Now I get it

Alix and I once read a book called "Miles from Nowhere" (thanks Liz!) about a couple from California who who cycled around that world in the 70's. Leaving their home, they cycled up the California coast, and she, being a novice cyclist and it being quite windy, she kept getting blown off her bike.

Both Alix and I found this quite unbelievable and decided that she was taking some literary licence or just exaggerating the events somewhat.

Well... Now I get it.

You can in fact get blown off you bike. The wind just needs to be strong enough. The first picture above shows Alix when we were marvelling at how strong the wind was (mere child's play at that point still). We've seen some power generating windmills in our travels, but never this many. That's the first hint. We easily saw over 100 of them on our first day cycling in Evia. The combination of the wind and the way the road was positioned relative to the mountains and the passes made for a couple of spots where it was downright scary. Sorry no pictures of that - it was hard enough to keep the bike upright as I walked beside it leaning hard on it against the gusting crosswind, there was no way I was going to open up a bag to get my camera out. I prayed not to have a flat or any other mechanical problem as I'm not sure how I would have fixed it. Twice I had strong gusts convince me to get off the bike and walk, and twice Alix got blown off her bike (though, as always, she landed like a skilled acrobat). We considered begging a ride from passing motorists, but I have no idea how we would have loaded on our bike in that wind.

Did I mention that the windiest spots were also under construction? So instead of the good traction typical of a well paved surface, we had dirt that constantly threatened to loose its grip on our tires as one minute we would lean hard into a strong gust, and the next we would quickly recover when the wind took a momentary break. Several times we got blasted by the windborne sand and dirt and it stung bitterly and filled our ears and coated our sweaty and sun-screeny bodies. It wasn't the right time for Alix to be wearing the Nivea baby sunscreen that I bought for her (I don't recommend it by the way, it's horrible stuff that leaves you coated in a thick sticky goo, and if you have a baby you should just keep it out of the sun anyway!)

At the time it was horrible, and at one point I honestly thought that I was close to being airborne and getting swept off a cliffside, but now, looking back, it's the type of adventure that bicycle touring is made of. A low point that helps to make the high points that much better. The ups and downs of bike touring!