23-52-2014: A 750km weekend

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June 8, 2014 – Up, down, and all around! That was this weekend in a nutshell.

My best friend was out from Thunder Bay for a family gathering in Whistler and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to visit so I made a ride out of it while she was hiking a mountain with her brother. I rode up to the top of Duffy Lake and back to Whistler for a dinner break with her, then a lively ride back to North Vancouver from there.

I haven’t done the Duffy for some time, and I’d forgotten a few of the hairpin corners above Lillooet Lake, and either I’d definitely forgotten about the abundance of tar snakes on them, or someone had gone a little tar crazy since my last ride. I hate those things at the best of times, let alone on a hot day in a hairpin corner when you can’t find a line through them without hitting a few and sending your back end jerking around under you at the most uncomfortable moment. Add a few pebbles, some sand, and a wide motorhome coming at you on those corners and it makes for a less than relaxing ride.

Some days you feel like the bike is a part of your body, and some days you feel like you are fighting the machine. And I really hate when the days that the fight seems to be happening also happen to be the days that you go ride a relatively isolated road, with no cell service, by yourself.

Ah well, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But it really wasn’t an altogether pleasant ride.

Except for the layover in Whistler with a friend. That part was pretty awesome.

The ride home from Whistler was mostly fine, it’s a road I know well and there aren’t any difficulties on it…except for the weekend warriors, but those are to be expected. You know the ones… the SUV coming up out of Horseshoe Bay who doesn’t turn his head and just heads straight over to the far left lane without looking and leaving me with nowhere to go since there was a car behind me close on my butt, and two to my left… I am grateful for the power the throttle offers since forward…very fast… was my only escape route. And of course the idiot in the rice can who was riding my ass when I had no lane to get out of his way into, so again I used power to get away, and then he decided, a few kms ahead, to fly up on the right out of nowhere and try to cut me off. Had I let him I would have probably been hit and the two riders he tried to ram up the butt also wouldn’t have been in very good shape. I truly don’t understand the attitude some drivers have. Cars became weapons somewhere along the way.

Breathe deep, relax, let the lunatics go, let the lunacy go, get home safely.

Yesterday we decided to head south of the border where the drivers seem to have more respect for each other, and for riders. It’s a pretty sad state when I’d rather ride in another country, but it is what it is. So we headed for Mount Baker and another somewhat technically challenging ride. I hadn’t been up the mountain yet this year, and figured there would be some snow since I’d encountered a bit on the Duffy the day before.

The ride out to Glacier was nice and easy, and only one close encounter with Bambi. We rounded a corner and a very large mule deer came striding out onto the road ahead of me so it was a heavy braking job. And then the thing just stood there looking at us….”Move along please…?” She sauntered off to the other side after looking down her nse at us.

The weather was warm and sunny and when we arrived in Glacier we figured we’d stop for a late lunch. There aren’t a lot of choices in the little community, and unfortunately the one we’d planned on stopping at was closed until next weekend. On a hope we rode up another mile to a place we always passed since it didn’t look like much. And it was a lesson in trying places that you might otherwise pass by.

Chair 9 Woodstove Pizza and Bar turned out to be very good! Out back is a little oasis off the main road – grassy, green, and a nice deck in the shade. The food was excellent and it was definitely a do-again!

After the rest and refuel we headed upwards into the clouds. About halfway up we were into the dirty snow along the roadside and along with the snow came the drop in temperature. Also along with the snow comes sand and gravel in those extremely tight corners, I hate that part. I had a couple of bad corners and was swearing at myself inside my helmet. Again, I felt like I was fighting the bike sometimes.

When we reached the top it was no surprise that the road was still closed past Heather Meadows so we pulled into the lower parking lot for a rest and had a conversation about the challenges on the road. The two reasons I could come up with for the struggle were:

#1. Not many miles under my belt yet this year, and that after a long off season this fall/winter. This is the first winter I haven’t ridden since I started on the scooter 5 years ago. I opted to not ride the Ninja over the winter as it’s more bike than I cared to handle in potentially slippery conditions, conditions that I was fine on the SV in. And for some reason I just didn’t ride Pee Wee this winter either. So it was a long 7 months on four wheels instead of two. It’s amazing how riding year round kept me in better mental shape for riding.

#2. My last ride last year wasn’t a good one, and I thought it was going to be my last in another, very dark, way. I almost lost the bike on a corner on Chuckanut Drive when I hit some sand while leaning in and going more than slowly. It was a moment where the thought that I may just be going over the cliff shot through my mind as the rear wheel shot one way, then the other, and then back again, underneath me. I think that ride has stayed with me and when I get into tight corners my subconscious is still haunting me a bit. It’s hard to forget that feeling. I can hit grooved pavement at any speed and not get wigged out anymore, and even getting a bit of a kick from a pebble or a tar snake doesn’t bother me too much anymore, but the spectre of sand in a corner niggles at me.

Although up was a bit of a fight, down….oh down was so wonderful. Now that was a dance. I led up and Kirk led down, and those corners just felt so good. I don’t know why down worked so much better, but it did, and it was so nice to feel that floating ride again.

It’s a long ride home from Baker, and we took a couple of breaks, one of which led us down a side road and to a chance discovery of a pub we didn’t know existed. The Shake and Shingle Pub just off Rolley Lake looks like a fine place to stop for refreshments next time we are in the neighbourhood. We were just looking to get off the bikes and have some shade for a few minutes, so we didn’t go in, but it looked like a great place next time.

By the time we got home we were bagged. Didn’t even wash the bikes :-/, just downed a couple of beers, made a tomato, basil, bocconcini appetizer, cut some cheese and put out some crackers, and fell into some comfy chairs on the upper deck. And with that we were pretty much done.

But it was a good weekend, and the first one that involved some good mileage. So between that and a visit with my best friend, it was a pretty spectacular weekend.

And now with two solid and somewhat challenging rides under me, I’m feeling the riding bug again.