Tour BC 2007 - Day 6

Day 6 - July 18



Nakusp to Castlegar

As far as views go, this was one of my favorite days. As far as hills,
well, that's another story.

The day started out on an uphill route. There are two rather long
climbs before the first rest stop. Even though I was in the middle of the
group when I left, I was quickly overtaken by all of the cyclists.



I took a picture of a sign warning about this being an area where
Grizzly moms and cubs were prevalent, and right after that, John Gatsby,
rode up and asked if I had seen the grizzly. Apparently, a juvenile had
run across the road just past the sign (between where I was biking and
John). Then, I found out later that Randy had also seen a grizzly
juvenile.

John Bates, Danelle's husband, was riding sweep, and I soon found myself
riding with him.

No surprises here - we were the last group to arrive at the first water
stop, which was the Galena Trailhead. It is an old railroad grade and
one could bike to New Denver via this route. We rode on the pavement,
however.

New Denver is the site of a Japanese re-settlement during WW II. There
is a museum in town, but I did not have time to stop. They were doing
road construction, and the flagger was from Castlegar. He had lived
there most of his life and said it was a good place to live if you could
get used to the smell of the pulp mill.

The next town was Silverton, which is nothing like Silverton, CO,
except that it was the start of a big climb. I did what Michel called the
Triathlon - biked 1/3, walked 1/3, rode in the van 1/3.

While biking uphill, I stopped several times. A couple of times for
seat breaks, a couple of times for energy food breaks. Finally, I had no
steam left and started walking. John suggested that maybe I should
get a ride. YES!!!

So, when Al drove by, he stopped, put my bike on top and gave me a
ride. We stopped at the lunch stop and got lunch. Then he dropped me off
at the second water stop. There were still a few small climbs left,
but it was more doable.



Generally, when we enter towns, Danelle routes us in via backroads.
This was no exception. John had told me earlier in the day that a lot of
hippies lived in these parts, and the route into Castlegar was such
that we passed a business called Organic Mechanix.



Outside, along the roadway were a collection of older cars, wrecked or not, and probably North America's largest collection of VW Westphalia vans.



There was a nice downhill that crossed the creek. I saw that the road

curved and applied my brakes. One rider was unlucky enough to have
been hit by a deer at the bottom of the hill. The rider sustained minor
road rash, which Al took care of at camp.

I arrived at camp, and was told by Denise, who was in her swimming
suit, to go sit in the creek because it was refreshing. It was also
mosquito-land, but very refreshing. I sat in shallow water and every once in
awhile went out a little deeper so that I could lay down in the cool
water. Some men were reading newspapers sitting in folding chairs in
the creek. They looked like they had done that before.

Dinner was "Chinese". They were making the stir fry on a large grill;
another grill had a large wok for fried rice. There were two different
noodle dishes; one was vegetarian with tofu, and actually quite good.
Dessert was ice cream and fruit; I opted for strawberry swirl ice
cream.

Again, I was very tired. I turned in early for me.

6.21.13 riding time; 54.73 miles ridden; 8.6 av. mph

Nikii who is somewhere in British Columbia