8th June Day in Banff

Rest and be thankfulWilliam Wordsworth

Note map scale used here is 100x that usually used!!

This profile is only included for completeness.

A rather anticlimactic day – the calm before the storm as it were.

I woke in my dorm having endured lots of snoring, grunting, farting etc. overnight, as is usual in any dorm of men, as per my army barrack experience. It’s probably also equally applicable to a dorm of women if truth be told but I am unable to confirm this from personal experience!!

My dorm before the influx of fellow ‘dorm-mates’.

Priority today was to get the bear spray and the SPOT device. The bear spray issue was fine as there were two easily locatable shops offering the spray at a discount price in town, both with defined opening hours.

The SPOT device issue however was more nebulous; everyone knew that the ’SPOTs’ would be coming but no one knew when, where or who to see about them.

As it turns out I was in the YWCA reception when a lady behind the counter said a box had arrived overnight brought by in person(s) unknown and she did not know what was in it. On opening the box it proved to be the SPOTs!!

The receptionist said that she had not been told anything about them – We all rummaged through and obtained our individual ones. I discovered that it took AAA not AA batteries as I had thought – this necessitated a trip to the supermarket to purchase 2 sets of AAA batteries, one standard and one rechargeable. Thankfully, once the batteries were inserted the device came to life. Several people checked their position on Trackleaders and I was assured mine was up and running too. So I then switched it off to save power before the morrow.

The bear spray purchase went fine and afterwards, armed with a canister of the stuff.

Interesting sculpture of a campsite in the centre of Banff.

Surprisingly the conversation got round to a friend of theirs who’d had a neck operation and was complaining of the feeling of water on their face.

I eventually ascertained their friend had had a parotid operation and from which I diagnosed they had developed Frey’s syndrome1. I made a few suggestions and detailed the pathophysiology – they immediately texted their friend this information.

While cycling around town the rear brake began to bind. Review by a very helpful tall (aren’t they all) Dutch bike mechanic back at the Y help me sort it out and proved very helpful. Especially when, later on during the ride a similar problem occurred after an unanticipated sudden departure of the bike, and myself, from the metastable vertical attitude we had hitherto been adopting – colloquially known as a crash!

Essentially I just had to back off the plates a smidgen using the hidden tightening screw.

Yours truly in Banff. This is one of the first ever selfies I’d ever taken (sad man).

The SPOT divide came with a padded belt holder which, when suspended from the handlebars, proved ideal for holding my camera.

The bear spray went into one of the two padded handlebar bags with the ‘Go’ bottle in the other one.

While relaxing in the Y I discovered that one of the staff actually came from my home village back on the Wirral and we had been to the same junior and senior schools in our youth although not at the same time obviously; he was still in his twenties – small world.

I also discovered that the small tube of superglue I had elected to take with me ‘just in case’ had leaked onto the 27.5” inner tube rendering it unusable. Fortunately, at the cost of getting lots of said glue on my fingers, I was able to salvage the rest of the bike repair kit from within the frame back with no other contamination. It did mean I was without an inner tube but I was not worried as I had the back up of the Stans‘ no leaks’ fluid and applicator….

Crazy Larry had organised a ‘SoBo (South Bound) Rookie intro’ meeting’ at a local hostelry for that evening. I went to it, along with about 60 other people. It proved to be pizza and a couple of beers combined with an idiosyncratic talk about various aspects of the trip. Bears and mountain lions featured quite a lot I remember.

One aspect which I did think interesting was the weather forecast. I took the photo below of the screen containing a warning of severe thunderstorms…

Encouraging weather forecast predicting severe thunderstorms and ‘nickel sized’ hailstones and heavy rain.

Always good to know!!

The meeting dissolved after wishes of good luck all round and a minute’s silence in remembrance of both Mike Hall and Mike Blumenthal.

Mike Hall,
Holder of the TD record, had been killed doing the India/Pacific race in Australia at the end of March this year,

Mike Blumenthal,
Died whilst participating in the 2010 Tour Divide – the only rider to have died during the event.

Sobering thoughts…

Resolved not to change my name to Mike by deed poll.

1. Frey’s syndrome also known as ‘gustatory sweating’, is characterised by sweating on the face in the anticipation of eating. It occurs after the inappropriate parasympathetic innervation of the facial sweat glands following to Auriculotemporal Nerve. A terminal branch of the Trigeminal Nerve (Vc) trauma usually post parotid surgery. But I suppose you knew that already.