Running on empty…

It Was A Large Day!!

Day 6. 8/24/24

New Denver BC to Nelson BC

Stats: 64 mi. AIS: 7:28 min. 8.6mph. 3163 elevation gain.

There could be so many appropriate titles for today’s ride: Spits & Quits….Day of Drizzle…Watch for Falling Tree… A River Rail Trail or 12 miles of Hell to the Finish!

Hope you have a few minutes because this could be a story about as looong as our day. It went like this…

Knowing that we had 64 miles and 3000 ft of climbing with our 80+|- lb bicycles with gear… we were expecting a lot of AIS time. Maybe not as much as it ended up being but there’s reasons for that coming later. Alarm was set for 5am…we packed up and headed off planning to have breakfast in Slocan…20 miles down the road. We stocked up last night on snacks for today. We quickly ate a banana and a few Fig Newtons to get us to Slocan…. destination Harold’s Cafe!

As a side note… today’s snacks were all sugary… fruit leather, skittles, Clif Bars and leftover Pizza from dinner a couple days ago.

Departure was about 6:15am. As opposed to yesterday with an abrupt climb, today we had 5km until the intense climbing started. The rain held off for our start. Once the climbing started it was a relentless vertical for about 4 miles. My brain compared it to climbing to the first switchback on Beartooth Pass in Montana (without the elevation and far more curvy). It was a steady grade but I was in my smallest chainring on my smallest gear the entire way. It was doable but we kept wondering where the summit would be and every curve still kept climbing!

My legs were fresh so it was okay… just long. We pedaled through the fire zone of just a few weeks ago. It came up to the road from the lake and crossed the road at the summit. Once we reached the summit we were headed down to Slocan for 12 miles. At the summit it started to drizzle. We put on raincoats. It was cold this morning so we had on leg tights and hats under helmets. In hindsight sight we should have put on all our rain gear (pants, booties or waterproof socks and gloves) but once we started to descend we didn’t want to quit until the breakfast cafe!

Cruising downhill we had to slow down for the most unusual road cleanup. A tree had fallen across the road from a very high cliff above us! The tree trunk was already moved off the highway but one worker had to shovel off all the scattered wood chips. We chuckled about his small shovel and how glad we were to not witness that event!

We were a pretty wet sight 2 1/2 hours later at Harold’s Cafe. Not busy on Saturday morning. The owner, Antonia, had one customer and then us. We enjoyed a huge carbo-loaded breakfast and Antonia was quite chatty. The town had to evacuate near the end of July for 3 weeks! She just reopened her restaurant this week.

We spent almost 2 hrs at the cafe. Stalling while it was steady drizzling outside. Eventually we had to go, so this time we got on all our rain gear.

From Slocan we decided to take the Slocan Valley Trail for the next 28 miles. If we stayed on the highway we would have lots of ups and downs and a busier highway with lots of noise and rain splash off cars and trucks. The trail was definitely slower, mostly 7-8mph depending upon the trail texture. We had packed dirt, sandy, single track, gravel and it varied from km to km. The packed dirt was the fastest and smoothest. The gravel was the roughest and slowest. But… the trail followed the Slocan River and that part was beautiful. Also it was often protected by trees so not drizzling nearly as much and warmer too.

We did like the trail but comparing it to other eastern province Canadian trails we rode last year in Quebec and Nova Scotia it didn’t “hold a candle”. Honestly Quebec would not consider it worthy as one of their “Route Verte” trails. But… we were happy to have it. By the time we finished it we felt beat up!

Now it was time to join the high speed crowd headed for Nelson BC. Nelson is known for being all uphill… or downhill… depending upon where you are! The Selkirk Loop took us quickly off the main highway onto a back road into town. We had 12 miles to go. Typically for our 10mph pace it would be a little over an hour. Not quite that fast… our back road in first had the hardest climbs (walks) that we’ve had at this point. Longer and just as soul-sucking as the hill to camp on Day 2. We had to walk 2 hills… actually I walked 2 1/2. I just gave up on the 3rd HARD hill. Once we walked those we still had more to climb they just were rideable. Of the last 12 miles we finally had downhill for the last 5 miles… more or less. By this time we have been traveling for 11.5 hours!!! Long-ass day!

I really had to will myself to finish this ride. Thought about hitching a ride from one of the many pickups on this backroad. Thought about how crazy it is of me to LIKE to travel by bicycle. Thought about how much I wish I was on an e-bike RiGHT NOW😊. Thought about crying…but remembered my nephews daughter Addy (age 9) skiing at Big Sky MT and how much she hated a super steep long run but didn’t quit!

Good thing we got up so early!! That could be my shortest mileage for my longest day. Can’t remember a day quite that long that wasn’t over 115 miles! Definitely not carrying my gear anyway. Ugh😜

We arrived at our inn for two nights. The Alpine Inn uphill from downtown Nelson. A well deserved rest day tomorrow. After checking in we had to wash down all our panniers and clean off all the dirt on our bikes. They were full of dirt from the wet trail and roads.

Of course I was too tired to remember to take a photo of how dirty everything was from riding today. I just wanted to get them clean and take a 10 minute super hot shower. I was chilled once I stopped moving.

After that wonderful HOT shower we ordered up “delivery” dinner and we’re not going anywhere until tomorrow when the sun shines again!

Until tomorrow…going to sleep now