Pictured are Dwight and Vanessa, who run a B& B near Duncan BC. Dwight found me on the streets of Duncan looking for a place to stay and took me home. We did have about three minutes of conversation before he extended the invitation so we were not complete strangers. I only waited for a slight pause in his description of the place, to accept. Dwight is a cyclist of an unusual sort. Some of you won't get it, but others will. A bicycle is a great device and it is good for many things. One such is as a way to test oneself. Certainly to a degree the ride I am on is a test, but it is a hollow shell as compared to the stuff Dwight has done. Basically what he does is take his bike to places and conditions where it is not supposed to go. Dwight has done extreme rides through the western states, the Andes mountains, the Canadian prairie, and most recently Baja California with his wife. It was her first extreme ride. I can't recall the details well enough to do these rides justice here so I'll confine myself to what could be called his Prairie Period. He was living in Regina where winters are like North Dakota only a few hundred miles north. Since he lived out of town about 8 miles his co-workers didn't expect him to be coming to work by bike once the winter set in -- but he did. He actually had a house mate who did it with him and to give an idea of the cold, they always took a tow rope to be used when one or the other's chain broke, which apparently happened pretty often. On his big prairie ride he left on Boxing Day, (Dec 26, I believe) and rode for seven days in temperatures of -40 C. He had to keep his water bottle inside his coat to keep it from freezing. In places the snow on the road was so deep he was forced to thump along the railroad ties.
I pulled into a truck scale a couple days ago and learned that as bike and rider I'm at 100 kilos, or 220 lbs. Since I weight about 160 my bike and gear must come to about 60. I find this to be a lot. I am tired and struggling and unsure of making it over the mountains before me. It was great to hear Dwight's tales of the many times he has had to get off his bike and carry it and then his gear though some impasse. It gives me hope.
The B&B has a web page. Google Affinity Guest House.
Dwight and Vanessa
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
2 comments:
I didn't know that you were actually paying attention when I talking your ears off. You have exaggerated my winter bike tour story: the coldest temperature I peddled in on that trip was -22 C. Embarrassingly, the rest of your prose is accurate.
Take care Paul. Thanks for staying at the property with us! Oh, and one more tip for you: I ride with the heaviest weight on the front (as we talked about) for other reasons, too: when pumping up those long mountain roads, I found it tremendously easier to keep the bike balanced at very low speeds if the weight was low and on my bars. I am sure there is a scientific explanation to it, but really, to me it just feels better.
Dwight!
www.AffinityGuesthouse.ca
Hi, Paul:
Just wanted to let you know that Andrea and I saw your annual letter at the Bothell Gibson's, when we stopped by for a brief visit this afternoon.
After considering your ponderings on a diety, we decided to hedge our bets and had ice cream this afternoon. It was afternoon, and it was good.
--Michael
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