Day 55-56

Day 55

We left Mama Z’s in Dease Lake today and headed for Jade City. I dedicated my ride in memory of my coworker Ben’s aunt who passed away from cancer. We got off to a late start this morning, but it wasn’t because we got up particularly late. As I mentioned previously, Mama Z had been kind enough to let us stay in the apartments above the restaurant, and before we left, we wanted to make sure they were spotless. When we were finished and ready to go, the staff all came out and took a picture with us in front of the restaurant. From what we’re told, we’re the first Texas 4000 team to see her new place. Its beautiful and the chefs Kevin and Stephen are great. The ride today was supposed to be about 75 miles. It got off to a pretty uneventful start—the usual rough roads, overcast skies and maybe an occasional bit of rain. Then we came to the gravel roads. One fear I have gotten over on this trip is gravel roads. I’m not sure if I fell on them as a kid or something, but riding road bikes on gravel roads makes me rather uneasy. We’ve had enough patches of gravel road and/or rest stop that I finally decided that I needed to just start riding faster. So I did. I kept up with Mike and Dane on the first long patch of gravel road we hit today. Our first rest stop was actually still on the gravel road! Our drivers Geeta and Geoff started getting creative with the food we had in the trailer, and we ended up with tomato soup and hot chocolate at our first rest stop. While this may seem warm and great, what I have found the last few days is that as soon as we stop cycling, the temperature drops 10 degrees. So you end up back on your bike freezing for a several miles. We got back on the road and our second stop was at Dease River Crossing, the place we were supposed to have camped the last couple days. Most of the team learned how to skank at that rest stop (skanking is a type of dancing). Ivan and I rolled out of the last rest stop thinking we still had 15 or so miles to go, but in mid-conversation about 10 miles into the ride, I realized that we were already in Jade City. We headed into the jade store and had a free cup of tea and waited for everyone else to arrive. The owners let us take quick showers (defined as one minute a piece) and I think it may have been the fastest shower I’ve ever taken. Geeta and Geoff mixed up a great dinner concoction that contained tofu, beans, canned veggies, rice and goodness knows what else. The sun stays up later and later up here, so every night it seems we’re up a little later talking and doing stuff—cleaning the trailer, listening to music in the van, playing Catan. It’s the little things in life.

Day 56

Since our day yesterday was short, our day today was a little longer. We rode from Jade City, BC to Upper Liard, YT—our second border crossing in Canada. I dedicated my day to Mrs. Ackerman, Mike’s grandma. I was thanking the owner of the jade store before we left, and she inadvertently reminded me of the remoteness of our location and a little Texas 4000 cycling tradition. The first 20 miles of our day today was relatively uneventful. We’re riding past more lakes it seems. The roads are rougher than they have been but we’re still able to ride. The second 20 miles of the day passed very quickly, mostly due to adrenaline…and maybe to the fact that we had all sorts of people taking pictures, honking and waving at us. We rode the whole 20 naked. The guys all rode together and took off first. Then Stella, MJ and I started riding. Apparently the guys didn’t get as many honks, pictures and waves as we did…hm. We were the only three girls to complete the full 20 miles. The rest of the girls did a modest mile and went topless for a mile. So many people were opposed to the naked mile earlier in the year that I was surprised this many people participated. Ironically the air temperature didn’t even seem that bad. As we put our clothes on it started to rain a bit and the temperature dropped again, Ivan, MJ and I started riding to get warm as fast as possible. I wasn’t at the last rest stop too long before Mike and the rain arrived, so we started riding again to finish off the day. There was a lot of gravel in the last 15 miles. I really don’t understand why people pave 50m or less of road in the middle of a huge gravel stretch. We ended up on and off gravel for most of the 15 miles. As we started nearing the end, Dane road up and he and Mike started to race towards the Yukon border. I tried keeping up with them, but their last kick at the end put them about 100m in front of me as opposed to the 50m they had been. We cruised the last two or three miles to the RV park. When we arrived we were worried because the RV park had no record of us, but we were then referred to the owner who knew exactly who we were and who showed us where we would be camping for the evening. We all headed to our tents early in the evening because the bugs were biting, but its really hard to fall asleep in daylight!