Day 13 – The Canola Express

Today was another scorcher of a day with temperatures in the mid-90s.

Now that we are out of the Rockies, the cue sheet instructions are fairly simple. Turn right out of the campsite, ride 30 miles, turn left, ride 20 miles turn right, ride 40 miles. To speed things along we formed a 4 person pace-line and alternated time at the front every four minutes or so. 

This is great for the three riders at the back because they are up to 30% more efficient (using less enegry) because they don't have to "push" the air out of the way.

I liked to think of our 4-man train as "The Canola Express" since we passed mile after mile of canola fields in full bloom (yellow).

There were no towns between Airdire and Drumheller on today’s route so to top off the water bottles half way along the route we had to detour 3 miles into a town (grocery store, general store, bank and drilling company).

One of the interesting things about rtiding in the Prairies is that you can ride for 20 mile stretches without having to turn your handlebars as the roads are straight as an arrow.

The scenery was as flat as glass but towards the end of the route we opted for the Red Deer River Canyon option which involved descending, climbing and re-descending the canyon wall, crossing the Red Deer River on a ferry, and climbing up the far side of the canyon wall. Here is a shot of Serge about 1/4 the way up one of the canyon walls.

Each climb was about two miles long and involved gradients of 12% – 14% - just what our legs needed after a long day of riding.
< here is the road going up the canyon wall.
You get a better perspective of things from the lookouts where you can see the road on the opposite side of the canyon .

Here is a shot that Serge took of me nearing the top of one of the 12% climbs.  For some reason, I am finding climbing these long steep grades much easier than the hills in New Jersey - maybe it is the consistent grade, where you can find the right rhythm, or maybe it is just having the Rockies under my belt.




Tomorrow is a rest day before we head into Saskatchewan, and more 40 mile strecthes of strait roads.

This is the first day we have had network access in a while, and a rest day so I have posted 6 days of blogs which I created "off-line" after each day's ride.

My cumulative mileage since arriving in Vancouver is just over 1,000 miles (1,038 to be exact). Needless to say, clothing seems to be larger than when I arrived  18 days ago.

Last night I was awoken at around 3 A.M. by a pack of coyotes howling from one of the hills surrounding the campsite.  Their concert lasted about 20 minutes, but was most enjoyed.