Well I’m only 3 days in and I’ve now cycled through rain, sleet, hail, and snow! Trip’s been a real blast so far.

My morning started at 4.30am when this stupid woodpecker was pecking on the metal casing around RV hookups at the campground. It was surprisingly loud. Once the woodpecker got the party started, some local crows started freaking out and joined in on the noise. I think they were competing for who could be louder. I decided this was a clear sign I should get up and get started on the big day ahead.

Every time I camp I underestimate how long it takes to pack everything up and load the bike. Around 7am–a full 2 hours after I actually got out of my sleeping bag– I was finally ready and rolled away from Moon Shadows RV Park and Campground in Merritt.

When I was looking at the elevation map for today, I thought it looked pretty mellow: a pretty significant amount of elevation gain however it largely came from hills with a low grade that are very long. After an hour long descent out of Merritt, which I anticipated to be a 10 minute hill, I realized that the elevation map I was looking at started at about the halfway point for today’s ride. Morale was low.

Most of today’s ride consisted of boring/uneventful road. Because there’s only road between Merritt and West Kelowna, there wasn’t much worth stopping for.

Outside of boring biking up a million hills, TWO (that’s right, t w o) exciting things happened today:

  1. I started to pull off the shoulder and on to the gravel because I had to pee like CRAZY. As I started to slow down, I looked where I was going to stop, and there was a coyote staring dead at me. I know they’re small and I’m big, but coyotes have way sharper teeth than I do. I panicked big time. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to keep eye contact or specifically not keep eye contact (Is that for a bear?) but I didn’t take my eyes off that thing in case it lunged at me! I slowly cycled towards traffic and away from the coyote. It was pretty interested in me, and started following me on the shoulder of the road. Now I had to constantly shoulder check on my left so I wouldn’t get hit by vehicles, AND shoulder check on my right so I didn’t get attached by a coyote. After about 1km I couldn’t see it following me anymore, but I kept hauling ass down the road. Only after 10 minutes of pedalling did I feel safe enough to stop and FINALLY pee. Anyways, I made it out alive.
  2. Holy hell I got snowed on today. My peak elevation was about 1,750m above sea level, which, in combination with the cold weather and precipitation, meant S N O W. I had to very strategically layer and delayer, because there wasn’t a single rest stop between me and the end of the highway (about 60km). I’d take breaks at bottoms of hills so that once I was cold, I’d be warm by the time I got to the top of the next hill. It was so cold that I wouldn’t even stop for food or water. This afternoon sucked, but I’ll never forget it!