Dawson Creek bound, sort off.

Well I started the day intending to make it to Dawson Creek (mile 0 of the Alaska Highway) things were going pretty well.  My legs were tired, but I had the strength in them to make it there.  I was on the outside of Taylor and had just finished a 4 mile 10% climb (ya that sounds like something I would describe as flat) and blew out a spoke.  A rock jumped up off of a passing semi, I watched as it bounced across the road and with no where to go, I attempted to avoid it but it hit the wheel and took out one of the spokes.  The bike started to wobble pretty badly, but I was able to get it stopped without incident.

As far as this trip goes it couldn’t have happened at a better time though.  We were only about 10 miles outside of Ft. St. John, which has one of the few bike shops in B.C.  (Vancouver excluded)

I couldn’t locate the extra spokes that I have with me and quite frankly after such an impact I wanted to get the wheel looked at so, I marked my spot, and Azure drove me back into town.  The bike shop was closing in ten minutes so they couldn’t fix it until the morning. We were stuck in Ft. St. John for the night.  We grabbed a bit to eat and headed to find a campground.

The weather has been fantastic the past few days and is supposed to continue for sometime. I have been trying to take advantage of that and ride as far as I can on the good days.  I have to admit that I was pretty pissed.  I had planned on finishing the Alaska Highway today and I feel like I had the legs left to do it, but it wasn’t to be.  It looks like my rest day tomorrow will consist of me riding 30 miles and a bunch of errands.  Oh well, thems is the breaks sometimes.

8-3 Stats

73.86 miles

15.4 mph average

44.1 mph max

4:46:43 ride time