Day 18 – Tailwinds (Outlook to Craik SK)

Our ride today was very flat with a nice tailwind. At the start of the ride (well really before the start) we decided to ride our bikes across the longest pedestrian bridge in Canada. Its prior life was as a railway bridge spanning the North Saskatchewan river, but it had recently been converted into a pedestrian bridge after Canadian Pacific Railways shut down service on the line in mid 1987. The bridge itself is ¾ of a mile long and afforded some great views of the river and surrounding areas.

As far as the ride went today, it was fairly short (just slightly less than 80n miles), and a strong tailwind made for an easy ride. At some point later in the day, I rode a 10 mile stretch at a little over 30 mph – It certainly ate up the scenery.

 

The closing of the railways, and tearing down of the grain elevators has basically choked off the main economic engine of each of the little towns that we rode through, and they are slowly dying. It appears that some of them have attempted to revive themselves with the building of oversized objects (snowman or a tea pot and cup) to try and lure folks off the main highway to come into town and spend a bit of money.

While this may not work for motorists, it certainly provided a welcome entertainment for us cyclists. We would swarm into each town for a photo-op with the local attraction and then drop into the nearest café to refuel (chocolate bars, hot pie and ice cream, and coffee). Every place we stopped we met folks who were most appreciative of our business and extremely interested in our voyage – the usual comment being “You guys must be crazy, but I bet it is really interesting.” Right on, on both observations.