June 7th, 2017, Day 17, Calgary to Bassano, 134.7 km

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go this far in a day. No, I’ll be honest; I did not want to go this far today. I can easily go from A to H. Going to I is a stretch for me. Charlie on the other hand, can easily go to M and would willingly stretch himself to O or P. So, we had a discussion. Or two….

Mornings are the best time to ride, especially very early because it’s cool, there’s less traffic and the winds haven’t picked up yet. We didn’t leave until about 8am. Ideally we would have left earlier. And it’s especially important now that we are on the prairies. The wind reputedly whistles by from west to east and we did have hopes of sailing, more or less effortlessly across the wide open flat roads, but no, there are multiple barely perceptible hills (when you’re in a car you don’t notice them but you sure do on a bike) and a headwind that oppressed us from about noon on. Compound that with the fact that I HATE my saddle and you would be correct to guess that I was not a happy camper. Charlie has repositioned my saddle with me several times and it is awful. The brand is “Body Geometry”. Obviously my body is doing algebra instead. There’s a bike shop in Medicine Hat and I want to check out saddles there. We’ve done almost 1500km so far and if neither my ass nor the saddle has given in, then obviously we’re never going to get along.

It was a beautiful morning as we left Calgary. As we got further east, there were fewer hills but they were still there. I feel that at this point I’ve done my share and I glare, with no effect, at even the slightest incline. Charlie, as usual, was a little yellow speck on the horizon, but he did, periodically, stop and wait for me to catch up. We rode through Gliechen, which is on First Nations land. There was a billboard that said: “Drug dealers, your way of living is our way of suffering.”

The other side said: “Think of What’s Ahead. Don’t Suicide.” I didn’t get a photo of that. Charlie stopped to talk with two individual men who were out collecting bottles. Neither wanted to say much to him.
On and on we went. By about 100km I was ready to call a cab. It was 32 degrees Celsius and the wind had been in our faces for hours. Still we rode. Finally we got into Bassano. We wanted wifi so we went into a restaurant to have a beer and 6 litres of water and I decided that we should eat there instead of buying groceries and making our own meal. It’s amazing how quickly we/I can perk up once I get a little food in me.  Everything was much better then. We camped in the campsite that’s right in town, had lovely hot showers and a great quiet nights sleep.