Cycling 5000 km, from Banff in Canada to the US-Mexican border, raising money for MS research.
After a relatively short day distance wise, comes a long day, of course. Only for the convenience they forgot to adjust the difficulty scale. Man what a day. I think the first part (about 5 mile) took me more or less the whole morning. A lot of ascending over a lot of tiny rolling-rocks. Impossible for a normal person. So it was a lot of walking and pushing. The annoying thing is you can’t get into the rhythm.
Only in the course of the afternoon the ground became a bit better, and then you sill have to do about the entire distance. So I had to keep on pedaling. I also was caught up by thunderstorms three times, and then within 20 minutes it became boiling hot again. So rain suit on, rain suit of etc. The landscape was wonderful though. Eventually I made it to the little town of Cuba and found a cheap motel run by an experienced old lady. There’s one of those cyclists she knew immediately. “Are you traveling North to South or South to North” was her first question. Within 3 minutes I knew all her illnesses from the last three decades. It was quite something. “But I rather have wrinkles from smiling than from worrying” she said. After a few more jokes back and forth she said; here are my car keys. If you want to go somewhere to eat, at least for now you don’t have to cycle. Well that’s a whole new experience for me, but a very nice one! What a lady!