This time the weather forecast was also not that good. Instead of being cold and rainy it was hot, hot, hot. There was a special weather statement from Weather Canada warning about the heat and recommending that old folks (that would be Gary and I) should stay indoors or go to air conditioned places like shopping malls. Rather than going back to plan A where we started in the late afternoon to avoid the heat we stuck with plan B and started the ride at noon with planned sleep stops in Castlegar and Kaslo. Sleeping twice on a 600 is such a luxury; made possible by the generous 60 hour time limit for an SR600.

The first climb was indeed hot. My handlebar computer registered 43 degrees in the direct sun three feet above the pavement. We needed to take a break in the shade halfway up. That slowed us down a bit but we got to Trail in 5 hours just as we had on the first attempt. I had suffered on the climb back to Rossland on the second attempt due to the ride being in full sun. This time wasn't as bad though due to being a little later in the day and a month later in the year. It was still very hot but the road had just gone into shade for most of the way. I drank almost 4 liters of water in just 10 kms of climbing. Meanwhile Gary was drinking very little. He had read an article by coach John Hughes that convinced him that he should only drink when thirsty. We agreed to disagree on the merits of that idea but I was quite worried that Gary would wind up with some serious issues before the ride was done. I refilled my water in Rossland and we got some food from the grocery store. Then we rode on to Castlegar in the now much cooler weather. Another 4 ½ hours of sleep and a first breakfast at McDonalds this time saw us through the Bombi and down to Salmo at just past 7 am.

We headed straight for the Dragonfly Café only to find a lineup that was out the door. We weren't sure where all the people had come from. We opted for the Subway instead where we found another insane lineup. Salmo is not a big place. While waiting in that lineup I asked the person in line ahead of me (he was wearing a very interesting one piece bunny suit that looked like sleep attire for a very large 5 year old) what was going on. He explained that this morning was the early opening of the festival grounds for the Shambala music festival. All of these people were here two full days before the music was to start just so that they could get in to the festival grounds and secure a place to camp. We eventually got some coffee and each had an egg sandwich kind of thing. Then we headed down the road toward Creston. About 5 kms out of town we came to an enormous traffic jam. This was the backup of the early arrivals trying to get into the festival grounds. The lineup extended for about a km in each direction.

We sailed past the traffic jam and were soon on our way up Kootenay Pass. This climb went well enough for me but not for Gary. The Subway sandwich didn't do the job for him and he bonked pretty severely near the top. But he got there and we sailed down the endless descent to Creston where we arrived shortly after 1 pm to another blazing hot day in the lowlands. We had a quick bite at the Tim Hortons and then started riding up the east shore of Kootenay Lake. We did the math and decided that with a big effort we could get to the ferry for the 6:10 pm sailing (why do they call it a sailing when it's actually a motoring?). We passed on getting a much needed ice cream. We passed on stopping for a dip in the lake at some beautiful beaches. We passed on getting any food in the few stores along the way. We hammered. We got to the ferry with 10 minutes to spare. Only to find that the sailing was cancelled due to the ferry being broken. Fortunately there are two boats and we would now be on the 7 pm sailing. Which of course was way behind schedule. It finally left at 7:20 pm and let us off at Balfour a little after 8 pm. It took us until 10 pm to get to Kaslo and Osas house. When we got there we heard tales from Osa and my son Alex of a nice hike to the Macbeth Icefield and a canoe trip across the lake to have a picnic dinner on the beach. All while we were suffering on the bikes in the intense heat. What's wrong with this picture? See above under "retiring from randonneuring and cheering on other people while they suffer".

Another too short sleep stop saw us leaving Kaslo around 4 am. This time I felt a bit better than I had the previous time, plus I had Gary to keep me from hitting that mental low point, or at least to help me get through it. We got to the base of Idaho Peak at around 6:30 am where I switched to the mountain bike that I had stashed for the third time a couple of days ago. Gary opted to ride his Berg bike with 42 mm road slick tires and strong wheels for the entire ride. This worked OK for the ride up. I had somewhat better gearing and could ride some sections that he couldn't. I walked a good bit of it though. This road averages 9 percent for 12 kms on loose gravel. Some sections are relatively low angle which means that some sections are incredibly high angle. At one point I stopped quickly to take a layer off. When I came around the next corner I found Gary standing beside his bike looking a bit pale. He asked me how brave I was feeling. Average was my reply. He explained that he had just had an encounter with a grizzly bear. The bear had come out onto the road ahead of him and then when it saw him it ambled down the road toward him. It then apparently decided that there was nothing about Gary Baker that was good to eat and so left the road and went on its way. So did we. But we made a lot of noise for a while after that to let the bear know that we were there. Further on we came to a row of concrete barriers blocking the road. We had heard that there had been a cave in where the road had collapsed into an old mine shaft that went right under the road.

The hole in the road

We were able to lift our bikes over and around the barrier and continue on up the road. When we finally got to the cave in a km farther on it was a bit underwhelming. There was a hole about the size of a storm drain in the road. You could see down into the mine shaft but it wasn't that big of a deal. Better to close the road though than lose an SUV full of tourists. Farther up we saw another hole in the road of similar origins. There was a lot of mining in this area back in the day.

Gary 'enjoying' the Idaho Peak Road

We finally got to the top of the road just after 10 am having walked well over half of the distance above Sandon. We took the obligatory control photo, admired the view, swatted some horse flies, and headed down. This was where my strategy of switching to a mountain bike paid off. I had a relatively uneventful descent. Gary had a relatively eventful descent. He was barely in control for most of it. He got blisters on his hands from braking so hard. The problem wasn't so much with his brakes but with his tires. They just wouldn't grip the often loose road surface so he would careen from switchback to switchback and only manage to stop when the road flattened out at each switchback. It was frightening to watch. He made it in one piece but probably wouldn't do that again.

We got to New Denver just after noon. It was of course blazing hot once again. We hit the grocery store and loaded up on food and liquids and took a break in the shade on the porch at the side of the store. There was a young guy there playing his bass fiddle for the enjoyment of the passers by. He was pretty talented.

By now we were entertaining thoughts of actually getting this ride done. We still needed to ride about 100 kms through the incredibly scenic but not flat Slocan Valley to Castlegar and then do one more 1100 meter climb to get to the finish at the Paulson bridge by a little after midnight. It was doable. I figured that if we were able to leave Castlegar by 7 pm we would be good. We left New Denver at 1 pm and pretty soon came to a climb that I think of as the Silverton Slog. It is probably the most soul destroying climb of the whole ride. It goes up 320 meters at a steep enough grade to be very tiring. It's not what you want to be doing after having already climbed 1850 meters from Kaslo to the summit of the Idaho Peak road. After that it was pretty smooth sailing through the Slocan. We stopped in Winlaw at a store for a few minutes. Gary left his bike in the sun leaning against the wall of the store. When we got out of the air conditioned store Gary looked at the temperature displayed on his bike computer. It showed 55 degrees. I had left my bike in the shade. When I reviewed the ride later I found that the highest temperature that my computer saw that day was 44 degrees.

We finished the ride through the Slocan at a pretty good pace. The lower Slocan is gentler that the more northern parts and we managed to get some fast riding done. Then we turned onto Hwy 3A for the final 20 kms or so to Castlegar. This is also a high speed road and to make it even better the sun was now low enough in the sky to be behind the mountain to the west so we had some shade and cooler temperatures. That all changed when we came around the corner of that mountain and dropped into the basin that Caslegar sits in. It was like opening the oven door. It was a furnace. It was now just after 6 pm so we knew that the heat would be letting up soon. We got some food and what passes for a milkshake at the A&W. Then we went across the street to the Subway to refill our bottles with ice water. This was a strategy that we had learned early in the ride. Subways tend to have excellent machines that dispense all the ice you want and all the water you want. I found that my camelback (which I hardly ever carry but was really necessary for this ride) keeps water cold for a long time. The water in my bottles would go from ice water to very warm water in a half hour. The camelback would still be dispensing cold water hours later.

We left Castlegar at 7 pm just as we had hoped. The first 300 meters of the climb up to the Paulson summit is very steep but then the grade eases considerably. Gary was having trouble with his knees by this time. He had to get off the bike several times to lay down and do stretches to alleviate the pain. This slowed him down but it didn't stop him. Nothing was going to stop either of us by this point. And nothing did. We finally got over the Paulson Summit and down to the Paulson bridge to complete the ride at 11:18 pm. Our elapsed time for the ride was 58 hours and 53 minutes.

Finally!

The score is now 7 DNFs, three no starts, and 2 successes for this year. In previous years the ride was done by me in 2015 and by Bob Goodison in 2016. Bill Maurer also did the ride in 2016 but finished in around 60 hours. That would have been a good enough time now but back then the time limit was 50 hours and so he only got credit for doing the ride as a "tourist".

Thanks to Gary for being an excellent companion for this ride. We had a lot of fun. Most of it was type 2 fun, but we got it done.

Bob Koen
August 25, 2019