Mark's Tour du Canada: Day Twenty Four

This morning I was in no hurry to leave the tent as during the night the temperature dropped to 12 degrees. I woke up to close both my fly at about 3. Earlier I was awaken from the sound of fireworks. Other tour members were woken up by some drunk women that started speaking with Australian accents. Such excitement at the campgrounds.

Before I left camp I checked the weather. The temperature was going up to 25 and the wind would be coming from the south west. That was great news as that would be a tailwind for us. Any time we weren’t travelling east the wind slowed us right down.

The first stop of the day was in Neepawa. It is the hometown of Margret Lawrence. Nobody in the group decided to visit her home but it was in the cue sheets. Most of us stopped at a Tim Horton’s for a drink and a snack.

Just after Neepawa there was highway construction. The pavement had been stripped from the road and what was left made my bike vibrate so much I thought that it would fall apart. We left the road and rode on the packed dirt/sand that was on the shoulder. The road was still heading east but the packed sand slowed us down considerably. Once we hit pavement again our speeds topped 50 kmph. We talked to a construction worker and they said there was still more construction just past Gladstone.

Gladstone was the next stop. We went into the town but everything was closed because it was a Sunday. I didn’t realize what day it was. To me it’s day 3 of a 5 day leg of the tour. Our days off really feel like Saturday or Sunday. We found a gas station that was on the highway to get a drink. As we got there the other riders were leaving.

Before we left two other riders joined us and we contemplated taking a different route than highway 16. We tried the alternate route but the wind was so strong that it would have taken a considerable more time than the suggested route. We added an extra 11 km onto our day in the attempt to avoid the construction.

Before Portage la Prairie there was more of the same construction but the wind was still at our backs. We did ride on some fresh pavement that was really nice especially with the tailwind.

Once in Portage I noticed the town looks a lot like Peterborough, my hometown. Most of the streets are tree lined and the some of houses in the downtown are brick. The park that we are staying in is very nice and has a lot of grassy areas and trees for shade. Tomorrow is a long day and I will be getting to be early.