A long leg to the 'Peg

After yesterday's demoralizing struggle to Carberry, we got up early this morning to give ourselves a shot at making Winnipeg today. We didn't know what to expect from the weather, and the 160km day ahead of us would be our longest yet regardless. After only 60km yesterday in the blowing wind though, we figured we had to try.

To our surprise, when we got on the road, we had a slight tailwind, only the fourth day we have had a tailwind for any length of time. Heading back to the Transcanada along the 351 highway, we stopped to stretch (as we do every morning) outside a farm along the road. As we were loosening up, the husband Gary came out and started chatting with us. He was retired, having worked over 40 years in a plant nearby. He owns some horses, drives Polaris snowmobiles (thus suggesting we should change the Bombardier logo on our jackets), and talked about the high prices of gas and flour and how they were taking a toll on him. Unfortunately, we only understood about one-third of what he was saying! He was a character for sure.

The tailwinds made us feel like we were riding on a different planet. Instead of crawling along like yesterday, we were cruising at 25+km/hr down the highway, making great time. By the time we hit Portage la Prairie for lunch, we had already gone 80km relatively easily, and knew we could make it the rest of the way to Winnipeg. After lunch, we were still making great time, but all of a sudden the winds switched on us, and once again we were fighting with 60km still to go into town. We had flashbacks of yesterday's ride, but continued to grind it out knowing we could make it.

The last 20km were painful. All of us were running on completely empty tanks, just willing ourselves to get through the last stretch into Winnipeg. Once we got in, we headed to Andrea and Steve Leblanc's house. Andrea has been absolutely amazing, setting up accomodations for us, sourcing bike stores, and buying repair supplies before we got into town. We had a few beers at their place before they took us to our evening accomodations at the local Mennonite University. We got ready quickly, and she drove us to a nearby Earl's restaurant where we had reservations.

A brother of family friends, Mark Tooley, heard of our trip and generously gave us a $300 gift card to use at Earl's while we were in town. We have never even met him, but wherever you are, Mark, thank you so much! We ate to our heart's content and sampled their drink menu at will. The staff was great, and one of the bartenders, Ryan, is preparing for his own cross-country trip starting July 1st from Victoria. He is doing a run-bike-blade across the country, raising money for the David Suzuki Foundation. He has been training for a few years, and will run 20km a day and bike 100km a day, on average. When he gets the opportunity, he will strap on the rollerblades. I can't remember the website, but will get it up soon so that you can check it out. We wish him the best of luck!

Amazingly, we only ate and drank $270 at Earl's, but we used the balance and then some to tip our waitress, who was a lot of fun, and really interested in our trip. A bunch of the staff were heading out afterwards, and although we would have loved to join them, we were way too exhausted after the long day, so we've come back to our apartment at the University to crash for the night.

Tomorrow we need to wait for Jon and I's bikes to get fixed before we hit the road. The poorly installed chains both broke on us in the last two days, so we are having them looked at (thanks Boh's Cycle in Moose Jaw for that mishap). In the meantime, we will have breakfast with some MDC people in the morning, and will have a radio spot on Power 97 at 8:35am local time. Beforehand, at 8:10am local time, I will also do an interview with Q107 in Calgary as a follow-up to the one we did when we were there a few weeks ago. Hope you can listen in!

After all that is taken care of, we'll take off in Kenora's direction over the next two days, where we will take a day off.

PS: The SPOT device we use to track ourselves has had a tough time finding satellite signals at our last few stops, including today's. Unfortunately, that means you can't see our location! Sorry for the inconvenience, and we'll try and do better for you in the future.
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