Cycle Canada, Day 17, May 21/06

May 21/06, Sunday                                                Day 17              1503 Km

EZ-Wal Motel, Lanigan, Sask.                                                          ~ 53 Km's                             ~ 2:45 Hrs

Film of the Hockey Cann in Nokomis.

Took 45 minutes or so to reach Nokomis from our campsite. Howling cross-winds from the south the whole time. We worked hard the whole way. Stopped @ Nokomis Pizza & Lounge and had lunch with the church crowd, a surprising number of whom chose the lounge over the dining room. In the bathroom were tiles of hockey players, pre-'67, probably about '58 -> '62. Tiles were made by (C.H.?) Cowan and the figures included Gump Worsley, Norm Ullman, Bronco Horvath, Muzz Patric, Andy Bathgate, Tom Williams. A few others.

Rather than turning south into the wind (which we were considering pushing the bikes against) and heading for the road with questionable services we chose, in a moment of sanity, to head north to Lanigan & The Yellowhead.

There's a lot better chance of finding services on The Yellowhead and the thought of, perhaps, 4 days in the wilderness helped with the choice. On the road north we had no problem keeping up 30 Km/Hr and at one time I coasted for over a kilometre on flat ground. The road was quite bad in places and we dodged potholes and gravel patches. At the EZ-Wall the proprietor wouldn't let us do a laundry.

This is the morning that we had a hard time maintaining 7 Km/Hr. In retrospect I think the hardest thing about it was the fact that the ground was flat. I kept trying to increase the speed and just couldn't. It was psychologically very hard. I think both of us would have felt better if we were going up a steep hill, we would have felt that there was a reason for the riding to be so hard.

I tucked in behind Doug as tight as I could. It helped quite a bit but still didn't make the riding easy. I suggested swapping positions every 5 minutes or so but Doug said that he found no difference between leading and following. Because I was dragging the trailer he couldn't pull in tight enough to get any cover from the wind.

The road north to Lanigan made a huge difference to our attitudes. The best analogy I can think of is Otters at play. We sped and swooped and laughed and yelled. At one point I thought to open my jacket and use it as a sail. The miles flew by and there were really only a couple of places where we couldn't dodge the gravel and had to ride through it.

We got to The Yellowhead too soon and the thought of turning back to the southeast was unbearable. Instead we turned to the west and went the mile or so to Lanigan. We called it a short day, hoping for better things tomorrow.