Day 16: To Prince George

July 15, 2007

I left the motel at 10AM in light rain, then stopped at the grocery store. I finally got out of town at 10:45. The rain had stopped but the pavement was still wet.

A big hill in town climbs up to 900m elevation. By noon it was sunny for a while. I stopped for fish and chips at a store near Lake Cluculz. The rear tire was soft after lunch. It took a while to find the hole in the tube. I dug barely visible shards of glass out of a tiny slit in the tire. That glass surely caused my last two flats.

The Yellowhead highway goes from Prince Rupert B.C. to Winnipeg Manitoba.

A storm was brewing while I fixed the tire. I took shelter in a crafts store (helped him move his displays inside the building) and watched very heavy horizontal rain for about 30 minutes. I'm traveling the same direction as the storm so I waited for the storm to get well ahead of me. Nevertheless, I rode on wet roads all afternoon following the storm. The temperature was 24C (75F) before the rain but only 15C (60F) after the rain.

The first wireless tower I've seen since leaving Prince Rupert a week ago.

Traffic was very heavy today. Many trucks on the road heading to or from Prince George. Strangely, there were some long sections where the road was in terrible condition and had no paved shoulder. Days earlier the road had a nice paved shoulder even though it had only a fraction of the traffic.

Another storm started to gain on me from behind as I approached Prince George. I rode as fast as I could hoping to beat the rain to town. But I ended up riding 10 minutes in a downpour before getting to the first motel on the western edge of Prince George. The Bon Voyage Inn.

With 80,000 people, Prince George is the largest city in northern British Columbia.

I cooked dinner outside my motel room and dried out all my stuff inside. My cyclocomputer quit working after the day's first storm. I have GSM cellphone service for the first time since leaving Prince Rupert.

Today had rain, bad roads, and bad traffic, but also a tailwind and gentle terrain. I felt strong at the end of the day. Mosquitoes weren't a problem because of the wind and rain. I prefer rain over mosquitoes!

Distance: 93 km / 58.1 mi

Climbing: 611 m / 2020 ft

Today's ride: 93 km (58 miles)
Total: 1,305 km (810 miles)

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