183 miles

Today was a recovery day. Well, not actually, but it really felt that way. Today absolutely flew by. Yes, it was a little bit shorter than the days I’ve been pushing recently, both in duration and mileage, but this would still generally be regarded as a substantial day on the bike. However, it felt like a breeze. I’m super happy with that, especially after yesterday.

I didn’t check into my hotel until 11:30 last night and wasn’t in bed until almost 12:30 So I let my self sleep in until seven. When I woke up I felt horrendous. My legs felt dead, my eyes felt heavy, I just wanted to go back to sleep. I don’t think I slept very well last night. I don’t remember having trouble falling asleep, but my watch sleep data told me that my first several hours of sleep were quite fitful, which makes sense, given the meal I ate right before bed. Between the entire cheesecake, the half gallon of chocolate milk, the liter of Gatorade, and the pint of ice cream I had at least 500 grams of sugar right at midnight. No wonder my first couple hours of sleep were a little restless. I knew that falling back asleep would feel really nice. In the moment it seemed like a great idea. But I wouldn’t let myself, I couldn’t let myself. Even if I did get another hour or two of sleep, it wouldn’t change how my legs felt. If my legs were tired then it was because of the effort I did yesterday, and not because I didn’t sleep very well. And the miles aren’t gonna bike themselves—I told myself. Obviously. But it worked. I got myself out of bed and immediately started eating again, of course. My bike needed a little bit of work put into it before heading back out. All this rain the past couple of days has not been nice to my bike. I allowed myself to live in luxury a little bit and brewed a pot of coffee while I tinkered with my bike. I once again tried to get my power meter working, but cannot get it to light up for more than a few seconds. Hopefully the bike shop in Calgary will be able to help me. I checked out of my motel a little bit after an hour after I woke up and headed over to the grocery store for breakfast number two and the day’s rations. I had to backtrack about half a mile to get to the grocery store, tragic. It was nice and warm out comparatively, about 45°. This is the first day I was able to start without any legwarmers on. After the first climb I took off my jacket and was just in arm warmers. What a miraculous day compared to yesterday. For the first three hours mother nature blessed me with a powerful tailwind, and false flat ascents. On my way south there was a lot of construction in the morning and I had to wait for pilot cars multiple times. However, each stop, as much as I lamented the last time, represented an opportunity to talk to the flaggers. I very rarely talk to people for extended amounts of time out here, so whenever given that chance I gladly jump on it. I think the workers can always tell that I’m a little bit lonely out here, and excited to talk to someone because they always reflect my happiness and joy right back at me. I’ve met some really incredible and nice people the last couple of days and it really makes me happy. The pilot cars only went about 25 miles an hour through the construction zones so I was able to draft right up behind them much that amusement of all of the construction workers who would stop what they were doing and watch me pass by.

I keep thinking that I am going to reach more consistently developed areas, but every day I am proven wrong. The stretch between Watson Lake and Fort Nelson cause one of the longest stretches without a town of my entire trip so far. Western Yukon and southern Alaska actually felt less remote than the regions I’ve been traveling the last couple of days. Today was no exception. After leaving Fort Nelson, I turned due south and started making my way through dense seemingly endless forest. There wasn’t much to look at, in fact, there was pretty much nothing to look at most of the day, except for trees, and my little strip of concrete right in front of me. For some reason I didn’t get bored. I kind of expected that once I got out of the mountains I would immediately be struck by boredom. The last nine days my face has constantly been turned upward and my neck has been craned to take in all the wonderful sites around me. Today I dropped my head and stared at the white line on the road for 12 hours instead. Nothing I did today was out of the ordinary. My riding was pretty average, the weather, my diet, everything felt ordinary. But in its extra ordinary nature my day was extraordinary. How fantastic it feels to be able to pumped out a solid day without really struggling at all. Ideally, I want to be hitting at least 200 miles every day, but today was a balancing act for yesterday‘s big push and there is plenty of time left in my journey to push huge days. Right now I need to focus on really dialing in my routine and keeping injury and mechanical free while my body gets fully accustomed to the day after day strain I am subjecting it to. At around noon, three hours into my ride, the wind suddenly stopped completely. The tailwind had been nice, but it was gone. There were some puffy clouds in the sky, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna rain. There was just one cloud in the sky that seem to threaten my hopes. It was a really dark cloud. Almost black. It looked angry, like a black sheep in the sky next to all these other puffy, white clouds. Sure enough our paths cross. It started with a pitter patter of rain and then quickly turned to hail. It was a quite small cloud, so I definitely wasn’t expecting hail. It only hailed for about two minutes but it rained for the next 20, ensuring I got properly soaked. I was just in my bibs in jersey at this time, and even though it was almost 60° out and I got quite cold for a minute. The sun came back out though, and I warmed right back up. No problem. I couldn’t help but laugh at the hail a little bit. Anyways, I had to keep my streak going, it’s rained every single day of this trip except for day four. I in the late afternoon I reached a small service station and realized I had cell reception. I took a long break and called home and a good friend. It was so nice to hear from the voices that I already miss so much. These were the first phone calls I’ve been able to make this trip. My cell reception has been so limited and at the rare times when I do have service schedules just have not overlap. I love the quiet roads and remote mountains, but as I get into more developed regions of Canada, and then the United States one thing I am looking forward to is more in person contact with people I meet along the way and virtual contact with the people back home. As grateful as I was for the cell service, I was really confused as to why I had service. I was nowhere close to any city of any sort. The answer came to me shortly after I hopped back on my bike. There were natural gas pumping stations all across the landscape. What just a couple miles before had been expansive untouched forest was now pockmarked with tall white smokestacks and rows of white buildings rhimed in shiny metal pipes. At the top of each stack there rose a flame of fire. Excess methane being burned off from the gas pump Every time I got anywhere near one of the wells I was bombarded with the acrid smell of methane and the putrid, but almost sweet smell of raw unrefined natural gas. During my five day stay in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska before the beginning of this trip. I became very familiar with the smell of this sweet gas. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to smell that scent without thinking about Prudhoe Bay. Although there were no huge mountains, there were a lot of hills. They ended up making today one of my largest days of vertical gain thus far. From the crest of some of these hills I watched the sun get low in the sky to the west and pushed on into the headwind that had developed over the course the late afternoon. The headwind in the afternoon kind of balanced out the tailwind and I had in the morning and the sunshine I had most of the day balanced out the brief rain storm I had around lunch. As the sun was setting I observed that the forest I had been in all day was changing in its composition. It had gradually gone from almost strictly conifers to a much more diverse array of deciduous trees, and shrubs. On some hillsides there were exclusively deciduous trees. This is the first sign that I am getting close to the plaines. I also knew that the town of Grand Prairie was only 400 km south. I do not know for sure, but it seems to me like the town of Grande Prairie will be in the Prairie. I expect to break free of the forest tomorrow. The sunset was once again beautiful. The headwind had driven out the bulbous fluffy clouds and brought in wispy feathery clouds. The weather has been pretty decent for me today, exceptional compared to the last couple of days. I’m still hoping to get a couple days of absolute tailwind, though for retribution for the headwind available for five days in the Yukon. I had seen a lot of gas wells, the last 30 miles before the sunset, but it was only once it was dark out that I was able to fully appreciate the quantity and scale of these wells. The methane flares on each well served as flickering beacons of light which disclosed the location of many pumps that had been previously of concealed by the trees. As far as I could see, in all directions, little flares of light lit up the forest. From a distance, the flares just look like little candles, but up close, I realized that these flares were actually large jets of fire protruding from the smokestacks probably 10-15 feet high. Because the flames were so large they could be seen from quite some distance.

I was amazed by how quickly it got cold. As soon as the sun went down in just minutes I found myself shivering with only my arm warmers on. The temperature swing here is over 30° between the low in the high. I didn’t have long to go to get to the town of Wonowon which I had picked as my destination for the night. Named because of the town sits at mile 101 of the Alaska highway (one-oh-one —> Wonowon), this town was a chance for me to get some food before camping on the south side of town. But for me, this town had more significant than just being mile 101 of the Alaska Highway. This summer, I lost a good friend by the name of Won Jang. Truly Won of one, his bright smile lit up every room he entered. Ever talented, intelligent, and kind, he had a beautiful way of making you feel like the center of the universe whenever you were talking to him. He would always ask me about my training and my upcoming trip. It was hard not to feel infectious excitement that he emanated. I know he would’ve been so happy to see me out here chasing my dreams, so I hope that I can make it to Ushuaia because I know he would’ve been proud of that. I looked up at the sky and saw the stars for the first time since day four. As someone near and dear to me once said “we may be far away from each other but it comforts me that we look up and see the same stars at night.” I could almost see Won’s smile in the sky, like the clouds had finally parted for him. He would’ve loved the stars up here with such little light pollution. Tonight, as I sleep on the outskirts of Wonowon, I smile at the memory of Won and look forward to tomorrow, which represents another chance to get one day closer to making Won proud.