July 29th & 30th

Well I neglected to write posts yesterday and the day before so here is a little recap.

Friday morning we awoke to a spectacular morning on Muncho Lake in Northern British Columbia.  It was hands down the best weather we have seen, perfect for riding.  I’ve got be honest, I was pretty damn happy.  The ride around the lake was at this point, my favorite part of the trip. 

To bad when I rode to the end of the lake and turned up the valley, I was smacked in the face with a rather large head wind.  Not exactly something new and different.  The wind just won’t stop, so I decided that I wasn’t going to let it ruin such a beautiful day.  I began the long climb to the base of Summit Pass at 4,300 feet, I tallied it up and I climbed grades of 7-8% for over 28 miles of the day.  So, it was a hard day on the bike today.

During one of these climbs, I don’t know why this always happens on climbs, I heard some big branches breaking in the woods off to my right.  A big brown flash of fur through the trees, my heart sunk, in an instant the overwhelming feeling of “shit” envelopes your entire being.  A split second later three reindeer burst out of the woods and ran across the highway, and disappeared into the woods on the other side of the road.  Something that I am continually amazed by on a daily basis up here is the fact that such large animals can disappear into grasses and woods.  The other day I watched a large black bear walk across the road and into the high grass, he was gone, I knew he was right there but I couldn’t see him.  I don’t know, its just impressive to see an animal that large vanish before you.

I made it to Summit lake, it was a pretty sketchy climb, shear rock walls on my left, and cliffs on my right, oh and no guardrail.  I saw a bunch of Stone’s Sheep on the way up.  They just look at me and never even moved. I rode past them at maybe a distance of two feet.

The following day, I woke up with another big day ahead of me.  Fort Nelson was in my sights but I knew it would be another day of big climbs.  Nothing worth noting happened on the ride just battled, guess what, a head wind and hills.  When we arrived in Fort Nelson we decided to treat ourselves to a hotel room.  It was definitely a good call.  It had been almost a month since we last stayed in a hotel.  So it was time.  Jackie agreed. 

 

Took a rest day on Saturday and will be heading out this morning as soon as I put this post up.  It is going to be interesting the next few weeks. Southern B.C. currently has over 240 different forest fires raging.   So hopefully we won’t face any road closures due to those. More later. 

7-29 stats

68.84 miles

12.3mph average

38.9 mph max

5:29:20 ride time

7-30 stats

74.28 miles

13.6mph average

44.2mph max

5:11:23 ride time