Breakfast of oatmeal in Nakusp.
In front of Saddleback Community Church
Cindy and Kim and Kimberly
On the road again.
Sandy coming up to the guide van and motorcycle.
This was the view when we finally reached the top of our 15 km climb. The yellow bus was always a welcome sight... it meant rest and food!
The rainstorm on the 37 km downhill (this picture was taken by Don Noot)
Lunch after the rainstorm.
Munching lunch together in Kaslo.
Allan cleaning his bike in Balfour wearing his Asian "Longee" skirt (spelling is a guess)
Bike cleaning.
Ever since we first looked at the ride guide the week before the trip, we had been a little worried about Day 2 because of the ominous entry at kilometer 54: "hill. 15km(ish) uphill. Caution: Twisty road, no shoulder." Coming out of our rest break in New Denver, Cindy and I rode together along with Thomas. We were psyched up for the biggest hill we had ever attempted to climb. Cindy was gracious, and climbed slow enough that we could be together for most of the hill. The scenery was spectacular (cliffs, ponds, flowers, curvy roads) so I did my best to concentrate on that, and not my burning legs. Occasional steep little downhills gave us a much-needed reprieve (although we were sad to do any descending, because we learned that anything that goes down must go up again). Near the end of the hill after climbing for about 50 minutes, when my water bottles had just run out, the road became suddenly way steeper. At that point Cindy pulled away (her high gearing means that she has to stand and go faster on the steep parts than I do). Right at the top of the steepest part was Blaine, our trusty roady with his motor bike. When the cyclists in front of me reached him, he got off his bike and grabbed their seats, running behind to give them a push start on the next and final part of the climb. He gave me some more water, and Cindy and I both made it to the summit after one hour of cycling and (for me), three bottles of water. Praise the Lord.
The reward of a long climb is a long descent. After a brief stop at the summit, we headed out on a 37 km gradual downhill. We fell in with a nine person pace line, and shortly discovered the soaking effect of riding in a group on wet roads. Even without a drop coming from the sky, we were rapidly soaked by muddy spray. I never realized that it was possible for shoes to actually fill with water as a result of spray hitting the legs and streaming down into the shoes. Not a comfortable situation. Regardless of the wet, and occasional feelings of frigidness, the downhill was a lot of fun. We arrived in Kaslo for lunch, and soon discovered that many of the riders just five or ten minutes behind us had been riding in pouring rain for the whole way. Poor Darcy was shaking like a leaf by the time he arrived at the lunch break. We were all glad to huddle under a couple of shelters and attempt to warm up.
After lunch, we headed out with the first group. There was some joking going on before we left about which direction to turn. People were saying things like, "do whatever feels right." When we turned left following the group, Cindy and I were a little uneasy about where we were headed. Every hill we went down, we were worried that we might have to come back up it if were headed in the wrong direction. The feeling of relief was quite magnificent when we finally saw Blaine on the motor bike passing us, and knew for sure that we were on the right track after all.
Cindy and I rode with Glenn and Karen for the final stretch, which was full of hills and curves along a beautiful lake. There is something terrifically fun about gliding downhill and steering around sharp little curves at 60 km per hour. The final entrance into Balfour was an unexpected challenge. As we entered the town and were just thinking about slowing down to look for our corner, we saw Steven, our bus driver motioning wildly to turn here and shouting to us to keep on going fast, because there was a steep hill ahead. Thank goodness that we did not lose all of our momentum, because even with it, that final hill was pretty nasty. Cindy and I were so happy to arrive as the first ones into Balfour Evangelical Covenant church and sit on the cold tile floor and stretch.
When everyone had arrived, we went to Ainsworth hotsprings (which had some neat natural caves), and had a delicious ham dinner put on by the wonderful people from the church. After supper we attempted to clean the mud off our bikes. Afterward, Don, Doug and Cindy played some worship music (we nicknamed the band, "DCD"). By then I was fading fast. I slept in the hallway in the light of the exit sign for lack of room elsewhere. The Lord had blessed us with another safe day of cycling.
