Ridin the Rails

The idea seemed to suck me in, ride the unused E&N railway from Victoria, my home town to Courtenay, then ride the remaining 50 odd kilometers home on the Duncan Bay Mainline logging road for a total distance of 285ish KM. Somehow that morphed and I added the Parksville to Port Alberni for a grand total of 400 KM. What was I thinking?
I started in Victoria at 5am at Mile 0 and rode about through town into Vic West hooking up with the rails by the front doors Trek/Pro City Cycles. Using a paved walking path that parallels the rails we easily made our way to the first section of true rail riding. Bang! The balloon  burst, riding the ties is rough, very rough, fricking rough! 400 odd K of this? But I am optimistic there has to be some bad with the good, and so it goes. The thing is as far as a riding surface there is a lot more bad than good, a lot more. But the quality of ride has many measures and for me this was a very grand experience. I prepared gear poorly, forgetting a spare tube, forgetting to put some Stan's sealant into my tubes as planned, and forgetting my little pill bottle full of various over the counter drugs I always carry in case of lower back muscle spasm, I would need them all, I would have none.

As a child growing up in Victoria I remember walking the tracks in early August looking for for a perfect patch of blackberries, ah shit! Blackberries, and there they were, and where there are Blackberries there are thorns, thorns you could not avoid, oh those effin thorns. By Shawnigan Lake I had a flat, it was barely holding air, I had removed all the thorns I could find from my tire and patched the one hole in the tube I could find, but still I needed to stop and pump it up every 45 min or so. No worries, if I can make it to Duncan there are three bike shops and hopefully I can get a tube and some Stan's, no luck all the stores are closed, I ride on. Just north of Duncan I am having to pump up the tube every half hour, then things get worse, I stop and pump up the tube AGAIN, and it goes flat almost immediately, What the Ffff!
Once again I take out the tube and search it and the tire for thorns, this is the fourth time, lots of thorns in the tire  but I can't find any holes in the tube? I reinstall the tube and tire, it holds air? WTF? I ride on an hour and a half or so later it is flat and so it goes. The tire goes flat the riding gets rougher, much rougher. I am thinking to myself, surprisingly all the grief has been from the front tire the back has held air like a champ! I am still optimistic perhaps there is a bike shop in Nanaimo open on Sundays?  I am just arriving into the small town of Ladysmith and my front tire now only holds air for about 15 min, my back is on fire from the constant pounding from the irregularly spaced ties, this is a low point, I think of calling for a rescue ride, I don't, I would not be able to forgive myself, I ride on but I have abandoned the rails for pavement. I have a plan, if I am lucky the gas station up ahead will have one of those cans of auto tire sealant, no luck. So I sit in the grass eating a Teen Burger and drinking a Root Beer Shake pondering what to do. It has not escaped me that my decision to post hourly photos via Instagram and Facebook has made my failing visible to anyone that cares to look. Then it happens Facebook comes to the rescue, Bryan posts a question, "how is the ride going"? and through that thread I am rescued by Andrew, new tube, some Stan's, some organic chocolate, a beer, and a bit of catching up about solo life with a bike.

Samsung S3 photo

Holy Crap! I am good to go and so back to the rails. The next bit of riding is fairly uneventfully rough, I pedal on. My back is not my friend but I am stubborn, at the next food stop Jamie from Destiny River Adventures, walks up and offers me a ride home, it is tempting. At this point it is hard to lift my leg over the bike my back wants to stop me. I ride on, more rails, more pounding. It is dark, I pound on, no I am pounded on, pedal, pedal, pedal, and so it goes. Another flat, the rear tire this time, I pump it up hoping I can get to Parksville and fix it in the light of urbanness. I have to stop three more times before I find a well lit spot to make the repair, more thorns. I install the last tube and admit defeat, I am broken, it must show an employee cleaning the store comes out and asks if I am OK. With defeat comes a loss of  some motivation, the remaining 120 KM home will be on asphalt and with that I pedal on into the darkness without and within. When I arrive home it has been more than 27 hours riding a bike, ya I did stop and nap twice for 10-15 min each time, and there were those "breaks" to repair flats. And considering the distance was not great and the average speed was slow, I am happy, i have new knowledge about me and my gear, and I will but it to use on bigger adventures.