After the previous, long, windy day, I wasn’t quite ready to go back onto the road for another day of riding. A long visit to Tim Horton’s in Jasper was well received. Knowing that the day wasn’t going to be as long as it was yesterday we headed out. We stopped at the Bear’s Paw Bakery first filling up on some delicious baked goods. The sun was shining and that was a good sign.
We were making good time and it was impressive how good I felt. The day was filled with a labyrinth of cycling uphill and then down again. The hills don’t seem so big anymore, the both of us are getting used to riding up some big hills with all our gear. We were both excited we were going to get to our location in record time and we could spend some time to just relax.
About a two thirds into our ride I noticed that Nathan’s tire was a little low and so we stopped to fill it up. Easy enough, we head out again but again I noticed Nathan’s wheel and it looked like it was wobbling a bit. We stop again and Nathan takes a closer look at his wheel and finds that the wire beading was coming through the sidewall of the inside and the outside of the tire. So Nathan took the whole thing apart and tried to see if he could fix it. We noticed that the inner tube was too small for the type of tire that was on his bike and we thought that’s where the trouble started. Nathan lined the inside of his tire with duct tape hoping that would stop the tiny wire coming through and puncturing a hole into his new inner tube. The whole affair took around two hours thus throwing off a lot of our relaxed leisure time. We get going again and I noticed again that his tire looked wobbly but he ignored it and we continued on to moose lake. The wheel held.
We reached Moose lake but the lake isn’t too small so we kept going to camp out around where the middle of the lake was. It was a nice ride thus far and ahead of us was a decent sized hill that would take some effort to go up. Using the momentum we had gained we started our ascent, but before we got too far, a truck from the top of the hill was coming down and the guy driving stopped us, asking for directions. He was trying to get to Vancouver, but heading the opposite direction. We figured he wasn’t from around here and turns out he was from Mexico. But we turned him on to the right path and we got back on our bikes. I realized then that we still had a hill to climb. Oh, the joys of helping someone out.
We found a spot along the highway hidden by trees to campout. As we started setting up it started to rain, only lightly, but still rain. Everything was set up. We had dinner and then retreated to our own tents because it was beginning to rain harder and the clouds made it darker. It was around 6:30 PM. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I can’t remember a time when I went to bed around 6:30. I remembered that my good friend Nathaniel put a bunch of books into my iPhone.
The next morning it was raining on and off but it stopped long enough for us to getting everything set up. As we were just about to start biking it started to rain again. On went the rain gear. We made good timing to Mount Robson Visitor Information Centre, mostly due to the 200 m drop over 5 km right before. At the Centre, we met a very friendly couple from Jacksonville, Florida who offered us a place to stay if we ever go down there. They gave some good tips for different locations in the states and we departed hoping that someday we would meet again. The rest of the ride to Valemount went smooth and just before we got into town my Uncle John drove past in his car and stopped to chat. It was nice seeing a familiar face again even if we have only been gone for about a week.
We ride into town seeking Wi-Fi as we were cut off from the net for around two days when we were out in the boonies. Our search led us to the Library that was way into town, I never realized that Valemount was more then an A&W, a petro and some hotels. The library was closed but there was a Museum right beside it that was open. Before leaving Jasper we emailed someone on Warm Showers that lived in Valemount asking if we could stay. Nathan asked for a phone book to see if he could look him up. The book itself was about an inch thick but the section for Valemount was only two pages long. Nathan figured that the folks in the Museum knew the guy we were looking for, turns out they did and even knew the number off by heart. So we phone and no one answers. He hands the phone back. Then the museum lady went to a window, opens a curtain and looks out. She told us it looked like his truck was there. This just seemed so weird, kind of reminded me of something that could happen in Neerlandia. We head over, and sure enough we found the guy we were looking for. He was actually building a house there. He let us stay in his unfinished house before he even could.
On Sunday we went for breakfast and remembered the HST that BC has, so we had to pay double for our meal, unlike Alberta. We go to church that consisted of twenty members but we are sure that six of them including us were visiting. It’s nice not riding today, our bodies deserve a break but tomorrow we are back on the road.
Also I wanted people to know that I have Instagram and only have a few devout followers. So if you want to see some more pictures of our tour go to collin_gelderman on instagram. I don’t have that many yet but there will be more.
Another thing, we will be posting links to Garmin Connect. My Garmin GPS records information about our route everyday and we upload them to Garmin Connect so you will be able to view exactly what we did in a day.
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