Journey Notes

I much prefer hills to wind. With a hill you at least know that there will be a top and you can freewheel down the other side. With wind, it's just a constant grind with gusts to make your life just that much more "interesting".

I think that today was the hardest day yet. While I only covered 80 km and there weren't many hills (but a lot more than I'd expected to see in Saskatchewan) the wind was relentless. For most of the day the wind was a direct headwind but it did shift to the south somewhat latter in the day. The weather was reporting 35-50 km/h for most of the day with gusts up to 70 km/h. I found myself at times going down hills and still having to work hard to keep any speed. I think that my average speed for the day was less than 16 km/h. Typically it's been more like 26 km/h.

I really seriously considered making today a rest day and hoping for better weather tomorrow. I wasn't really ready for a rest day, having only 3 riding days since my last rest day. I felt like I should keep moving forward, even if it wasn't as far as I'd have liked.

Unlike yesterday, I was ready for this wind. I set my expectations low and kept an even pace and energy output. At the end, with high cross winds and low energy, it was getting difficult to control the bike.

After recovering this evening, I added a little advertising for the trip on my bicycle. I don't know if anyone will really be able to read it while I'm moving but it's kind of fun to do anyway. It might spark some interesting conversations.

Tomorrow, the weather is looking a bit better. The wind might actually be worse but the direction will be from the south or south south west and our direction will be mostly east but some sections will be east north east. So what this means is that I'll have a cross wind with maybe a bit of a tail wind. I'm just not sure about the expected 50 km/h winds as cross winds. That might be a bit of a struggle so I'm leaving the option open to have tomorrow as a rest day. We will see in the morning. If I do ride tomorrow, we will likely pass though the small town of Swift Current on our way to the very small village of Herbert.