Tour De Jasper 2013 - Day 3

After enjoying a fun day celebrating my Birthday on my bike, it was back to business.  Actually, it was more like another fun day on the bike.  I always have fun riding on my bike, birthday, or not!

It was another hot day of riding.  I watched as all the riders left.  After I was sure they all had left, I followed the last rider up the steep climb to the highway.  Like in previous years, we all walked up!

Terry is all set to go

And soon we were on the open road again!

More interesting clouds

I spent a lot of the day riding with the others, but I did also ride on my own.

I stopped with the other riders at the Train Station in Mcbride.  I was worried that I wouldn't get a chance to rest there again as it was so much fun last year!  This is only the second time that I've ridden the Tour where we've stopped for food there.  I was happy!  One of the riders treated me to a belated lunch, can't remember his name. We met some bike tourists from Brazil who were riding to Jasper.

Couple from Alabama

After lunch, off we rode towards Tete Jaune.  One of the riders was sick, and so I stayed behind with him.  One of the many support vehicles stopped, and let him cool off in the vehicle.  I took photos of a farm while waiting for him to cool off.  She then drove him for a while as he wasn't cooling off much.  I was on my own!   She eventually dipped him a river and he began to feel better, he had heat exhaustion.  Thank goodness I keep 4 bottles of water on my bike and drink lots!  It's very important to do so when it is really hot outside.

A bit down the road, I saw fellow rider Charlene ahead.  I thought she was resting, so I stopped and took photos of some horses.  It turns out she had a flat.  One of many that day!  (a record amount of 6 flats- most ever on a day of  Tour De Jasper)  I helped her fix some earlier in the day and showed her how to change a flat.  I gave her one of my spare tubes that I had brought in my bags, I had a bunch since I was the sweep.

We started riding again, until she had another flat!  I was running of tubes, specifically the Presta valve ones.  Just as I was going to put yet another tube on, I noticed that the tire was ripped.  I thought about duck taping it, but that's just crazy.  It's a SUPPORTED tour and she can easily change the tires.  One of the support vehicles picked her up, and drove her to the Tete Jaune campsite 10 km ahead.  I rode the last 10 km by myself.  In previous years I felt uncomfortable riding alone; this year I had no problem with doing just that.  I was used to riding alone for days on my Pacific Coast bicycle trip last year.  It's really not that bad.  I did encounter a bear and cubs crossing the highway as I was going down the big hill to Tete Jaune, but they were off the road and deep in the bush when I passed where they crossed.

I arrived at the Tete Jaune campsite and there was a sudden applause.  Yeh!  I made it.  Charlene was having her tires changed by Mark the Mechanic and soon was driven back out the 10 km and finished the day's ride!  Yeh for Charlene!