Day 2: Hope to Merritt

Distance: 124km

Total distance: 270km

Average speed: 20.4km/h

Weather: Overcast, light rain in the afternoon

After a tearful goodbye to Caroline and Naiely, I left Hope a bit after 9. Nat, who has hosted a number of cyclists, said that I have the least stuff as all of the cyclists he's seen. With a belly full of bacon and eggs courtesy of Nat, I was ready to conquer the Coquihalla. The climbing started right in Hope. However, there was a big descent about 10km in which meant I had to start over again. I had painted this monster image of the Coquihalla and in reality it wasn't even close to that bad, nowhere as steep as the climbs on the MEC Century Ride I did two weeks ago and not even as hard as Cypress. I think it really helped that I went into it with a slow steady pace of 8-15km/h and the mentality that this was a long slog, instead of trying to attack the hill. Along the way there were various signs of stops along the old Kettle Valley Rail. Apparently the main engineer of the railway really liked Shakespeare and therefore named the stops after Shakespearean characters (Othello, Portia, etc.) Before I knew it I was at the Great Bear Snow Shed (I contemplated going on the side service road but it was covered in gravel so I just went straight in, a little scary but it was pretty short) and only had 4km of 8% grade to go. At the part where it plateaued it started raining lightly and even though I just wanted to get moving to keep warm I pedaled very slowly trying to find the quintessential summit sign. After 30km or so of descent, there was another incline at Larson Hill and coming down it I was going more than 50km/h for 4km without pedaling. I turned onto Coldwater Road at the bottom for a much quieter way into Merritt. This last 30km actually ended up being the most tiring part of the day as I had only eaten a small Clif Bar and some shot blocks since the morning. After wolfing down another PowerBar, I made the last trek to Merritt and found my host Jackie's beautiful trailer house along the Nicola River. It's really cool how the landscape changes as I entered the Thompson-Nicola region. The tall lush trees of the coast slowly transformed into sage brush and grassland. On my way to Coopers Foods for groceries I ended up doing a little tour of downtown Merritt. Later I made a giant potato avocado salad and pesto pasta for us for dinner. 

In general riding on Highway 5 is good, although I did go to the left of the white line quite a few times when the shoulder disappeared or to avoid gravel. There is at least two lanes (sometimes three), and even though numerous trucks passed me, they all gave me plenty of room.