Brokebike Mountain

Chris McCahill

We'd been told that 'it's the kinda road where you can watch your dog running away for a week'; the kind of road that art tutors draw when teaching perspective to demonstrate how parallel lines converge at a vanishing point on the horizon. Route 22 runs north across Canada's Kananaskis region (where Brokeback Mountain was filmed) and is your original 'lonesome highway.' Having read Jack London as a kid I'd always wanted to hear The Call of the Wild. Little did I know how wild it would be.

The day dawned ominously. The news warned that there would be no let up in the wettest June in Canadian history and the blackening sky suggested that the arrival of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse was imminent. The last road sign as we pedalled out of town was equally foreboding; 'Warning - No services for the next 128 km'. Then there was the curse of the cycle tourist - the headwind.

With a tailwind you feel unstoppable. 'Oot the way Lance Armstrong and Chris Hoy! I'm carrying panniers, a tent and loads of other junk that I should never have brought but I'll take the lot of you!' It's glorious.

With a headwind in such BIG country you don't feel quite so smug. The only time Mark Beaumont looked like he might abandon his record-breaking round-the-world cycle was after days in a headwind on the Nullarbor plain in Australia. It tests the resilience of even those with record-breaking determination. The brain isn't convinced you're moving and that 'vanishing point' remains just over the horizon, always just out of sight.

But what the hell! We'd already survived worse; mountain blizzards and stinging hailstones, snakes and man-eating spiders. We had dodged tumbleweeds in the Arizona desert and evaded whoopin', hollerin', pick-up drivin' red-necks trying to run us off the road in Wyoming. We had even frightened off a Grizzly in Yellowstone Park. We were not about to be fazed by a lack of toilets and a little wind and rain. We're Scottish fergoadsakes!

After 4 hours we'd covered only 26 miles. Lance Armstrong need not quake in his cycle shoes today. But there was no hurry. We'd no appointments to keep and were carrying food, lights and a tent. No worries.

And then it started. Straight out of a Boris Karloff movie, a perfect multi-pronged lightning bolt punctured the ground a few hundred metres ahead, followed instantly by the loudest BOOM I've ever heard. No counting the seconds between, this was immediate, magnificent and downright Terrifying. I thought my time had come. It was the end of the world. Armageddon! Simultaneously, the Heavens opened and gigantic raindrops that could take down a buffalo thudded into the earth turning the road into a river. This was rain from the Bible.

Have you ever been so wet that you don't care any more? Saturated, you accept that you can't get any wetter and plunge headlong and carefree into the torrent. You even begin to enjoy it, for a while. As the chill seeps into your bones, you begin to recall that guy in the Public Information film about hypothermia. Remember him? Brain addled by the cold, plodding aimlessly towards a chilling end.

So it was for us. Teeth chattering and in mortal fear of being struck by lightning we struggled onwards, not knowing where or when (or if) we would get respite. The air rumbled and thumped and cracked and fizzled and we sloshed on through the gloom getting colder. And scared.

Then the oddest thing happened. For a moment, I thought it was my life flashing before my eyes. What else could explain it? Dead ahead, through the gloom, I saw us standing at the roadside. Was I looking down at my last moments having left my earthly body? Was this some kind of hypothermia-induced hallucination?

The explanation was much simpler. It was two cyclists dressed exactly like us - right down to the weary look of terrible resignation. Their bikes lay forlornly by the roadside, one of them in pieces.

They couldn't quite believe it either. Our unexpected arrival had clearly terminated an argument and for the first few seconds they seemed suspicious of us. What were these doppelgangers with the strange accents doing out here on this God-forsaken day?

The usual introductory small talk curtailed, we set about repairing their busted bicycle. My father maintains that a tool box needs only two items; 'If it moves and it's not supposed to, use Duck Tape. If it doesn't move and it's supposed to, WD40'.

And so, strategically bound tape applied, we splashed on, a bedraggled foursome with kindred spirits renewed. We were soon laughing maniacally at our preposterous plight and, like Lieutenant Dan atop his shrimping boat in Forrest Gump, we railed hysterically against the Gods, daring them to do their worst.

As this new found euphoria faded, praise be to Thor, Odin and the Canadian National Parks Authority, a wilderness campsite appeared. Without exchanging a word, we made for the toilet block. It was wet, dirty and stank of you-know-what but had a roof and four solid walls. It offered refuge from lightning, wind, rain and bears and it was unanimously agreed; this would do for the night.

Sleeping in a toilet afraid of being eaten by a grizzly. What a great holiday!

But all was not lost. Going outside for the toilet (oh, the irony!) I spotted another building. In our eagerness to get under cover we had missed it. Only a communal kitchen but with tables, chairs and - joy of joys - a huge gas stove, it could have been a Presidential Suite!

So with gas burners fired up and modesty in front of strangers forgotten, clothes were strung out and emergency rations guzzled.

Outside the storm raged on but we feasted, swapped tales, laughed victoriously and slept on the floor without a care. Brokebike mountain had not broken us.