Day 2: Chilliwack-Manning Park

Well all I can say is that the curse of Day 2 is still alive and strong!! What is it with me and this day?!?!  Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but today was a brutal day.  It started out quite well.  I felt strong leaving Chilliwack at 8am this morning and even when we left Hope at around 10:45am I still felt good.  But about half way up the Hope Slide the climbing began to take its toll.  I ended up getting my first flat of the ride just over half way up the Slide and after that I just couldn’t really get a good rhythm going.  The main thing that made the ride so hard today, and everyone suffered today, was the heat.  I have not ridden in heat like that yet this year and the scary thing is that tomorrow is going to be hotter as we get ride into the BC desert.

A lot of people experience leg cramping today as buckets of sweat were just dripping off of us.  I was less than a km away from the Manning Park lodge and I had to pull over and stop because both of my legs were cramping so bad.  The volunteers waiting for us at the top of Allison Pass said that every single person let out an expletive as they summated the climb, as I said, pretty much everyone suffered today!

Tomorrow should be a nicer ride but it won’t bring much relief.  It is our longest day of riding, 185km’s, and as I mentioned, it is going to be hot!   

Today we had about 40 riders with us, but now it is just down to the 21 nine-day riders.  It is a strong group and I foresee myself hanging out near the back for most of the ride J  However, I am so thankful to be doing this ride again and I know I need to keep that in mind. 

I did take quite a bit of video but I don’t know if I will be able to upload it tonight as the internet here is very slow.  If it doesn’t work out I will try upload it tomorrow night from Osoyoos. 

Here is what tomorrow looks like.

Allison Pass:

ps. please forgive me if there are lots of spelling/grammar/typo mistakes...I'm just too tired to edit this.