Fel Ci Efo Dau Gynffon – Day 10

Posted on September 20, 2008 by Smoke

Awwwwwwwwww….I think summer is finally over. Cold and wet this morning. A few of us are taking the day off to go to Lillooet. I gues somebody kind of needs some X-rays (a bug blue hand this morning).

The rest of the gang was heading up for Camel Pass with Martin.

Ooooo….looks cold. Sure glad I didn’t fly out to Lorna last night with Cory and Margus (it turns out it was incredibly wet and muddy to the point that they had to WALK their bikes downhill).

Yep, there’s snow in them thar hills.

Well, it might be cold and a bit dreary, but it’s still spectacular.

Plus the climb is tough enough to keep even these blue bloods nice and warm.

Fingers tend to get a bit cold though…

Just kidding, that’s Rob’s hand. If you look close you’ll see a nice spiral fracture of his driving finger. What a bummer.

I think he would rather have been freezing his fingers off up here though.

I’ve never actually done this particular ride. Thanks go out to Martin for showing this one off to the crew.

Not much more I can tell you about this one.

It’s a bit of a climb up…

…it’s a spectacular view…

…it’s a bit cold out today….

…Martin seems to have his stock angles on the pics worked out….

…and the weather is just like Wales.

See you on the next one.

Fel Ci Efo Dau Gynffon – Day 9b

Posted on September 19, 2008 by Smoke

We now return to our regularly scheduled programme, already in progress.

Meanwhile, back at Spruce we were dodging some mounted Germans.

And some stoner Canadians. At least they were nice enough to offer to share (we politely declined, but the sentiment was appreciated).

Around this point we started to hear some info on the radio from Martin. We didn’t get a really clear signal, so it wasn’t especially easy to understand, but the words “hand” and “sore” were coming through.

Well, that wasn’t going to affect OUR ride.

Ah. That kind of sore hand. If I had to guess, I’d say broken. Might only be a gnarly dislocation/sprain, but I’m not a doctor.

Hey, we offered to fly him back out from Spruce. Rob, tough guy that he is, actually rode out 25km on what would turn out to be a fractured driving finger (the part of it that runs through the middle of your hand was spiral fractured. I’ll show you next post). A bit of a rough break for Rob, but an impressive display of fortitude. Hats off, good sir.

I think you can see why he chose to keep riding. You don’t get too many days like this.

Hey, I know that dude….

Graham hangin’ it out on some Chilcotin goodness.

Is that a smile or a grimace? I’m going with smile.

Two weeks straight of bluebird weather in September. Incredible.

Oh wait…I may have spoken too soon. That sky is hazing over.

Well, it’s still pretty damn colourful out.

There’s that dude again. I KNOW that guy…

Yep, those are horsetails up there. And we’ve got real horses just behind us too. Better get crackin’…

Well, that was seriously impressive. Once Rob decided to ride out, we made record time. It wasn’t until this last few km that he really found it painful and slowed down, but we did the final 25km in about 3 hours. For those of you who haven’t ridden in the zone, that’s about an hour and a half faster than normal.

Yeah, we’re going slow now. Time for some candid on the bike shots.

YEAH! We made it.

Oh no, look what the cat dragged in.
And I quote, “Do you think you can stash this beer for us so we can have it waiting for us in three days?”

Sure boys, no problem.

A nice evening spent in comfortable confines of the Tyax Lodge, and we had a gorgeous chalet at our disposal for the next few days.

Life is good.

Now this is a map:

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Fel Ci Efo Dau Gynffon – Day 9a

Posted on September 19, 2008 by Smoke

Another HUGE day, and another HUGE post. I’ll split it up into two again, so we don’t overload the dialup guys.

Ok, so we have had a real campout now. You guys are alright.

Like a Jewish Cowboy….

Oh, did I mention we were flying today?

Yep, the Bush Pilot is FINALLY getting a ride in Dale’s plane.

It’s only been about 10 years since I’ve been trying to line this one up.

We sent the boys out to Warner Lake first. I was going to head up to Spruce with the girls later and we were going to meet on the trail. Warner is a lot longer, and the girls didn’t want to ride that hard today.

Well, not a bad call, but they DID miss out some vistas.

Someone is having a good day…

OK, the plane is gone. Now it’s only 43 km to get back.

Yer not chicken are ya?

Actually, I think that was a Peasant….or a Phartridge. I can never tell. Meh, whatever. Back to stupidly epic riding.

All week I’ve been hearing about how Canada doesn’t look like what they expected (Wales?). Well, I think we’ve fulfilled some expectations. Postcard, anyone?