Hot in Hanna (Day 15, Drumheller to Youngstown, Alberta)
Hi there,
Trip basics and a little information on how things work
I am currently in a town called Hanna, in Alberta, which is 90-odd kms from Drumheller (the home of the dinosaur), on the way to a place called Youngstown for our overnight stop, some 48km from here. Its around 36oC at the moment, and the terrain so far has been through 'bald prairie', ie, slow rolling hills (of about 3-4km between each hill rise) full of green and gold pastures - the gold representative of the canola crops that are well featured here. Its hard to judge distances at the moment - we knew from our daily trip map (kept in plastic in my back pocket) that it was around 14km before we reached the township, but we crossed a hill rise and it just looked down the road. But no, it was the full 14km away, which seemed to take forever to reach. Slight headwind this morning, but I am not working in a paceline for it - its not that hard, and my riding partner this morning is not all that strong, so he sits behind me when he needs a rest, and when he's recovered he'll ride up beside me again. If the conditions are not too bad, I like the freedom of not having to concentrate on the the bike wheels. The shoulder for the last 50km has been very good, although prior to that we were forced to ride on the road, much to the disapproval of local traffic and police.
We (four of us) were on breakfast shift this morning, which means being the last to leave camp. Some of the riders left camp at 6am in an attempt to beat the heat. We got away at 8am, which isn't too bad. Breakfast this morning consisted of oatmeal with raisons and bananas, plus some super huge muffins that a sister of one of the other riders had brought to share with the camp when she popped in for a visit. There is always cereal available, fruit (bananas and oranges), whole wheat bread with peanut butter and jam, vegemite for the ex-pats and the one guy from Wales, and GORP (apparantly it stands for Good Old Raisons and Peanuts, but can consist of anything that you would normally put into trail mix. This morning someone had put in M&Ms, which is a good treat (perhaps not in the heat though)).
The breakfast crew must also assist in packing up the truck which stores the portable stove (with three large burners), the portable bike mechanic workshop thingie (basically with a thing that can hold your bike up so you can work out how the hell to clean it plus tools, rags and degreaser), and portable food prep tables which are all loaded into the back section (the kitchen); and also assist in packing up the luggage storage area, which consists of personal luggage cubby holes for everyone plus room for bags full of personal camping equipment. For ease of reference, all the camping bags are left until last to pack onto the truck, so people can access their little cubby holes without climbing over everything.
Another rider who lives not far from here has arranged free internet for everyone which is why we've stopped at the lovely Hanna. Hanna is a pretty small service community, with the regional headquarters for the school district, service facilities (KFC, petrol etc) and seemingly very little else. Its very spread out - a place with a lotta land but not a lotta need to do anything on it.
Overall, this ride continues to make my world rock. It is hard to describe how good this trip is (as I have mentioned previously). Although, its not always so rosy: for three days, as we edged closer to the Rockies, I was plagued with low spirited riding form - possibly a balancing out of the excitement of the first few days. The weather has not always been as kind (or intense) as today - we have had at least 5 wet camping nights, and 5 or 6 wet riding days. I have never had to ask the fellas to clean my bike so much as these first two weeks! The day before our rest day in Drumheller we met some ferocious headwinds and crosswinds that really moved the bikes all over the road. But we've also had some terrific tailwind action and great downhills. While I do occasionally get frustrated with the differing riding styles, it is great to ride with different people - between 27, that usually makes the day a little more interesting, especially when we've past through the eye-candy spectacle of BC and are now into the repeating scenery of Alberta (didn't we see this on the last hill/valley?).
Riding through the last couple of mountain ranges in BC were pretty special. Rogers pass included a 34km climb, which was fairly gentle. The downhill on the other side, though, was great. I was riding with one other speed demon, and due to the physics of a heavy girl on a fast bike, managed to beat his top speed for the day (76.7km/h). But that's about 10km/h off the top speed recorded by anyone on this trip so far. Its tough when you have to share the road with motorised vehicles, who are not always keen to provide some drafting assistance....
 |
| Descent into Golden, BC |
 |
| Detour out to see Lake Moraine |
 |
| Awesome view of the Rockies coming back from the Lake Moraine detour |
Kicking horse pass was a great 7km climb which started one of our best riding days (Field to Banff - official kms were 82, but we ended up riding over 110km - due to detours and a side trip to Lake Moraine)
