Wednesday 16 September 2009

On biking against the wind

Owing to the non-communicative status of the Beaverdell Hotel, I opted to go farther (to Rock Creek) than originally planned yesterday. 135 km instead of 85 km. This has made my carefully printed guide book out of whack from here to Castlegar, possibly even Nelson, as I am now about half a day ahead of schedule.

The weather has been superb on the whole with lots of sunshine, low humidity (so sweating works) as well as reasonably warm temperatures. I have stopped using garbage bags to line my panniers for the time being (though I have kept them). Unfortunately, yesterday saw a persistent South wind that I was biking against for most of the day. It wasn't very strong, but enough that I am quite sure it added a good hour of biking time as I just couldn't get up to normal cruising speed despite the relatively favourable road.

Rebbecca and Paul were extremely welcoming and helpful. I got all kinds of advice from Paul as well a couple of biking tools. I also swapped a couple of my smaller water bottles for some slightly larger ones. Paul had cautioned me about the lack of a shoulder near the top of the pass out of Kelowna on Highway 33. However, it seemed to me that there had recently been added a shoulder in the winding section so all was good. Incidentally, I was amused when a loaded logging truck gave me a "shave and haircut" honk as it chugged up behind me in that section.
Purely by chance, I stopped by the side of the road to answer a call of nature, when I realised that there were some grouse displaying to each other in the bushes! I went back to my bike to grab my camera and snap a picture or two.

The biking is going very well today, and I made Greenwood in record time from Rock Creek.

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