Monday, August 4, 2014

Oh what a rough ride today, but a nice downhill whiz finish by 2:00 PM, as our deadline for arrival at the Ferry was 3:00 PM for the 5:00 PM sailing. In the morning at breakfast we were chatting with guests who told us that a bridge was out so we would need to take a detour.  Our breakfast server (from Port Alberni!) helped us get sandwiches packed for the road and then came out to the front of the lodge to wish us well on our ride as we left.  Our plan for the day did not seem to be much impacted by the detour, as it only added 3K to our ride, as the detour road took us up North to the Ferry rather than on the South loop and then the bridge over to the North side.  Well, the original plan also included 20K of gravel road, mostly uphill.  By the time we had done the detour, which was also a gravel road, up and over a hill, we had done 30K of gravel road.  When we arrived at the first gravel road stretch, we found it to be pretty rough, but there were not many vehicles at all, so we could swerve along between pointy exposed rock, loose road base, patterns of pot holes, and washboard sections (canoe skill maneuvers on rivers came in handy!). However, on the detour, everyone else was anxiously rushing along in bumper-to-bumpy convoys.  Most drivers, seeing us, were so gracious, and some even stopped until we went by. The occasional speedster kicked up such a cloud of dust as to blanket us and make us hold our breath for a while. Oops, we have bandanas and face masks along for such instances, but did not bring them out :-(. The most challenging bit was the downhill after the steep climb.  In particular, the washboard was unsettling, as the vibration and rattle made it difficult to control the bikes, and blurred our vision, and there was really no where to turn, with convoys on one side and loose gravel and a steep slope on the other.  Needless to say, we were happy to reach the highway! A hilly, but smooth final 13K landed us at the Ferry in a timely way.  We ate the very nice sandwiches - lucky us as the bridge-being-out-detour meant not going through Placentia where there were food services and the ferry terminal for some reason had the cafeteria closed. We also wiped the dust off our bikes and felt very impressed that the repair on the bike tire with the boot had held up on the rough road. We were asked to board the Ferry and because we were on our bikes we were the first of three upstairs. Our accommodations were great and we slept really well after a nice very dinner in the fine-dining room called "Flowers".








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