Damn it, today was brutal! It was 142 kilometers with a climb up the Fraser canyon and Jackass Mountain. We traveled from Hope, BC to Spences Bridge, BC with a net elevation change of over 8500 feet! Now, here comes the hard part! It was in the dead heat of the hottest area of the country. A picture below shows the temperature at 40 deg C in the shade. Bob Williams had a thermometer on his bike and it hit 50 deg C on fresh pavement just outside of Lytton, BC.
The heat made today the biggest challenge of my life. I cycled with Brett, Iona, and Gary and we completely ran out of water with approximately 15 km to go to the next community. We stopped into a rare house and begged the locals for some water. They were great and we used their hose to cool off enough to make it to the next town, where we each chugged a liter of Evian. To top the day off, myself and Iona got separated from the group and she got a flat tire just 15 km from camp and we had to change it in the sweltering heat!
To make matters worse, I learned a very valuable lesson today - Do not cycle with your jersey half unzipped! I was in a high speed decent just before Jackass Mountain and I felt a sting under my arm. I locked the brakes at 40 km/h and whipped off my shirt on the side of the rode. A damn wasp stung me 4 times and I was fortunate not to ditch the bike! Yeah, great day eh?
There is an upside! Today is now finished and it is suppose to be one of the most difficult days of the tour! I was on cook duty tonight and am just now getting to bed (10:00pm). I left at 6:00am from Hope and arrived at camp in Spences Bridge at 5:30pm. I am however very pleased with the ride today and I do fell a sense of accomplishment. I am a relatively strong climber and I handled the ride today quite well. The youth factor and my 170 lbs body allows me to zip up the mountains with a cadence of approximately 75. The Conception Bay North highway proved to be a great training ground and I am confident that I will be able to climb through the rest of Western Canada.
I am dead tired and it is still very hot outside. I am going to try to get some sleep now because we have only a short ride to Merritt, BC in the morning. However, the ride will have a great deal of climbing but at least I can look forward to the rest day on Wednesday.
