Go back to Day 4
I felt good, getting up early, but was wondering whether I could handle big days back to back. Would I even make it? At least I had more Powerade to keep me charged up and electrolytic.
Leg 1 Rathtrevor -> Crofton
Biking through Nanaimo was easily the worst part of the trip. There were big chunks that were off the highway, but it often felt like cycling through multiple bath tubs.
- Ride down a crazy steep hill into a valley
- Pass a few kilometres on an E&N rail trail
- Ride back up a crazy steep hill and then do it all over again.
Also, many stretches of the paths had been under run with tree roots which had the effect of sprinkling many speed bumps (usually a foot or two apart from each other) along the way. This isn’t a big problem on an unloaded bike, but riding with panniers made these sections exciting, in a not good way.
Also, at one point I was coming up behind a woman walking her dog. I dinged my bell a couple of times to reduce the chance of scaring them. I guess neither the woman nor the dog heard the bell, because as I was riding past the dog lunged at me, knocking me over.
I was so mad/scared, but I didn’t really know what to do. I was definitely not enjoying myself in Nanaimo. The other ‘boohoo; poor me’ thing that happened is my phone died, so I had to either just stay on the highway, or run the risk of getting trapped in a dead end. (eg Transfer Beach) I also convinced myself it would be a good idea to bike into the downtown area of Ladysmith. Little did I know it was two steep uphill blocks to get there, and that it was mostly closed.
From there, I just stayed on the highway until I was through Chemainus. I then asked the nice lady selling Powerade if I could get to the Crofton ferry off the highway. She assured me I could and that mostly I needed to just follow my nose and head to the pulp mill smell. This turned out to be excellent advice.
As an added bonus, I arrived at the Crofton ferry with about an hour to hang out in a bakery/café that had yummy cookies and power outlets.
Also, while waiting in Crofton I met an interesting (chatty) dude who was heading over to Saltspring on his e-bike. He told me quite a bit about how he’d spec’d all the components, built the bike himself, all the trade-offs between having the motor in the hub vs in the BB, efficiency, etc. He also told me he’d lived quite a while in Dover, and in ‘different parts of Asia.’ (he mentioned Korea and China)
He was hoping to bomb around Saltspring, see the sights, and have enough juice in his battery to get back home.
One last point I think bears mentioning: On the map above there is a light blue route that would have bypassed all of Nanaimo. The previous evening, I was intending to take this route. It would have had me on logging roads, rather than JinglePot road. I ended up taking the route through the city, for the following reasons:
- The bypass route had a lot of turns, and I’d need to have my navigational wits about me (not my strong suit)
- I was pretty sure my phone battery was probably going to get to 0 sometime during the day.
- Since I was travelling on my own, if I ran into bike or injury problems, I could be quite stuck in the middle of now where
Jim and Melissa very diplomatically (mostly Melissa) pointed these things out to me. When I was falling asleep, I was pretty certain I’d be taking the remote route. By the time I got up, I’d changed my mind, and opted to take the road more travelled. I wonder if I’ll ever get to go back and try the remote route…
Leg 2 Vesuvius -> Ruckle
Before arriving at Crofton, I’d assumed it would be a hop, skip and a jump to get from Vesuvius to Ruckle. Which was good because getting from Nanaimo had definitely emptied my tank. When I did a bit of research, I realized it was going to be more than 20 km. Not exactly what I’d had in mind.
I noticed the route was composed of legs that were mostly 3-4 km. In order to push through these legs I ‘invented’ a technique to pass the tine. If I was travelling at ~20km per hour, 3-4 km would be about 10 minutes (aka 600 seconds). So when I started on the first road I started counting to 600.
The first leg, along Vesuvius Road, ended shortly after I’d counted to 600. For the next two sections counting to 600 also ended up being a good approximation of my travel time. Then shortly before I got to Cusheon Lake, my Dover friend zoomed up behind me. He was surprised I’d got ahead of him, but I suggested he’d probably had a quality stop in Ganges, while I’d only stopped long enough to buy cheese and bananas. He zoomed off ahead of me toward Cusheon Lake. The next/last time I saw him he was on the public dock at Cusheon Lake and it looked like he was chatting with the dozen or so other people on the dock. I was happy for him.
Sadly my time passing technique didn’t work so well on the Cusheon Lake Road leg. Partly I’d lost count when I met my Dover friend. But even worse this road included the most ridiculous uphill section I think I’ve ever seen. By the time I summited this hill I was still pedalling but didn’t feel like I had much left in reserve. I was pretty well out of gas.
Once I hit Beaver Point Road, the last leg, I was very relieved. There was more up and down, and this was going to be longer than 4km, but I knew I’d get there. And once I arrived what a joyful sight. The Ruckle campground is so beautiful, and it was 80% empty.
I picked a spot by the ocean, set up my tent, and just lay down in the warm grass. it was such a lovely spot. I managed a very timid swim under challenging conditions (barnacles and waves) and then went back up to lay in the warm grass beside my tent. The sun eventually dropped behind the trees. My site was now in the shade, but the ground was still warm from the day. Utter bliss.
At one point the park ranger popped by to register me.
ranger: How’s it going?
me (smiling): Eleven out of ten.
I registered for two nights. Tomorrow I would rest.
Go to Day 6