157km! And our goal for 2020 reached.
Sometimes you just have to ride your luck and double up your distance.
With rain and wind forecast we left North Battleford just before first light for the planned ~80km to Radisson. After bumbling around a bit to get out of town, we didn’t have even a kink in the trail for the first 30km but were rewarded for the early start with thousands of Canada geese flying overhead in noisy skein upon skein. They have arrived from farther north and feed up on leftover grain from the harvest here before they head south for winter. Other wildlife included gorgeous foxes and red tailed hawks, all hunting the stubby fields.
Our bad luck threatened to continue as our makeshift spanner broke on the fourth stop to tighten Bron’s crank arm. We held our breaths and continued as planned through the hamlet of Richard. There, in a village bearing the same name as Bron’s dad, we spotted only one person. He happened to be packing tools in a truck and had exactly the spanner we have been searching for. Dennis wouldn’t sell us the torque wrench but he did tighten the crank before going off in his truck. Two minutes later and we would have missed him.
Buoyed by our good fortune in meeting him, and by a light tailwind, our spirits lifted, so when we turned on to Highway 16 about 84km into our ride and saw the sign telling us Saskatoon was 91km away, we started thinking about pushing through if we could stay ahead of the building storm behind us.
We’re definitely in the prairies now – the landscape flattened out completely today; that and the slight tail wind for much of the day made for fast riding. We stopped only briefly in Radisson where we had intended to stay overnight, to admire the thousands of snow geese on the nearby lake, grab a bite to eat, and pressed on. As is the nature of these things, the wind soon changed and was into us as we climbed out of the valley after crossing the North Saskatchewan River (again).
Fortunately that didn’t last, and although the highway got busy, we made good pace through the landscape that looks remarkably like a flat South African Highveld in winter.
Soon we pulled onto the Meewasin river trail and in to town, past the BHP office and on to the wonderful James Hotel.
We’re done for 2020 – 1,066km from Calgary to Saskatoon, a few bike niggles and sore muscles later, but already planning for next year.
Today: 157km on Treaty 6 land
Total for 2020: 1,066km
Total distance: 3,023km
#TransCanadaTrail
#TheGreatTrail
Quiet road beneath, thousands of Canada geese above 
We could take over the whole straight and quiet road 
Dennis of Richard finding the right spanner 
Brief sunshine 
It’s flat! 
Harvest time 
Richard is everywhere – this our pit stop in Radiason 
The grain elevators are full 
Crossing the North Saskatchewan River. Again. 
Saskatoon didn’t shine today but was still a welcome sight 
Suburban Saskatoon in fall colours 
Riverboat on the South Sask River in Saskatoon 
No one was in the office this Sunday but we stopped by anyway 
157km and done
Trans Canada Epic 