Tragic Miracle

Day 4: Port Alberni to Courtney. 70.6 mi. 3834 FT elevation. Weather perfect.

Wilson and I were up and ready to Take On The World early today. Of course, we had to stop first at Tim Hortons so people would assume we were Canadians. We had a wonderful scrambled egg box. It does seem a little counterintuitive to get eggs in a box, but it works, and when you eat them with a wooden fork, you can feel good about your environmental impact:-). BTW, is it weird that I’m talking in plural about an inanimate, miniature, rubber person?

The first order of the day was torture. The route took us out of town briefly on the highway, lulling us into believing this would be easy. Then the route veered sharply off and into the trees, heading up a rocky, narrow road that was essentially hike-a-bike for the next hour. The discouragement of the climb was only heightened as I started descending towards Lacey Lake on a terrible, rocky logging road. Partway down, my GPS indicated I was off route. I turned around and climbed back up to the top of the hill, still not knowing where the trail went. Once again, I started down and thankfully found the trail. It was just a narrow few feet between some boulders dropping off into the forest. Thankfully, once I got to Lacey Lake, the ride from there was beautiful along a tree-lined stream that opened into a vast lake.

Leaving the lake, the trail headed down another river along a paved path. I didn’t see another person for miles and enjoyed the river and the surrounding forest. I wanted to stop and get in the water, but I’d wasted so much time earlier in the day that I was worried it would make me too late.

Not surprisingly, the river brought us to the ocean and the east coast of Vancouver Island. We could look eastward and see beautiful mountains rising above the sea. Or at least I could. Wilson was actually stuffed inside one of the feedbags and unable to see.

The next several hours took me along the paved shore highway, broken up with Inland excursions on dirt. It was beautiful on both counts, especially the Million-dollar Trail. Which, like so much of BC, begs the question, where is the money coming from for these incredible projects?

Tragedy turned miracle occurred a little after mile 60 and about 8 Miles out of Courtney my final destination for the day. I shifted some gears and the chain fell off and as I looked closely at the derailleur I realized that the derailleur arm had broken. Thankfully I was able to put it in a single gear and as long as I didn’t shift I could at least pedal. I called a nearby bike shop and they very graciously offered to help. I raced towards town trying to reach it before they closed. The miracle occurred after one of the workers fixed the derailleur. We still didn’t know what caused the break. Then a coworker indicated he’d seen it happen a couple of other times and when he looked at the derailleur he could tell exactly what was wrong with how it had been mounted originally leading to the break. He fixed it and the derailleur now works better than it ever has in the past. The tragedy of a broken derailleur turned into a blessing of a permanent fix.