Last night was a little bit rough. I was laying I my tent sweating more then I was on the bike that day. I would say it was hotter then hell but that would be an exaggeration. The truth is that it was probably as hot as hell. 10pm came and I was still up. At that point I set my alarm because I knew I was not going to get up in time.
Well morning came and a nice loud cell phone was a crude but needed wake up call…. Ahaha with the bad cell phone joke. I got up and left like I always do and was ready to get some km’s in. It all started normally. I got to Bathurst in the right amount of time. I took the 134 like I was supposed to and I saw the starfish sign which I was fallowing all the day yesterday.
I was happy as a clam. I had a tail wind, I was right next to the water, and there was literally no one on the road. I was riding down the centre of my lane with no problem. About the only thing I saw was a man shingling his roof who politely waved at me.
A half hour went by and I started to get suspicious. I though “I am supposed to be heading inland and I am still next to the water”, “why is there so little traffic this is the direct route to Moncton”. So I stopped and asked where I was. Well this is when I found out that the 134 splits off and I took the wrong split. This choice had cost me 20k in the wrong direction, and the 30k back to the main road because I took the highway. As well I had a nice 20km/h head wind to deal with.
I got back to the main road and was on my way in the right direction. Now I was upset with myself and had let out a few curse words of my own. The last thing on my mind was my body/ bike. Well this turned out bad. I was 25k down the road and I blew up. My body was cooked and I was out of water. I could go back but that’s 20k in a head wind. I could go forward that’s 47k down the road.
This is where I made the choice to preserve my body. I waved down a truck and he took me to the next town. Luckily Brice (the guy who picked me up was kind enough to take me to the sobeys to get some much-needed nutrition. It was also nice to have someone to talk to for 30 minutes. It was even nicer to get air conditioning for a little while because at that point it was 34 degrees outside. I worked it out in on the map that all things factored in I did the same amount of km’s today (within 3km) if I was not to have screwed up my directions. It was really a bad situation because If I had of got my directions right I would have hit the main town in perfect timing. But because I took my detour it just destroyed everything.
The rest of the day actually went amazing. Minus the fact I had to walk my bike up a bridge because there was no shoulder, gusting winds, and the sidewalk was destroyed. I had a tail wind that was pushing me, and I was making up for the time that I had lost. I was going to stop at st. Louis but I had an extra half hour so I pressed on. My thinking is it is an extra 16km that I don’t have to do tomorrow.
I was rewarded by this effort with a nice shady campground that will give me a good nights rest. I will have to wear my earplugs though because by the sounds of the mic checks we are going to have another greenday cover band.
Trip Distance: 167km
Ride Time: 7:23hr
Avg. Speed: 22.61km/h
Total Distance: 6328km
Total Ride Time: 292hr
Destination Jardine, New Brunswick
P.S. Happy belated birthday dad
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Green Day?Really? What happened to the amazing Celtic/ Spirit of the West sounds/ bands from the Maritimes that used to push the envelope? Bettter luck next campground.
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