Epic tailwind – 195 kilometers
A little update between yesterdays post since I posted early. I went into town for dinner and there didn’t seem to be a restaurant. I came across two young men, really 8 or 9 year olds who mentioned the Elk hotel. They really seemed to be a lot older in maturity, maybe they were thinking of roughing up the city boy. Totally kidding but they seemed excited that a subway restaurant was coming to town this year. Anyway I headed to the Elk and when I walked in there was complete silence and everyone was starring at me. I said “hello” and one of them said hello back as they all watched me go sit down. After about 15 minutes a waitress came by and as always people warm up to me quickly. I probably didn’t need more food but I had the fried chicken which was a cholesterol nightmare!
Okay sorry to bore you. At 4am I woke up to the howling wind, I had to look outside to check the direction: it was going my way. I was thinking about getting up but slept in to 6am before getting packed etc. I was off by 7:30 and the wind was massive and for the first time a tail wind! I went into a zone right away. For those that do not bike, you do not question or wait to admire a tailwind you get out there and crank out the gears. Even though I had to pee I did not stop until 38 kilometers in because you never know when the the road or wind will change direction. It was a challenging wind as well since it was from the South West so the southerly gusts would give the bike a good jolt. I had to keep a tight grip on things which meant my hands started to go to sleep after a while.
I took my first drink of water also at the 38km because it was not safe to have only one hand on the handle bars. Again cyclists understand. This is like a powder day for skiers, you just go and ask questions later. Around Chaplin lake I had a few surprises (please stop reading if you are my mother or a sister), the first being the paved shoulder disappearing and being replaced by loose gravel. I think I got a little lucky and hung on until I got back on the road. This was unpleasant though because I had to ride on the road. It was a good kilometer before there was about a foot of shoulder which was still unsavoury. Eventually the shoulder expanded again, keep in mind I still had cross winds gusts from the south so I was a little nervous out there. Then it happened again, this time it looked like gravel but I wasn’t sure and when I hit it there was no option to turn out of it, I had to ride it out to a complete stop. I think this one was luckier because I was going 40km/hr and in gravel things happen really fast and I wouldn’t have been able to clip out. After that a another slim shoulder for quite a while. This is a bad stretch of road folks and you need to be careful here.
Most stretches felt like no chain and I had a stretch of 45km/hr for about 4 kilometers without much effort at allow. I rarely got out of the big ring even on the hills where I would only slow down to the low 20’s. I loathed to stop for pictures but I have to do it because sharing the story is very important and some of you folks paid for some road. Earl your stretch kicked ass!
I arrived at Moose Jaw and was immediately beaten by the wind since I was now heading South into town. I met with reporter for the Moose Jaw Herald Lisa Goudy for some photos since we had talked on the phone yesterday. Hey I made the paper!