Exploring, Exploring

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Exploring, Exploring

Sunday, 8 July 2007

This morning I rode on Silver from the hotel to the trail which I’d first used with Panna yesterday. However it did eventually fizzle out at another gravel road, which itself seemed not to lead to anything interesting, so I returned to the trail near the grain elevator. Bob & Panna were walking there & they were quite surprised to see me. Actually the squeak which had plagued me early during our stay in Saskatchewan seemed to have returned, which required Bob to tighten some nuts again, or somesuch. We may have to have it looked at once we get to a town which might have a decent bicycle repair shop - it’s got something to do with the hubs on the front wheel, and they shouldn’t be getting loose as they have been.

Anyway, I then continued down the 2nd trail which I’d taken yesterday, and it led quite a ways down, past farmers’ fields, past someone’s home, past a golf course, and it seemed like it might continue even farther. However, it got very close to highway 45, which passes in front of the hotel & I wanted to see where that road would go once it passed the hotel.

So I got onto the highway & realized it ends at the hotel, becomes one with highway 16, a much more significant road travelling east-west. I was heading right into the wind again, so I was looking forward to going about 18 kilometres each direction, to make the total of 60, and have the wind at my back on the return swing.

However, in less than 10 kilometres I descended into the Assiniboine River Valley, a long, long descent (3-5 km), followed almost immediately by a not quite-so-long (2+ km) climb up the other side. That was difficult. Such that I really didn’t want to have to climb that longer hill on the return, tail-wind or no. So once I’d gotten leveled out & caught my breath I tried the satellite phone & it worked! I was able to get Bob to come pick me up, so I pretty much just continued heading west on highway 16 - even got back into Saskatchewan for a bit, because the border’s that close. Alas, I’d not communicated well enough to Bob that he should wait 45 minutes before leaving; he thought I’d said it would take him 45 minutes to get to where I was. So he came quite a bit more quickly than I’d expected, after again “abandoning” his lunch to rescue me - seems I have a knack for phoning him while he’s eating. So, to be nice, I only went a bit farther, then returned, so he wouldn’t have to wait too long.

DAY 18: 51.4 km, in 3:47 hours, ave. speed 13.5 km/hr, max. speed 28.9 km/hr

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