Day 14: Calgary to New Dayton

173 miles

It was weird to wake up and hear the soft breathing of other people in the room with me. It’s hard to believe it’s only been two weeks because it feels like a lifetime since I left Prudhoe Bay. I’ve been completely on my own every night under the stars or in motel rooms by my self. I walked out of the communal dorm room and got into the shower. It felt stupid to take a shower right before I was about to jump back into my still wet, and reeking bike clothes for another long day, but as the water ran black I knew that the employees at the bike shop would appreciate my attempts to clean up even if they were relatively futile. Having not eaten since about 9 o’clock tonight before but having burned well over 10,000 cal yesterday I was quite ravenous and made quick tracks to the supermarket. I left with an extra 5 pounds of food strapped on my bike and held in my hands and I slowly pedaled to the bike shop down the road. I picked out the shop because I had seen a picture of it on Google and it looked really cool. It totally lived up to expectations. By far the biggest bike shop, I’ve ever been to. Two stories, full of nice bikes. Bikes on the ceiling, bikes on the wall, bikes on the ground, bikes, everywhere. It’s like I was a kid in a candy store except I couldn’t afford any of the candy and everything looked like I might break it if I touched it. I’d been in contact with the shop beforehand, and they knew I was coming. They let me in 30 minutes before the shop opened and got to work on my bike. Two mechanics worked overtime to clean it, throw on new tires, cables, chain, brake pads, cassette, and pedals. I hadn’t been planning on replacing the cassette or pedals, but the incessant rain the past two weeks really took a beating on my cassette. I had brand new Look Keo Blade pedals put on the bike before I left, but some days ago the blades on both petals, snapped and lost tension almost simultaneously. My feet have been swinging around in the pedals for the past several days. Which, in addition to being incredibly annoying and harmful to my bike, as my heels were clipping my cranks, it was also hurting my Achilles and ankle because my pedals were not holding my feet in smooth circles. As the mechanics got my bike right I sat and worked my way through eight apple danishes and a carton of chocolate milk. I click clacked around the shop like a little princess in my carbon road cycling shoes, taking swigs of my chocolate milk along the way. I want to give a huge shout out to the shop, Bow Cycles in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. If you’re ever in the area definitely go check them out even if you don’t need work on your bike. The shop is just super awesome. The mechanics are super knowledgeable and helpful and didn’t even charge me for labor and gave me a discounts on parts. I cannot thank them enough for their fantastic work.

The sun was out, and the wind was blowing, but wait, it was blowing in a favorable direction for once. I left Calgary with a solid 10 to 15 mile an hour tail wind. Woo hoo! Calgary seems like a pretty cool city. I meandered through some bike paths to get out of the city center and wandered through some nice public green spaces. In the distance I could see the Canadian Rockies and I was able to make out some very large peaks. It rained a lot yesterday, but in the mountains there was no rain, only snow. Earlier in the week I had seen mountains with a dusting of snow, the mountains today were covered in a blanket of snow. It was beautiful, even from 50 miles away. I’ve now biked through almost every major Canadian city. From Hanover, New Hampshire this summer I biked through Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Quebec city all on different rides. While I often dread riding through American cities because of the traffic and poor bike infrastructure, I find Canadian cities much easier to navigate and Canadian drivers much more understanding of cyclists. It’s not a blanket statement that Canadian drivers are nicer to cyclists as I experienced some of the most hostile drivers of my life, in the Yukon and British Columbia, but in general urban Canadian drivers seem to be nicer than their counterparts in America. It’s easy to see why. Canadian cycling infrastructure is undeniably better than that of the majority of US cities, and on nice days like today Canadians take to the outdoors in throngs. The greenways and cycling paths were crowded, but it was nice to see other people, and I didn’t mind being slowed down a little bit as that’s just the nature of biking through a city. The city itself doesn’t strike me as one with an incredible amount of history or character, it seems like a pretty new city, but it’s proximity to the Rockies and the stampede/cowboy undertones give the city an appealing vibe. I think the winters here would be rough, but the many ski resorts just a couple hours drive away, would help numb some of the pain of the cold. In the southern outskirts of the city, I hopped onto Highway 2 once again. This is the same highway as the Alaska highway. A lot bigger now, obviously, and it was more of a limited access freeway most of the day. I’m not actually sure what the legality of me biking on this road is, but once outside of Calgary, it was relatively quiet and wasn’t completely restricted access the entire way. I never saw any no cycling signs and multiple cops passed me without saying anything. The Anyways, I will take this highway then Highway 4 all the way to the US Canadian border in Sweet grass Montana where Highway 4 will turn into USA Interstate 15. I will actually ride this interstate for quite some time. Cycling on an interstate is illegal in 47 states, but in Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana cyclist are allowed on the interstate. I will be making my way through Montana then into Wyoming. Once in the states, I will rely almost entirely on the interstate as my road of transportation. After a harder day yesterday, and a late night, it was nice to have an easier start with the tailwind. I was able to keep my cadence high and power low as my speed crept up into the mid 20s.  My spirits were high and the temperature was beautiful. It capped out at 71°, the first 70° day Ive felt this trip. Before long I’ll probably be on here complaining about how hot it is outside. For now the riding temperature remains almost perfect. About 40 miles south of Calgary. I had a run-in with him a small but temperamental black cloud that decided that my day wouldn’t be complete without a little bit of rain, of course. Two weeks in and I’ve had two days without rain. That’s incredible. It didn’t really matter though because the sun came back out 10 minutes later and for the first time this trip I was able to ride through the rain without becoming even remotely cold. Once I get into the desert and Central America I’ll be begging for rain so I’m not going to complain about a little 70° shower right now. After the storm passed over I kind of put my head down and just rode for a little bit and things felt like they went back to normal. I couldn’t figure out why things seemed so routine. Then I suddenly realized that the storm had taken away my tailwind and given me a headwind. I wasn’t really surprised, but I can say I was a little disappointed. It wasn’t a crippling headwind, but at 10 miles an hour it certainly slowed my progress. The further south I got the more nothingness there seemed to be. All morning I could look west and see the big mountains in the distance but as I got south the mountains got smaller and the road slowly bent to the east and the mountains faded into the haze on the horizon. There were some rolling hills that remained to the east, much closer to me than the mountains had been. They were covered in the brown golden grass of the prairie, and in the afternoon sunlight seem to shine like gold. The recently harvested fields of wheat also glittered in the afternoon sun and the bright yellows and golds sparkled under the blue sky and puffy, white clouds. I found it quite beautiful, in an interesting way. I wrote down a quick thought I had and now I can’t find a way to refine it, so I’ll just put it in raw.

There is something to the nothingness of it all. A beauty in the absence of the things I find beautiful.

When I looked off to the east and only saw a flat horizon I quickly became numb with boredom, but when I peered to the west and saw the outlines of hills and large mountains far in the distance, the prairie seemed to take on a new beauty. Rather than the mountains taking away the spotlight from the beauty from the prairie, they seemed to enhance the prairie. The varying terrains worked together to paint a fading picture of the wild Rose Country and I took the time to enjoy my last afternoon in Canada. It’s hard to believe that I’m almost out of the country. I allowed myself a quick look at the map last night and I really have made some good progress. I’m not even 20% of the way to Ushuaia, which is crazy in its own respect, but geographically I’ve covered some ground already. I really don’t mind the prairie at all. I think I will find it quite boring as I press on through similar terrain in America, but for today it was quite nice. It was nice not to have to worry about any hills or have anxiety about where my next meal is going to come from. The horizon is speckled with cows, small farm houses, and grain silos relieve the prairie of staunch nothingness. The cell reception is consistent and I always know I’m never more than 30 miles from the closest store. It certainly doesn’t have the same beauty of the Alaska highway and there’s a beauty and the remoteness of the Alaska highway that I do miss, but it’s not as hard to find the silver lining on the prairie as I thought it might be. I would say the biggest drawback is that there is nowhere to hide from the wind and it does feel quite monotonous. Oh and the cattle feedlots stink. But the roads are straight and it really feels like I’ve covered a lot of ground on these long roads. I think there’s beauty in novelty, which will slowly wear off of but for now I will savor every moment of the sweet allurement of the world around me. I certainly have plenty of space to think of. I’m reminded of the The Chicks song, Wide Open Spaces; with plenty of room to make a big mistake. I certainly don’t want to make a big mistake but I have plenty of room to do it if I do. Speaking of big mistakes, I’ve come to realize over the course of today that not making it to the bike shop in Calgary last night like I planned really wasn’t that big of a deal. Over the last three days prior to Calgary and I had to cover 620 miles to make it to the shop in time. That means I still averaged over 200 miles a day which is what I have been aiming to do this entire trip for these sections of my route. Today was a little bit shorter than I would perhaps have liked it to be due to my later start, but I still covered more miles than I would’ve thought possible a year ago. I talked a lot about grace yesterday, and to really give myself the full grace I need to it’s helpful to step back and appreciate just how far I’ve come in life and in training to get to where I am today. And of course how far I’ve come in the past two weeks. It’s also incredible to think that I’ve had fun pretty much every day. There’s been some dark moments, but I keep waiting for this ride to become truly miserable because when I set out from Prudhoe Bay I had set my standards as low as possible so that every day of forward progress can be viewed as a success. There was a part of me that was ready for 84 days off of hell. I had mentally prepared myself for the absolute worst and so far it’s fair to say that things have been a little less than ideal at times, but I haven’t been dealt the worst hand, and every day I pick up a couple new cards. I just hope I’m not playing Uno. I made the mortifying mistake last night of checking the wind forecast for my first week in America. If you believe the forecast, I’ll have a headwind every single day until I get to the border with Mexico. That’s about 2000 miles away which seems like a lot of headwind. I’m trying not to think about it too much but when I do think about it, it doesn’t cause me as much panic as it might’ve two weeks ago. Over the last 2000 miles I’ve had a headwind for all but about 150 of them and I’ve managed to make pretty good progress. I said earlier in this trip that I don’t think it’s worth looking at the numbers I’m putting out versus the world record pace until at least 3000 to 5000 miles into the trip and I stand by that assertion. However, I’d be lying to you if I told you I don’t think about those numbers every single day in my head. Just because I’m not putting them out there on the blog doesn’t mean that I don’t know them. Sometime next week I look forward to having a quick talk on the numbers, but for now I continue to take it one day at a time.

Now that I have consistent cell reception, I find it easy to call or FaceTime my friends and family while I ride. I remember a couple years ago there was a massive debate in the endurance athletics community about whether FaceTime him should be allowed on unsupported attempts. At the time to me, the debate seemed absolutely ridiculous. We’re out here to test our athletic ability and it shouldn’t have to be a loneliness challenge as well. But now that I’m two weeks into my unsupported effort, I kind of see the argument that FaceTime shouldn’t be allowed. It is allowed in unsupported attempts, and I’m incredibly glad for this because these calls give me something to look forward to all day, they lift up my spirits for hours after the calls, and they give me something to think about. In the absence of human interaction or contact, it’s incredible to see how quickly my mind has adapted, and what other forms of communication have a reason to fuel fill the void that social interaction is meant to hold. It will only get more challenging as I get further into this attempt and every day, I miss the people I love a little bit more. But for now, I’m not really suffering from loneliness. I would say I’m lonely at times, but it’s not something that is actively retarding my progress. I think in the future it could become such a variable, but for now I am happy with how my mind is dealing with the lack of real human interaction. Even just being at the shop for a couple hours this morning watching people walking around, talking, fixing bikes. That made me happy and boosted my spirits a bit. I do worry that perhaps once I enter Spanish-speaking countries, I will feel more of a sense of loneliness and alienation as my Spanish is not that good and language is an incredible source of alienation. But that’s not a problem I have to worry about for another 2000 miles.

As the sun hung low in the sky, the puffy clouds once again dissipated in favor of white wispy clouds that stretched across the horizon. This seems to be a common theme up here and I’m not really sure why, but it makes the sunsets beautiful. The prairie does give me a sense of peace. The cows lounge in the fields, seemingly not a care in the world and the fields stretch on forever, giving the intermittent farmhouses shrouded in lone trees a comforting homely look. Most of the crops have already been harvested for the season, so there is a melancholy sense of peace that seems to prevail the hills. Whether is the season was good or bad for crops I do not know, but it’s in the past, and now the farmers can only look forward, much as I can.

At the beginning of the day, I thought there was a possibility of reaching the Canadian-United States border by the evening, but it wasn’t to be with the winds, so I spend one last night here in Canada. And tomorrow I return to my homeland. Even if Canada really feels like America anyways, it will be nice to get her back into the states. As I move south, every day gets a little bit shorter, but every night gets a little bit warmer. The one constant remains the sky above me, which never ceases to provide something new to direct my gaze at. I fall asleep tonight once again under an amphitheater of stars. They are noticeably dimmer due to the increase light pollution, but I can still make out the Milky Way, and I don’t think there will ever come a day in my life where I fail to appreciate the beauty of the stars.