Bikely map

Dreading the forecast weather, and having put away a reasonably long day the day before, I slept in a little, ate a hefty breakfast, procrastinated with weather reports, and got a late start.

The weather generally varied between miserable, and horribly difficult. I regularly found myself stopping in the face of the wind just about as frequently as I had been stopping on my first climbs through the mountains. In spite of having relatively modest terrain like

I still found the short, shallow grades to be remarkably difficult, and repeatedly cursed anyone who had ever told me that the prairies are flat. I rather suspected that a large part of my difficulty was arising not simply from the fact of riding straight into 40km/h (gusting to 60km/h) winds, but that my raingear was billowing out, and I was practically trying to push a small parachute into the wind.

Fortunately, after about 30km, the rain backed off (it would have been farther had I not dawdled at gas stations and in rest stops, trying to wait out some of the worst of the weather), so I was able to drop a good deal of wind resistance (but it was still pretty dreadful riding).

I made it out to Saskatchewan, and while Alberta had a welcome sign right on the highway (going the other way)

Saskatchewan’s only (admittedly huge, and kinda visible from the highway) sign was tucked away in a rest area at the side of the road, which I didn’t bother to photograph, having expected that there’d still be something on the road itself.

I generally continued on in conditions roughly resembling this

having planned to make a significant human settlement by night, and not packed supplies for dinner.

Generally speaking, my plans-assuming-tailwinds for crossing the prairies had me reaching populations centres (and ones with WSL hosts at that) frequently enough that I was concerned that any tomatoes I would pack in Lethbridge or the Hat would spoil before I’d get much of a chance to eat them. With the difficulty I was experiencing reaching Maple Creek, I decided that I’d best be sure to have a couple of cans of baked beans with me for the rest of the prairies so I could avoid such a slog in the future, if necessary.

Fortunately, I made it in to Maple Creek a good half hour or so before the restaurant that I got to (the first one you see when entering town) closed, and was able to eat before riding into town to find a place to camp (again, I ended up setting up behind a church).