A few weeks ago I told my friend Karl that I will be traveling under blue skies.
So today I actually started my trip and after the rainy day yesterday I am actually riding under blue skies, though there were also a few drops despite the sunshine, yet it was a beautiful perfect riding day.
The leg today was relatively short (~90 km). After a relaxed evening and a slow morning, doing some repacking and leaving a few items with my friends for mailing them back to the States I got started around lunch time. A few drops of rains guided my way out of Vancouver through Stanley Park and the Lions Gate Bridge, than taking a triple right underneath the highway and winding along the shoreline, passing beautiful houses.
Most differently from my ride in Illinois (Surprise, Surprise!!!) is that the 100 – 150 meter elevation change climbing a hill here are significantly more tiring than the 50 to 100 feet hills in the Illinois Mountains. Overall the climbs are 5 to 15% rather the nice rolling 1-3%. Most spectacular were the views along the coast, the combination of water and mountains, and snow.
After about 5 hours I had made it safely to Squamish where
I am currently sitting in the Shady Tree Pub. A BC Salmon Burger, huge portion of mixed Yams and regular fries and a Corona in front of me.
Live is good, as is the company. Though I had only a short conversation with this nice lady I found a nice note attached to my bike. The friendliness I am welcomed everywhere I go is amazing. Thanks all of you. I had a great chat with the owner of the local outdoor store who helped me decide on the right map for my trip, and who also told me about a great camp spot – Cat Lake another 10 km out of town. At the local bike store (www.corsacycles.com), I had a quick question about my bike I got handed a bottle of beer and had more great chats about my trip and other trips they had done. Thanks guys and gals for the great hospitality.
The night, I finally spent about 10 km out of town at Brome Lake. A nice beautiful lake located directly next to the road. As much the road noise kept me awake for some part of the night, my camp spot on top of a small hill overlooking the lake was beautiful and I rested wonderfully.
The lesson for the day was take your breaks early. After about 3 hours of riding I was thinking about taking a nice break at the end of this 150 m climb, though instead of I ended up taking a break at the side of the road a few meters up the climb as my legs said thanks but no thanks, we need food, food, food or was it energy what they actually graved for. Half an hour, a banana, cliff bar and snickers later I made it smoothly up the road, hitting a record high of 39 miles per hour on the down hill part. Yeah speed,
Looks like you are having fun. Good that you bu,p into all nice ppl.
ReplyDeleteEd.