Day 3 Mission to Hope 68 miles

After a pleasant evening with a trout dinner overlooking the Iake I hit the sack at about 9pm and had a fairly decent night’s sleep. The tent was warm and the mattress comfortable and although I had a couple of coughing bouts all in all I had a good night sleep and woke at about 6.30am.

I got dressed into the days riding gear, which in itself is no easy feat in a tent, and emerged to find half the group had been up for ages and breakfast was already well advanced. The weather was overcast but the mist was low so having learned from yesterday I made sure I had all my waterproofs to hand.

Breakfast consisted of what they call French Toast, I call it “eggy” bread, it was very good and a pleasant change from oatmeal.

At about 8am a group of 12 set off , all wrapped up against the rain, and headed east along Highway 7 through Dewdney and Errock before stopping for a warm drink at what can only be describes as a rather strange Café. I fear they had been marrying their own parents for a number of generations, it was quite weird.

We were in the valley and on both sides of us there were some spectacular hills/mountains swathed in mist and looking quite menacing. The conditions were filthy , made worse by  some of the riders in the group not having mudguards; when you are tucked up close behind them trying to get out of the wind you end up getting a face full of water sprayed up from their rear wheel.

We were tonking along at around 20 mph when all of a sudden after about 30km I started to feel as if I had no energy left.  I was dropped by the group as we went up a slight climb and had to ease off and eat a few of my power bars in order to get a burst of energy. It was the strangest feeling, my legs just started to wobble and I couldn’t keep up. I think the cause was that I hadn’t eaten enough breakfast; I don’t care much for cold cereal so I went for the French toast only and with the back to back days of riding I think I just ran out of energy.

I did have a bit of laugh though; I stopped off at a garage and had an interesting encounter with a Chinese woman who clearly didn’t understand my accent or understand what I meant by cereal bar.

After a while my legs came back and I was able to get going again. I joined another few riders and after a few km I caught up with the larger bunch as they had stopped to get their wet weather kit off.

After a couple of gentle climbs I had my first significant decent, I managed to get up to 45mph, the fastest I have ever been, and had to negotiate a near 90degree bend, interesting in the wet, but all ended well.

About 50km into the ride we took a quick detour to Harrison Hot Springs for lunch. The views were quite impressive but because of the weather the lake wasn’t its famous bright blue. I quaffed a mushroom and cheese burger and chips and then we set off for Hope.

The rest of the ride was relatively flat with the odd gentle rise until we got to Hope; the world famous home of chainsaw carving. There was carved wood everywhere and I have to admit it was quite impressive.

After Hope we took to an old railway track and cycles through some fantastic old railway tunnels which almost defy belief in terms of how they were built. They were blown out in the 1850’s I think, the combination of tunnels and the river canyon below was very impressive.

I got into camp and got straight to work getting the tent up, which only takes me about 10 minutes, and then sorted out a shower and changed into fresh clothes. I cleaned the bike, which was absolutely filthy and then settled down to blogging and beer.

Tomorrow will be a challenge, we have a 30km climb up Coquihalla Pass. Vegetarian shepherd’s pie awaits!

Onwards and upwards, tomorrow literally!