Thunderpants

Mountainous hills, roaring traffic, mechanical failures and swarms of hornets couldn't stop me from totally loving this section of HW17!

Bloody hard work mind you, but Thunder Bay had always been such a milestone during my prep and every signpost that declared every decreasing mile to that goal caused an involuntariy and raucous mid-cycle rendition of Denver's "Country Roads" but with all lyrics replaced with "Thunder Bay". I wouldn't expect it in the charts but it did make me very happy.

I'd booked myself in to the only hostel in town for two nights - I had bike issues to fix, clothes to clean, batteries to charge, and deserved a real bed after all that camping, although it actually turned out to be a curtained-off slot in the wall, 5 foot up a ladder, and resembling something you'd more likely find in a morgue. Also ... Thunder Bay didn't seem to be the shining, shimmering stop-over I'd imagined.

Yep, if Thunder Bay has a pretty side, I couldn't find it amongst the potholed roads more befitting a third-world country. Nor was it on the pavement, several sections of which had more blood splatters than outside Brixton's 'Spoons on a Sat night. Prostitution, drugs, social issues, etc. How has central Canada gone so wrong, or has it always been like this?

I thought I'd cheer myself up with a well overdue haircut...well, that was the plan but since the babers were booked up, the only option was a salon, but hey, a haircut is a haircut right? "The Cutting Room" thought different...I got the "full womens' salon treatment" - and I'm not talking just a cut 'n' colour... I'm taking about all local gossip, an insistence that I'd visit their former Iraqi colleague, Mohammed (aka Mike) who'd "made it big" and now cuts in Vancouver and whose cut would make me "shit my pants" (I took this to mean a good thing), and finding out that Georgina (my stylist) was very excited about going to a Shania Twain concert this weekend and when I asked if she was a superfan she replied "I think she's A-MA-ZING, I was actually conceived at a Shania Twain concert"

...

Later, back in the hostel (and looking like Andy Lennox (Annie's bro)), who should walk in but Sanj. HTF did he get here so fast? I dismissed the visions that popped into my head of his bike strapped to the Bentley of his Indian MP friend and being sped across HW17 in a police-escorted motorcade. But it was good to see a familiar face and I invited him for some beers later that I'd arranged with a guy from our dorm. Replying "Yes brother" with a smile he went off to unpack.

The next day I set off early in the pissy rain, glad to leave this dump. Sanj had "done a Sanj" and didn't reply to my messages last night...I can't help but think I haven't seen the last of him though.Read more