Day 34, to Cherga  116km , 2727km to date,  1246m up, 611m end

Again a nice day riding, a serious climb, but wonderful scenery - just like southern BC - some sections like the Fraser Canyon, some like Maning Park, some like around Nelson and the Kootenay’s. 

A couple thoughts from the day:

I am aware that the Russians have a very strong affection for the land, part of the Mother Russia “thing”.  Most of the small towns/villages we are passing through, all the houses have yards that are fully cultivated, vegetables, potatoes etc., - this is like I am visiting my grandparents.  Although it looks somewhat rough to us, I think it is just different.

Everywhere, people build out of the building materials that are available, locally concrete is the common building material.  One consequence is that “old buildings” don’t rot away gracefully as we are used to in Canada.  Old concrete tends to stay around indefinitely.  Many of the houses are built out of squared logs (about 8x8’s).

One of the riders broke his bike today, he broke the crank arm near the pedal.  This is the TV actor from South Africa, a very strong young man.  He is making a documentary on his ride so he absolutely needs to ride every inch.  So he rode 100km one legged!  Wow!  This included a very serious climb - think twice up the Malahat.  One thing I am learning from this group of riders is a totally new level of grit and determination.  I thought I could be stubborn and “stick to it”, some of the riders on this ride are several orders of magnitude tougher!

Only pic of the day is from breakfast:  the viewing line of the river (there has been some very heavy rain):