by Paul Howard
‘Shall we session it?’
I’d just started the world’s toughest bicycle race yet I now found myself in the middle of a radio interview and magazine photo shoot. The extent to which the whole endeavour had skewed normality was confirmed by the fact that this unlikely situation seemed quite unremarkable.
Cadet arrived, having already eaten, and we continued our journey along the dusty road. It was far from difficult riding but we both flagged. Earlier, we had been carried on a wave of relief at having finally started. Now, the anxieties of preparation seemed to be taking their toll.
Half a sun-baked hour passed. A large dog, or so it appeared, ambled nonchalantly along the centre of the broad road ahead of us.
‘Coyote,’ said Cadet.
‘Are they dangerous?’ I asked, not feeling much inclined to put in a sprint if evasive action were necessary. The animal in front of us was two foot tall at the shoulder, maybe a touch more. It was rangy in physique, rather than muscular, but it possessed a disdain for other road users, including a car that had just passed by, suggestive of an absolute lack of fear.
‘Nah, they’re no problem,’ Cadet assured me.
We had scarcely returned to our previous companionable silence when Cadet spoke again in a slightly more urgent voice.
‘Look! Bear!’
‘Pardon?’
‘Bear!’
‘Where?’
‘There, down the slope off to the right.’
‘Oh, yeah!’ I said, excitement temporarily getting the better of fear.
The road had been climbing for some while but had recently settled into a flat section carved across the hillside. On our left, the uphill slope, the trees abutted the roadside, but on our right, the tree line was occasionally broken by aprons of grassland. Sure enough, a hundred or so yards ahead of us, at the bottom of one such apron, was a small bear. At least, it looked small from such a distance.
‘What should we do?’ I asked, Cadet having now become the arbiter of all things animal related.
‘Keep riding quietly, I guess.’
Along the roadside, between the road and the grass, was a motorway-style crash barrier that helped to partially obscure us from view. We rode cautiously, peering over the barrier to maintain a close eye on our furry friend. As we approached, it became clear it was not a small bear but a giant black bear. Well, medium-sized maybe. Stood quietly on all fours two thirds of the way up the grassy apron, 30 yards below the road, it was about 3 foot high at the shoulder and 4 foot long. Initially it seemed oblivious to our presence, but then it turned to look at us. Nothing happened.
As we neared the bear, we skirted briefly out of sight before returning to the barrier side. When we were in a position to see it again, it was still looking. Still nothing happened.
Another hundred yards along the road and the bear was out of sight. When, a few minutes later, it still hadn’t come bounding along the road after us, we breathed again.
‘Wow, that was cool,’ said Cadet.
‘Excellent,’ I agreed. ‘I definitely wanted to see a bear, at a nice, safe distance, and now that’s happened I can quite happily ask the fates to make sure I don’t see another one for the rest of the trip.’
By 5 p.m. the bear excitement had passed and weariness had returned. We decided it would soon be time to stop. It didn’t seem very adventurous to stop so early but, as we rode along the by-now metalled road and were passed frequently by lumbering camper vans, the cloud that had been threatening for a while started mustering with a vengeance. What’s more, the campsite at Boulton Creek Trading Post was the last official accommodation until Elkford, a further 50 miles away and almost as far as we had already come. We were unlikely to make it that far that night, and the prospect of camping rough in bear country at this early stage of the journey held little appeal.
The official campsite may have been self-service but how to book in was far from self-explanatory. Fortunately, a neighbourly couple explained the process, and proffered some more bear advice. Given that he looked like a bear and she looked like she had just swallowed one whole, I felt inclined to believe them when they said we must use the bear bins for food and all of our perfumed belongings as well. It seemed ungrateful to point out that we did not have many toiletries with us.
The Trading Post itself offered little by way of diversion, other than the girl behind the shop counter who had enormous holes in her earlobes, held in shape by equally enormous circular earrings. While I stocked up on chocolate bars for the next day, the lady at the head of the queue asked how long it had taken her to create her holes.
‘About two years, but I had to stop for a while at certain sizes,’ she explained proudly.
Cadet tucked into dinner but I could only look on enviously. My tummy made it quite clear to me that it had no desire to consume any food, even if my brain disagreed. Whether this contradiction was brought on through nerves, or exertion, or possibly the burgers consumed at the pre-race barbecue the night before, was uncertain. I made do with two bottles of Pepsi.
Slowly we were joined by other riders: Martin from Austria (he of the immaculate bright red luggage) and Floridian Rick (‘You can call me the old man of the race’) were followed in by Jeff from Arizona and Bruce from Iowa, neither of whom I had met before. It was quite a convivial gathering. Maybe Tour Divide racing would just be one long party?
Meanwhile, another Arizonan, Deanna, maintained a lonely vigil outside in the gathering gloom, clearly still uncertain as to whether our current mileage was sufficient to justify calling it a day. At 20, Deanna was the youngest participant in the Tour Divide and was an avowed vegan; having scarcely eaten anything other than burgers in my six days in North America thus far, I was already concerned how she would find enough food. What’s more, as if cycling 2,800 miles down the Rockies without recourse to the most popular and widely available foodstuffs were not enough of a challenge, she was riding on a bike with no gears and a fixed wheel, which meant she couldn’t even stop pedalling when going downhill. I was looking forward to freewheeling a good proportion of the course when gravity was on my side. She also appeared to be wearing espadrilles.
‘If I come in and get warm I’ll definitely want to stop,’ she explained as I went to move my bike out of the rain.
I felt considerably less than heroic.
Eventually the café and shop closed and we all retired to our tents. Except for Cadet, Jeff and Deanna, that is, who retired to their bivvy bags. I silently thanked them for providing a first line of bear defence. In a rather half-hearted attempt to salve my conscience, I explained where the bear bins were.
Rick looked askance.
‘Aw, gee, you’re not gonna make me take it all down, are ya?’
‘Toothpaste as well,’ I insisted.
‘What kind of a country is this?’ asked Martin.
Snug in my tent, I listened to the rain drip through the trees above before falling into a fitful sleep.
I had ridden 60 miles. More than 2,700 still remained.
CHAPTER 5
BRINGING UP THE REAR
DAY 2
As dawn broke and the noises of activity among my companions increased, I slumbered lazily in my sleeping bag. It was below freezing, and my lethargy suggested my decision to stick with a combination of lightweight sleeping bag and an extra layer of clothes had been vindicated.
I eventually surfaced at 5.35 a.m. to find almost everybody else with half-struck tents and breakfast prepared. I struggled in the cold, damp shade of our shale pitch to pack everything away while keeping it clean and dry and my hands warm and functioning. In spite of the time I had spent organising my luggage in Banff, I was at a loss when it came to finding my overboots and gloves, even my hat. I packed and re-packed several times before being satisfied I was wearing all that was necessary to stave off the chill that had now enveloped me, and that everything else was safely stowed.
Breakfast was a perfunctory affair, partly because it was such a gloo
my spot, partly because almost everyone else had already left and I was keen to join them. Only Cadet remained, seemingly sanguine about the distance ahead. Our mutual aim was the town of Sparwood, 80 miles away. Yesterday had taught us that we rode well together, but better when left to set our own pace, so I took my leave.
After a mile of tarmac, the trail disappeared out of the back of a car park into the trees. The going was instantly tougher than at any point the previous day. The ‘trail’ was little more than two lines of tyre tracks in the mud created by yesterday evening’s downpour, interrupted by puddles and broken branches.
With twigs cracking beneath me as if in a Fenimore Cooper novel, I began the laborious, 1,000-foot climb to Elk Pass. The effort distracted me from concerns about early-morning wildlife. It also began to warm me, though my extremities remained mere blocks of ice.
As I approached the bottom of a steep, rough uphill section labelled ‘a virtual wall’ on the official maps, I saw the gear-less Deanna wheeling her bike only a short distance ahead of me. Rather ungallantly, I immediately selected the easiest of my 27 gears and set off in pursuit. At this early stage of the route, through stubbornness rather than the minute increase in speed it afforded, I was still intent on riding as much as possible. By now cursing the extra layers that had been essential only a few minutes before, I weaved my way up the track. I passed Deanna a few yards before the top.
‘Awesome,’ she enthused.
Unfortunately, I was too out of breath to acknowledge her encouragement.
The rest of the climb to the pass was similarly rough but not as steep. The route followed a gash in the timber cover created by a powerline. On such a pristine morning and against a backdrop of such perfect mountains this would have been a heinous crime were it not for the fact that it allowed passing cyclists to enjoy the spectacular views.
At the top of Elk Pass I stopped to admire my achievement and my surroundings. Deanna arrived and we celebrated our first crossing of the Continental Divide (from the eastern, Atlantic/Arctic watershed to the western, Pacific watershed) as well as our arrival in British Columbia. I asked where Rick, Bruce, Jeff and Martin were. They had, after all, departed our camp before me but after Deanna.
‘You didn’t pass them?’ she asked by way of reply. They clearly hadn’t passed her. On such a beautiful morning, the prospect of them enjoying an unintended excursion into the surrounding hills had us more amused than concerned.
With no one else in view, we embarked on the equally rough descent into the Upper Elk valley. It immediately became clear that Deanna’s inability to free wheel would slow her going downhill just as much as the lack of gears had done the same on the ascent. Even my questionable descending skills saw me disappear ahead of her into the trees, a mix of alpine fir, Engelmann spruce and lodgepole pine. I fished my anti-bear whistle from inside my jacket and began to toot as loudly as possible. It felt peculiarly disrespectful of the surrounding tranquillity, but the vegetation on either side of the trail was impenetrable and memories of yesterday’s bear encounter remained fresh.
The opportunities to take in the fabulous views over the Elk Lakes Provincial Park and neighbouring mountains increased as the gradient eased. Although only one of several hundred provincial parks in British Columbia alone, the scenery was breathtaking – perhaps literally, as I crested a blind rise having neglected my whistle-blowing duties. I noisily unclipped my pedals to take a picture across a clearing, only to be interrupted by an ominous rustling on the other side of a thicket. The invisible crashing and grunting reached its climax when a startled and clearly irate moose lolloped out of the shrubbery. Even though my camera was immediately to hand I was too transfixed by the appearance of such a large beast to take a photograph. I slowly digested the fact that it wasn’t a bear. Nor was it a bull moose with antlers, and there didn’t appear to be a calf present. For all its snorting, the moose also seemed to be weighing the threat posed by its new-found companion. Fortunately, it clearly concluded there was none. The scrub and saplings that would have been shoulder high on me just tickled its tummy as it slowly disappeared from view.
Before me to the south lay a magnificent valley. It would be 40 miles before I arrived in Elkford, itself a town of only 2,500 souls. Yet the happy, holidaying Calgarians of the previous night’s campsite were a mere 6 miles behind, separated only by vast acres of wood and bog. The round trip by car to the trail head at which I had now arrived was more than 200 miles; it could have been a world away. Deanna was a few miles behind. Ahead, the nearest rider would have had a start of at least several hours. Once the moose alarm had passed, the sense of isolation and solitude was thrilling.
The track broadened as I rode between meadows and clearings replete with juniper and an plethora of unidentifiable wild flowers. Streams babbled busily on their way to invisible lakes. Butterflies and other insects roused themselves in the sun’s growing warmth, while snowshoe hares, still with snow – or white hair, at least – on their shoes, bounded to and fro, indicating the regular absence of humans.
After 15 miles the trail, which by now had become a fully fledged dirt and gravel road, crossed to the west side of the valley. As the elevation slowly reduced, the density of the forest increased and the hand of man became more evident. Clearings in the timber were now straightlined segments felled by machine rather than natural meadows, full of the bleached bones of tree roots and forgotten branches. The intensity of the sun’s glare on the pale road increased, as did the effort required to surmount each rolling undulation. In the middle of a straight section rendered seemingly interminable by the heat haze into which it disappeared, I stopped to marvel at the scale of things, vaguely hoping that somebody might join me to prove that it wasn’t all a figment of my imagination. To my surprise, within a couple of minutes somebody did join me, but it was not a cyclist. Instead, it was another grizzly-bear sized man armed with tales of the real grizzly bear he’d seen patrolling these very woods the day before. I noticed that he had a powerful rifle slung across the front of his quad bike.
Shortly after, as I continued to desiccate slowly, I passed the 100-mile mark for the journey so far. It was 11 a.m., meaning that even though yesterday’s ride had been brief, it had still only taken 25 hours to reach this landmark. With a total riding time of 28 days the height of my aspirations, I was reassured about the speed of my progress. A minor increase in speed and I would be at the requisite 100 miles per day. This beacon of encouragement propelled me into Elkford.
The transition from wilderness to civilisation was almost immediate. In the case of Elkford, however, the term ‘civilisation’ had to be used with a degree of caution. A broad, metalled road flanked by parched concrete culverts led past a few outlying houses to a crossroads, to the right of which was a small concrete mall with various assorted buildings. The central attraction was the parking lot and the vehicles in it, all of which were consumed by an air of weariness. Everything felt 20 years behind Banff, which was no mean feat given the town was only founded in 1971 as a home to those working in the nearby coal mines. The prospect of a reinvigorating lunch waned with every pedal stroke.
Appearances can be deceptive, however. The nondescript café-cum-restaurant that consisted of a narrow, windowless corridor between two external doors in one of the outbuildings turned out to provide excellent food and company. Still uncertain how to interpret the mixed signals emanating from my stomach, I ignored the long list of classic North American cuisine and opted instead for a Greek salad with garlic bread. My appreciation may have been heightened by the morning’s exertions, but I was immediately transported back in time to an earlier cycling excursion in the Peloponnese where just such a salad had had similar recuperative powers.
I was brought back to the reality of British Columbia by an unlikely offer.
‘Would you like to see how the rest of the racers are doing, eh?’
My initial reaction clearly betrayed my bewilderment.
‘I’ve been following the rac
e, eh, and I’ve got a BlackBerry, eh, so we can see where everyone is, eh?’ explained my inquisitor, who was evidently intent on providing single-handed proof of why cousin Steve had referred to Canada as ‘eh land’. As dialect foibles go, it was slightly less annoying than Antipodean rising terminals, but it was still early days.
With a mouth full of tomato and feta I must have given some silent sign of affirmation for I was then provided with an ‘eh’-filled commentary on the race to date. Matthew Lee, as expected, was at the front of the field, having nearly made it to the border some 130 miles further on. Most of the other riders were between him and Sparwood, where I hoped to spend the night. More reassuringly, Cadet and the others could be seen making rapid progress to Elkford. So rapid, in fact, that Arizonan Jeff walked through the door as my Internet guide and race groupie Ken concluded his exposition. Cadet arrived shortly after and we confirmed our shared plan to stop in Sparwood. After unsuccessfully attempting to resist the lure of an unhealthily rich cheesecake, I embarked on the next leg of the journey with a stiff road climb towards one of the enormous mines that had led to Elkford’s foundation. I immediately regretted the cheesecake.
After the climb, the first part of the remaining 25 miles to Sparwood ran down a narrow and rapidly dropping tributary of the main Elk River, the two separated by a small massif. The valley’s sides were steep and rough, a roughness exaggerated by the scars of mining and logging activity, but the cycling was easy, thanks to the favourable gradient. By the time I returned to the main valley the wilderness had all but dissipated, the valley having flattened out and become dotted with farmsteads and smallholdings. The sun, too, had become obscured by mid-afternoon clouds as it had the day before, and which seemed to be the predominant weather pattern for the time of year. A notice in the Elk Lakes Provincial Park had warned of the dangers posed by lightning storms, with snow or hail, that were common in early summer.
