Day 6 — Wednesday, June 25

Osoyoos to Rock Creek — 65 km — Max speed: 71.1 km/hr
After waking up and immediately regretting not biking the big Osoyoos hill the night before, I began to pack up my stuff. We all woke up at about 7:30, and didn’t have things packed in the van until about 10:00. Man. We’re pretty bad at getting going for some reason.

Attempting this massive hill in the heat was something I did not want to do. I dunked my head in the sink a couple times to cool myself down. I was getting anxious and was already becoming super warm in the increasingly hot sun. We took off.

The hill wasn’t terribly difficult, but it certainly was long. It was over 20 kilometres until we made it to the summit (1233 metres). If you were looking at a map of the Osoyoos area and drew a straight line from Osoyoos to the summit, the line would only be a few kilometres long. It was a very steady incline. Just picture Whoop-Up for 20 km with a few steeper hills thrown in there. The photo above is about halfway to the summit, looking back at Osoyoos.

Vanessa and I only made a handful of stops. Kelly would go at a quicker pace (1 or 2 km/hr faster) but take more frequent breaks. We’d catch him while he was breaking then he’d zip ahead of us for a few minutes until his next break.

My knee was feeling good and I wasn’t close to being out of breathe going up the hill. The mountains towards Princeton definitely prepared us for this. We reached the summit and suddenly my knee started to ache a little more. No big deal. We still had our sights set on Grand Forks and beyond (Christina Lake). We did have to stop for a few pictures with some wildlife (photo right) once we made it to the top of Mount Anarchist.

We went down a few very steep hills, one of which I hit my max speed for the trip (71.1 km/hr), and then rolled into Rock Creek. Vanessa and I had lost Kelly by this point. By the way, I'm pretty content with 71.1 km/hr being my max speed for the trip. You never know what can happen when you're going that quick.

Vanessa and I went about 10 km beyond Rock Creek where all of a sudden I experienced a sharp, shooting pain in my knee. I had to stop. I pulled over and was hunched over my bike because I couldn’t put any weight on my leg. I had a similar pain yesterday, but this time it wasn’t going away after a few seconds. I had to lay my bike down in the ditch and sit on it. I couldn’t believe it. I literally couldn’t stand up without leaning or holding onto something.

I rest for a bit then we walked our bikes to the top of a small hill. We got on the bikes and coasted around a couple curves where we met another hill. I peddled a few times and it felt okay, then that same pain came again. This time I could feel it shooting all the way down to my foot. I got off, sat on a cement barrier and after a few minutes, realized that this was likely the end of the road for me.

We waited about 30 minutes and Kelly finally got up to us. Turned out he blew a tire back where we lost him. Allan also pulled up in the van. Kelly told us what had just happened to him and how he thought Vanessa and I would be further up the road. I nearly couldn’t say the words “I think I’m done”, but I did. I could barely walk, let alone peddle. “Are you serious?” was his response, naturally. “Ya, man”.

We quickly decided we’d stay the night at campsite we passed a few kilometres back. An option I have for my leg is to rest for a couple days in the van and rejoin Vanessa and Kelly when it’s feeling better. By then we’ll be out of the mountains as well. Of course, after we made it to St. John’s I’d come back and finish off what I didn’t do over the next day or two. I have to cycle every inch of Canada. It’s possible it just may not be in order, which is fine. I can make up lost kilometres over a couple weekends once I’m back in Alberta.

We’ll have to see how things go. We ate at a local diner and I read the local newspaper (Boundary Creek Times), which was nice. I find community newspapers much more satisfying to read. It's nearly time to hit the hay, but not before I do some serious stretching/icing.