Day 46: Alberta

This morning we packed up and drove back to the highway where Jason dropped me off. He offered me a ride to Medicine Hat, since he lives there, but I'd had enough of being in the car and declined in favour of a 95km ride into the headwind.

After 5km I was bored and regretting not getting a ride. After 25km I was tired and still regretting not getting a ride. I kept getting angry at the relentless headwind, so noisy and slowing me down, making me work harder. But I think I just needed to get back into the swing of things after a week of crosswinds and the odd car ride, because after lunch, I got back into the groove and started enjoying myself again.

I'd realised not long into the ride that I'd left my water bottles in the truck. Damn. I had to ride 40km to the next stopping point before I could get water and survived the morning on tinned fruit and bananas, which was probably for the best given the lack of available pee stops.

It was slow riding into the wind and mostly it was a battle to stay at 14kmh, regardless of incline. Now that the prairies are slightly hilly, you can quite often see 10km of road ahead of you, so I took to riding with my cap low so that I couldn't see it. Seeing that far ahead depresses me when I know it'll be almost an hour until I get there!

At lunchtime I got to the Alberta border and stopped to make food and chug water in the visitor centre. I can't believe I'm leaving Saskatchewan already, I only just got here!

I rode pretty hard all day and my right knee started twinging again but I made it to Bonnie and Doug's house in Medicine Hat at 5pm after 95km of riding so I was quite pleased with myself considering I didn't set off until 9.30am.

Bonnie made delicious dinner and Doug is handy with bikes so I got my handlebars changed (hooray!) and I oiled my new leather saddle (would have been nice if the guy who sold it to me told me it needed oiling to mould to my bum), so I'm ready to take on the rockies! Brilliant.