The Doors - "Riders on the Storm"

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house were born
Into this world were thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm

- The Doors - "Riders on the Storm"

Drumheller – Youngstown – 140 kms / 87 miles

(NOTE: felt like over 14000 kms... uphill)

I felt relatively organized this morning to the point that it was I who waited for BC and Andrew to be ready…! This is a bit of a first as I usually forget some fundamental thing like sunscreen, water... sometimes even my helmet (I have been known to be a bit of a liability some mornings...)

I decided to ‘change it up’ a bit this morning and experiment with my saddle by taking off the sheepskin cover which has been protecting my butt since Salmon Arm. I’m not sure if I mentioned my little secret but everyone and I mean EVERYONE is envious – whilst I was at my Aunt and Uncles’ place in Salmon Arm my Aunt, who is an avid horseback rider, recommended a sheepskin cover for my saddle. She had used one in Ireland on a bike trip and also horseback riding and swore by it. As luck would have it, she had it handy and passed it through to me. At first I was a bit skeptical – sheepskin? How could sheepskin replace my lovely thick gel saddle which up to that point had been relatively good (no need for the butt-cream yet..!!). How could a thin rather ‘wooly’ brown saddle cover (complete with long stretchy elastic to ensure a snug fit!) save my bottom from carnage? Well, let me tell you, it may look a bit funny and have acquired the name of Polly, but the sheepskin TOTALLY works. We have now done about 1250kms and my bottom is in perfect condition (sorry about the detail but everyone keeps asking!). I can’t help but smile to myself when I see my fellow bikers pull off to the side of the road, limping in pain with the ‘butt cream’ in hand… I am the last one laughing and I may start charging people ‘rental fees’ for use of dear Polly.

Anyway, the ‘changing it up’ idea was definitely not one of my more brilliant ideas..! Polly was back on my saddle within about 20 minutes. The ride out of Drumheller was a fairly smooth and easy one as it was a lovely morning and there was a light breeze. We’d checked the weather forecast that morning and it was due to be a hot day so everyone was keen to get out as early as possible. By about km 20 we started to get some headwind. This was a bit of a first for us as up until now we’d had nearly perfect conditions with the wind at our backs. There were some initial nerves about the wind and we managed to beat it until we hit the rolling hills… Well, even on the best of days the hills are not my forte but when trying to draft behind Brendan ‘Speedy Gonzalez’ Clarke it is incredibly, incredibly stressful as I peddle as hard as I can to keep up but the combination of the wind and the hills makes it nearly impossible to maintain the pace so I fall behind… which means that Andrew who is behind me falls behind… and the entire pace line gets blown out of the window – literally..!! BC shot off ahead leaving Andrew to deal with my temper tantrum at the wind. I huffed and I puffed and I swore and the wind kept going and the hills kept on rolling. Ugh..! I thought the Prairies were supposed to be flat..!!

We made a few ‘pit stops’ along the side of the road as Andrew has come to the conclusion that as long as I am fed and watered I am manageable… but when I get hungry or thirsty then I become an absolute diva.

We pulled into a diner in Hanna (the home of the band, Nickelback!) where I devoured a HUGE grill cheese sandwich, 1 litre of chocolate milk, ½ litre of ice tea, fries with gravy, a giant bowl of butterscotch pudding with whipped cream… and then had to hold myself back from eating the Coffee Crisp that I bought on the way out..! It was a bit excessive and the butterscotch pudding did seem to sit quite heavily in my stomach but I felt pretty good to get back on the bike. Unfortunately however, during our 45 minute break for lunch the wind decided to pick up and blow completely against us… for the remaining 60 kms. It was hell. I was already tired, the pudding sat like a giant buttery weight in my stomach and every time I felt like I’d been biking at least 20 kms then I’d look down at my odometer and see it was only 5kms. Ugh.

THEN, just when I didn’t think it could get any worse I started to use my ‘rest stops’ to take pictures of the clouds which seemed to get darker and darker and loom overhead… suddenly I realized that we were biking directly into the eye of a giant storm – against the wind. Andrew and I started to place bets on how long it would take for the storm to hit us…. Soon we noticed that it was more than just one storm – there were actually 3 huge storms all heading in our direction and also into each other. It has been a long, long time since I’ve seen such a dark sky with so much lightning. I wondered if the others ahead of us were all biking into it as well… Some people had left so early that it was quite likely that they were caught in it already.

Andrew and I stopped every 5kms for a gigantic whining and ‘bitching’ session – we complained about the wind, the prairies, the cold, the rain, the overindulgence at lunch, the wet tents we’d have to set up at camp, the distance left to travel, the road conditions etc. etc. It got to the stage when we were about 10kms from Youngstown that we pulled over and just had to laugh about the situation. I checked my blackberry and noticed a message from Brendan,

“Are you guys ok..?!? Did you get caught in the crazy storm?!?”

As soon as I read that I realized that we’d been a bit lucky by pacing ourselves that afternoon.! The storm that we’d seen earlier had apparently been quite a viscous one and I was curious to see what a lucky escape we’d had. The answer came about 3 minutes later when we were cycling into Youngstown – snowdrifts of hail piled up alongside the road and huge lakes in the rolling pastures. Whilst the sun was trying to break through the clouds it was pretty clear that it had been very, very nasty weather there about an hour before… And, off in the distance, more giant dark clouds were forming and the sky was turning dark as night.

As soon as we got into Youngstown Brendan ran out to check if we were ok. He told us what had happened about an hour earlier when a giant hailstorm / thunderstorm had ripped through the area. Apparently there was hail the size of golfballs and the rain came down in sheets – so much so that BC and a few of the others took their shampoo bottles and soap out in the rain for their showers…! THEN, Ian emerged and showed us his ‘battle wounds’. Giant welts covered his back and he looked a bit shaken up. Apparently he had been completely caught out in the middle of the hail without any shelter in sight – quite common in the Prairies… Even if he had been able to see any sign of life (eg. grain elevator) it would likely still have been 20 kms off into the distance. Ian ended up flagging down a van about 5kms from town for shelter..! Poor guy..! I would definitely have been scared especially considering all of the lightening, wind, rain and hail – it was totally ‘tornado weather’. I was led to our campsite which looked like an Olympic sized swimming pool with a picnic table bobbing around in it. Fortunately there was a Plan B for the day to remedy the situation thanks to the wonderful hospitality of the residents of Youngstown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown,_Alberta

Youngstown is a small, friendly and very hospitable town about 60kms from the Saskatchewan border. It has a population of about 200 people with 1 school, a grocery store and 1 bar. For the past 10 years the residents of Youngstown have a huge annual pot-luck to welcome the Tour du Canada into the town. They also let us use their community centre as our ‘crash pad’ given our campsite was totally immersed in water..! AND they opened their school for us to use the showers to get cleaned up…! The hospitality shown by the people was phenomenal and it was so interesting to ‘meet the locals’ and find out about their lives. Over dinner I sat with a local farmer who has about 6000 acres of land..! This makes my Dad’s 400 acres seem tiny! But, as the farmer pointed out, most of the land is non-arable and used for pasture so essentially whilst there is more land, it’s very well possible that the 400 acres is much more work.

The potluck was amazing – there was so much home cooking – chili with meatballs, about 5 deliciously different salads, sausages with white sauce, pasta dishes, cinnamon buns, marshmallow squares, chocolate squares, chocolate pudding, pies and so much more. Everyone was overwhelmed by the generosity of the residents of Youngstown. On the wall in the hall where we had supper there was even a giant article cut out from The National Post in 1999 which described the TdC..! Apparently the residents put on the pot luck as they feel that it is one of the times that ‘the world comes to them’. I really, really enjoyed it and it was a wonderful way to end one of the most challenging days of the journey so far.

Just before dinner I took a few photos of the sky just before the 2nd wave of storms hit the town – again, the clouds were incredible and seemed to visibly ‘roll’ through the sky like giant waves. There were two clouds which looked like they were about to form into funnel clouds but just as they were about to touch down they broke away and dissipated. The wind and the rain came down in sheets and sheets and the sky was a deep, deep blue color which contrasted to the dark grey clouds. Note that in the photo below there is a bar at the end of the rainbow... on some days this is worth more than a pot of gold..!

I slept really well that night on my Thermarest in the comfort of the community centre – I managed to find a quiet little corner away from the snorers and was out like a light in about 3 seconds flat....