Nightmare on HW1

There are advantages to these prairies...the stunning fields of seemingly endless yellow rapeseed stretching to the horizon, the beauty of a tarmac road dissipating into the illusion of a shimmering river, Manitoba's mosquito squadrons changing guard in favour of Saskatchewan's black flies....never mind the joy of listening to 15 hours of Simon Callow's narration of Dickens' Tale Of Two Cities.

The bad aspects of highway life struck sharply however, when, with concentration low and my mind drifting off to just how soggy Callow's mic would be from all that spittle, I crunched through a large stretch of broken glass bottles that proved too much for my puncture-resilient tyres, and a dreaded hiss of rapidly escaping air interrupted the performance.

Never having used an emergency tyre boot before (large rubber patch for the tyre) I wasn't sure whether a 1.5cm gash exceeded their limitations, but as a man with only a hammer sees every problem as a nail, what choice did I have? Luckily I was also carrying a fresh tube of Crazy Glue (bought just the day before to fix my "waterproof" Ortliebe cross bar bag which wasn't weathering well). Tyre booted, glued, and the puncture repaired, it was all fingers crossed to see if it might last to the next big city - Regina.

Perhaps packing a spare tyre would have been a good idea.

...

I stopped into Wapella for my usual lunch of ham and cheese wraps taken on the town's park bench. A lot of these towns are very similar: dusty, a small store, perhaps a Canada Post, and usually with a tall central grain elevator poking above the horizon, surpassing any local church spire and announcing the town's name in bold lettering. Wapella, however, broke the mould, in the way of a BMX-riding welcome party.

It was odd from the start. Just a single guy, in a vest, maybe early 40s, who cycled over, waved and pulled up by the bench. "Rick" he said, extending a dirty hand ingrained with black stains and displaying mangled fingers nails. I reluctantly shook hands, we laughed at our matched names, and I wondered whether there was any polite way of sanitising myself so that I could continue eating.

Rick had seen me cycle past and had come to say hello. He'd seemed interested in my tour. He'd tried to help out some French bike tourers once by letting them sleep in his girlfriend's laundrette but they'd broken into all the machines and robbed him. He asked lots of questions about my direction, future campsites, who else I was traveling with, what I did for a living, etc, and I felt bad for pre-judging him as a little weird. Just because he had no front teeth didn't mean he was a "wrong-un", right?

He then moved over to check out my bike.

"Niiiiice bike" he said admiringly.

"I bet this was really expensive" he enquired. He asked about the frame, its composite parts, how much it retailed for.

I began to sense that I might have stepped into a trap.

I'd given out way more information than he had during our conversation.... he'd actually said he had an oil company, and although I questioned in my mind how likely it was that a toothless guy with a deep wrinkled tan (suggesting he spent most of his day sitting in the sun smoking) had such a company, it hadn't set off alarm bells. Until now.

Now he knew who I was, that I was traveling alone, where I'd be camping tonight and also therefore where my bike would be.

I made my excuses, packed up rapidly and cycled off.

I'm now in a campsite in a place called Broadview....the place I told Rick about.

There's no one else here... I've locked the bike up, I'm close by, and I've left my cooking pans on it so that they'll wake me if it's moved.

😶Read more