Brad's AlCan Adventure: Day 3 - An apology, Frost on the Pumkin, and a Gift.

STATS	DAY	MILES	CLIMBING	CALORIES
DAY	3	87.77	5098	5544
TOTALS		163.15	9002	10,421

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First, an apology for Day #2 Blog. I didn’t even proof read it when I published. I was tired, cold, shivering, tired and cold, picture download was painfully slow, and overall I was un-inspired (and tired and cold). The first day of riding was not difficult from a distance or terrain perspective, but the riding conditions were really bad and took a heavy toll. There were a lot of great things on the days ride: The 3 mile 6% descent into Taylor with longest steel grate bridge at the bottom that crosses the Peace River. The giant canoe at the lunch stop was a sight to behold and the climb out of Taylor was fun as well not to mention the company of Mike and Joe as well as Tom, our most excellent host.

Meet The Great Pumpkin my home away from home for the month of June.

I have a name!

I learned a very valuable lesson the first night I slept in her: When the grass is wet, you need to kneel outside the tent to work inside and with the bottom of the entry door so high, you need something outside to kneel on. If you buy a tent, make sure the door opening is low enough that you can kneel without accessories.

Getting into the tent is fun as well. I have to remove one shoe, step inside with the shoeless foot, then back in with the shoe'd foot while not allowing it to touch anything. The best way to describe it is to picture that lizard who always keeps two of his feet off the rock because it is to hot, then he switches feet. I am getting pretty good at it, and I can imagine that Sue is happy that she is not here in the tent to continually witness the specter of my rear end entering the tent first.

The night at Shepards in started off with me crawling into the Pumpkin and zipping up only to realize that we were camped 50 feet from the highway and all those trucks that did not pass us late in the day started passing every 1-2 minutes. Apparently this stretch of the highway is known for this.

I finally fell asleep when, sometime later, I woke up with a severe cramp in my leg. I tend to get these cramps when I am dehydrated and in addition to being extremely painful, it takes about 5 minutes of spastic walking around to get it to release. Well, here I am all cocooned in my sleeping bag with this spastic cramp, it is below freezing outside, the grass is wet and I need to get out of tent NOW and dance off this cramp. While I was thrashing to get the bag unzipped, the thought crossed my mind: At what time of the night is OK to spasticly dance around the parking lot of a tourist hotel in your long johns and is it written in Canadian law? I opted to risk it and there I was with my shoes half on the wrong feet, dancing around in my skivvies in broad twilight. I don’t know if anyone saw me, but look for me on “Canada’s Most Stupid Caught on Video”. The cramp subsided, I got back in my tent shivering.

I slept in today, I woke up at 4;50 AM, only 2.6 hours to breakfast. I got up to take a nature call and the Great Pumpkin was covered with frost. I was freezing, but I survived.

We suited up and broke camp and started the 88 mile ride to Skitanni River. I wore one of my new flashy green expensive shorts today. I see now why they cost so much. Those of you into fitness activities have been seeing the new “compression technology” in fitness gear. It is supposed to help both performance and recovery. Having tried it now, I believe that “Compression Technology” is industry jargon for “sizes run small”.

Today was a gift: Crystal blue sunny skies, mid 60’s temps, 88 miles to ride and a strong and friendly tail wind the entire way! We took off spinning the rollers at 18-25mph. Long down hills, fast climbs. Our first break stop was at the town of Wonowon (Pronounced 1-oh-1) which, coincidently is at historic mile marker 101. We stopped by an old security check point. There was a Histerical road side marker with some interesting info. Click to picture to expand it so you can read.

Interesting read

The first 45-50 miles was fast rollers, then we got to the first major climbs. Big downhills, big up hills.

Last one to the top is a Brad!

Sun and tail wind made them easy. If interested, you can see the elevation profile if you expand the Garmin window below.

As we crested the climbs, a hint of the grandeur of the Canadian Rockies came into view.

I see snow

The signs along the road are typical – speed limit, distances, etc.

Our Canadian deer have fancier antlers than your American deer, so nah!

However, I found this one unusual:

What, I can't part my poisonous gas here?

Nobody was sure what H2S meant, so I googled it and it turns out that is Northwest Territorial slang for “Hard To Smell”. What kind of gas could it be?

Lunch stop, then only 20 miles to camp.

We didn’t see much wildlife today (Roadkill moose and bear), but the real treasure of the day is we had an official sighting of Bigfoot. Joe had me sneak in for a photo. I figured if I looked like a Bigfoot and looked male, I would be safe.

Sassquatch (L) and Brad (R) stand motionless next to each other in fear that if either of them moves, the other will tear them limb from limb.

After backing away slowly, I ducked into the coffee shop (they made me put on shoes) and we had a comfy sit down with some liquid refreshment.

I told Mike to freeze, there was a buffalo behind him and he did not even blink for 15 minutes.

The descent to the Skitanni River was wicked step, long, and sticky tar with chip gravel (see the elevation profile on the Garmin page). Halfway down, we got stopped by a flagger and had a nice chit chat. She was mighty pretty, but she swore like a salty sailor.