; 66 miles.

To recap last evening, Ryan and I got a case of the sugar munchies, so he went next door to Robin Doughnuts to grab a dozen. Turns out that they were closing and were about to throw away a bunch, so they let him grab a dozen day olds for free. I was on the skype talking with a client when he came in with the heroin, I mean sugar cakes, and I just started gobbling them up as I was talking. It was quite a sight with me dribbling crumbs all over the table as I was talking into the computer and scarfing doughnuts. Finally hit the hay at 12:30 am, with a day of work done.

         We uploaded pictures onto the blog to cover Saskatoon up through Dryden, so if you’d like to go back and check out some of the photos, have at it. Got up at 7am, rifled all the gear together, got some java and muffins at Robin Doughnuts and off we went. We started with a nice little tail wind, and the road had a great berm with nice straights and gradual ups. I felt good on the pedals today from the get go, and what with a 60+ mile ride on the agenda for the day, I kind of cranked it up a bit to make a short day of it. Just got into a very nice groove and floated over the roads. Unlike yesterday, when we hit these nice climbs right from the gun, today the start of the ride was mellow, giving us great false flats, long and straight flats, and several  long gradual ups. Suffice to say that the pace was considerably higher, and about an hour in I was just under 16 mph for an average.

         The terrain we were riding through was more like long stretches of bog and wetlands, with just mile upon mile of evergreen trees. The streams were of the tea color, reflecting the high tannin content of the water, stuff you’d not want to drink or filter for sure. We would his some rocky outcrops here and there, and they were usually the rock cuts in the road. But the interesting thing I noticed today was that some of these rock cuts were beautifully polished, I mean scoured and rounded from the glaciation all those years ago. Some of this stuff was granite which was so polished it more resembled a bathtub finish than rock. Pretty cool to think that this area was once under nearly a mile of ice, all moving to the south and just bulldozing everything in its path.

         So I cruise through 2 hours with about 31 miles under my belt, and I was feeling pretty good, sticking in the big cookie on all the graduals, and going out of the saddle when the seated got a bit hard. I am trying to make sure though that when I climb out of the saddle in the big cookie that I go no further than the third cog from the left. I’m pretty concerned that with nearly 3 thousand miles of riding the chain may not like being put at a bad angle when I go out of the saddle and really push some weight down on it. So I really try to keep the chain cross over at a minimum. Now we do have a spare chain, but it’s way to early blow out a chain out of stupidity and have to use the good one. So anyway, that’s been my rule of thumb when big ring climbing for the past month.

         Round about 10:30am, and about 2.5 hours into the ride our old pals the bulldogs start to rustle. Now I was just getting ones and twos flying around me, and nothing really that bad to send me into my “kill count” frenzy. So I just swat every once in a while. Three hours in and the landscape is still much the same, with really no towns, no gas stations no nothing but a couple of fishing camps here or there on the lakes I pass. I did happen to hit a couple of steeper climbs where I shifted down into the middle cookie to finish off, but I can only recollect 3 of those total. What did kind of bum me though was the fact that our one lane wide berm slowly deteriorated to about 3 feet wide. Good, but not totally reassuring when the semis come blasting by. We would get wide berm on some of the long gradual climbs though, which is nice when you’re climbing out of the saddle. Climb out of the saddle on a narrow strip of berm and to me anyway, it’s a pretty unsettling feeling.

         Three hours in and my average had dropped just a bit from 15.8 down to 15.3, and the middle ring hills were the culprit there. But still, to get in a 60-miler, I was still in the 4+ hr ballpark. So I just kept pushing. And I was thinking then, about a question that Clayton had asked me a few days ago when we were down on the farm. He wanted to know if we talked to ourselves when we were riding, especially since Ryan and I do the majority of our riding by ourselves. And my response to Clayton was quick. “Heck yea I talk to myself,” I told him. “I talk to myself out loud, quietly in my head, you name it.” And I just couldn’t imagine anyone not talking to themselves doing something like this. It’s just human nature. Heck, when you’re putting in 4-8 hrs a day on the bike, that’s a lot of time to think. Shoot I think I’ve solved the world’s problems ten times over already with my little chat and think sessions.

         Now I’m not a music guy like Ryan, and I’ve never really like to put on a pair of headphones and crank on the Ipod. Don’t do it for running and don’t do it for riding. I guess I’m old school, in that I just like to hear the wind rushing by my head, the birds chirping, the rustle of the trees. That’s my music when I ride. I’m not knocking the Ipod thing, but it’s just not for me. So without the music I just have the external stimuli of the outside world going on, and the little voices in my head chirping away about one thing or another. It’s funny how tangential it can be as I hop from one subject to another hour after hour. And I do yell at the occasional A-hole driver who gets just a bit too close. Not the insane Pete mind you, just a conversational kind of reprimand as they cruise by. So anyway, there’s a lot of talking to yourself and a whole lot of thinking. It’s sure a great way to get to know yourself!!

          So I was in one of those little skull sessions with myself when I heard a horn honk at me and this pickup truck pull over ahead of me. And out of the window is Ryan. Totally blew my mind. He shouted that he had a flat and would meet me in Ignace at the Subway. And I just had to laugh to myself, and I said out loud, “dude you’re damned near hitch hiking across Canada for God’s sake!” How much crappy luck can a person have? I think I’m going to nickname him Shleprock. You remember Shleprock from the Flintstones…….he was the guy who walked around with the dark cloud over his head all of the time. Ryan is turning into my Shleprock! So I just cruise on shaking my head.

         Three and a half hours in and the wind shifts just a bit. Just enough to make that tailwind feel like a cross headwind, and the old average speed goes down again. At this point I was at 15.2. And it seemed as though the distance to Ignace was just not getting lower. I was figuring that 4 hour at 15 mph would put me there. But I was seeing signs that advertised motels and eateries as being 15 min away. Now you do the math………60 mile/hour is a mile every minute. So that’s 15 bloody miles away. On a bike everything is different!. See another sign: motel 8 min away. So my getting to Ignace in 4 hours was out the door. And then the cross tail grew to be more of a head wind, and at that point I just resigned myself to take what I could get. The good old bulldogs got a bit friskier to, ballooning up to maybe 6-8 of the harpies at a time buzzing around me.

         So the signs kept coming……6 min away, 4 min way on and on. Finally make it to Ignace, and ride to the Subway. Ryan’s there working on his tire. He blew out the back tire the very same way I did riding to Saskatoon, with the tread separating just above the bead. This tells me that the yaks are putting a lot of pressure on the rear tires and causing failure at the rim line. We’re going to need to pick up some more spare tires in Thunder Bay, because his failed at around 2700 miles and mine failed at 1800 miles. So we could very well have a front to give out in the 3000 range. Me especially what with the front panniers on my front wheel.

         I went in and scarfed down 2 12-inch subs as usual. And then Ryan comes in and shows me his rear skewer, which is bowed on both sides. This we can gently bend back. I think the problem there is the fact that the yaks are so unsteady when you’re parking them or moving them about, that they have bent when our bikes and yaks have tumbled over. And we’ve both had several of these episodes. We have one spare yaks skewer, and it’s a special skewer, so chances are that we’ll only find replacements in big city bike shops. We’ve got to make these puppies last!

         I finished up and went outside to soak up the sun, while Ryan went to scout for a place to camp. He came back a bit later with nothing to report so we went down to the lake to sit on the beach and relax. Must have spent 2 hrs there laying in the sun and relaxing. Well, I’m at the library right now, and it’s about 5pm………time to eat!!! So I’ll see if I can post this and then go get Ryan for a dinner somewhere in town. This is NOT a big place, but it’s bigger than I imagined yesterday when I saw it on the map. So we could end up with some burgers or pizza. That’s it for not. OUT………Pete

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