July 28th (Morning)

Even the mornings are starting to get warm now! 19° this morning, no wind and lots of sun. However, as I left the house the distinct wood-burning smell was very evident. Looking up into the hills above Juniper I could see the haze of forest fire smoke once again settling over the neighbourhood. This happened last year as well with all the wildfires that were hundreds of miles away, so I didn’t think anything of it and rode off. However, I later learned that Barnhartvale (the next neighbourhood to the east of Juniper) was put on 10 minute evacuation alert due to a fire that had started on the hills in between Barthartvale and Juniper. Luckily, we live on the west end of Juniper so a lot of tragedy and destruction would have to occur before we were in danger, but still, a bit too close to comfort I would say! We’ll hope the fire is contained quickly. One of Kamloop’s best trails (Rio) runs down the valleys through that area, so I know a lot of bikers, both local and and tourists, that would be extremely upset if this trail was wrecked…

A quick shot looking behind me about 1/2 way across Frolek's land. Noticing the smokey haze coming through the river valley.

A picture I grabbed from The Weather Network of the Kamloops fire this morning. Those lights up on the hill to the right of the fire is Juniper, where I live! Yikes!

Another picture from The Weather Network of the fire this morning. Glad they managed to contain this thing!

Anyways, the ride today was really good energy wise. I made a good ride time of 60 minutes (my best to date I think was 59-1/2 or something). However, my rear derailleur was causing me fits right away. Yesterday, around the pipeline section coming into Juniper, something happened to throw my derailleur out of wack that caused some horrible shifting issues. I, of course, forgot to deal with it last night and thus this morning, lo and behold, it hadn’t fixed itself yet! So, I stopped at the top of the hill at the end of Qu’Appelle and tried tuning it (adjuster barrel) so it was lined up properly (while the chain was on the 7th cog, 2nd up from the bottom). However, it didn’t do squat! So, I figured I’d just ride with this annoying issues as the chain wasn’t jumping, it just missed every other gear!
However, as I was about 1/2 way across the Juniper main trail, I tried pushing the chain up to the biggest (easiest) cog for a climb and promptly threw the chain right into the spokes. Now, Monday night I tested this and had the limiters set perfectly so this wouldn’t happen, so now I knew something was screwed up. I manually got the chain back down, climbed the rest of the hill, and then threw the bike upside down to get a better look at the derailleur. Thankfully, it was fine. What had happened as the housing had come dislodged at the entry port of the derailleur. The little plastic end clip on the housing had shattered and was gone, therefore the housing was stuck. Well, I couldn’t fix that, so I simply used the adjustment barrel again to try and line the derailleur up with the cog the best I could. Thankfully, this worked and the shifting was pretty good for the rest of the ride, with only a few issues on the higher gears (6, 7 and 8).
I made all the hills at Rose Hill, the climb up from Frolek’s lower road and the two sandy sections on the Tom Moore trail. So, all in all, a good ride. I even felt pretty good on the paved sections. Now, hopefully these fire fighters can get that fire under control so when I head home today I will have a home to go to…