The Okanagan Valley

Vineyards above Lake Okanagan

With our entry into Summerland, yesterday, we entered into the vast Okanagan Valley, home to a massive 85 mile long finger lake carved out by the glaciations of the last ice age. This valley is rich in glacial silts and is one of the finest agricultural belts in Canada, particularly for fruit and wineries.

Our ride today went north, along the western edge of the lake along Highway 97. It was jaw dropping spectacular, but unfortunately, the highway was incredibly busy and the shoulder very narrow most of the way and required every bit of concentration. It was not even ten miles outside of Summerland on a particularly fast-moving downhill and narrow section due to road construction, that I suddenly heard a loud pop! and a whooshing sound. I instantly knew I had hit something and blew out my tire.

Sure enough it went completely flat in no time. I tried to stop it up with a tire plug, but couldn't get it to work. Poor Andy was way ahead by that time and finally called me on the phone to find out what was up. He then biked back up the hill and with typical awesome ingenuity, got a tire plug to work, pumped up the tire for me, and voila! It worked! I am so grateful to him for his help. It must be mentioned here that I have ridden nearly 8,000 miles on my Niner bike and this was the very first big tire blowout I have ever had!!

We continued onward through the town of Peachland, where we able to get off the crazy highway and onto some local roads. We finally were able to take in the vistas and snap some photos. We even found a bike path that dropped off the highway that wound steeply down to the town of West Kelowna. It was a bit hairy and I had to walk my bike down some steep inclines a couple of times (I am a real scaredy cat when it comes to going down steep pitches in gravel!)

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/468bce_dc54be496ffc4149894fae11d90efd0d/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

West Kelowna is a completely suburban affair built in a steep hill and I must admit I did not enjoy this part of the ride. I was more than glad to finally get to the bridge that crosses the lake to Downtown Kelowna where we are staying for a couple of nights to rest up. We will not ride tomorrow in order to rest and watch football, and thus, will not blog until Monday evening once we move on up north along the east side of Lake Okanagan to Vernon, where we plan to connect with our good friend Loa who lives up that way.

Until then...