Today we had to extend our stay in Nelson to a third night. It was close to not happening at the Adventure Hotel as a bike tour is arriving today and the place is booked save one room. So we moved to a smaller more “hostellish” room which is fine.

As we were returning to the hotel in the early afternoon the sidewalk and lobby were crawling with cyclists. I chatted a bit and learned they had come from Creston and were heading to Rossland after a couple days in Nelson. We met a friend on the street and she had come across something similar at the Savoy Hotel and heard “our luggage is coming later”. I remembered that there was a fair sized crowd of people and bikes in our lobby but no baggage was present. People watching of course, while I waited for Tami, I noticed what a cross-section of ages and body shapes within the road cyclists tribe. The two that stick out were a lady, tiny and grey haired, maybe looking older than she was but definitely 60+ and very much “in the pack” with others and younger arriving after. Good on ya! The other was a young couple. Maybe 30’s they were not in the way but not out of the steady steps traffic at the front door. While others were inside checking in and peeling off rain-gear (Which I was noting too, never having thought about being geared up for steady rain riding, this road riding stuff is another level from our rail-trails-shells-and-hats approach. They are sealed right up head to toe) they were both on their phones and him not looking impressed. We couldn’t know what they were doing, thinking, dealing with of course but though she looked “ok” his facial expression was very much dejected and/or pissed off. Contrasting the eager “let’s get checked in and see Nelson” of their road mates inside, he looked more like “we’re finally here and thank fuck”. Tami came down and we left talking about the whole interesting scene.

Later we picked up pizza at Thor’s to take to Backroads to enjoy with a beer. We found a table as we dodged through a boisterous singing and phone capturing crowd. We settled with a couple of pints and took in the room. Kitty corner to us up front and center space in the tasting room was the source of the like European football (not really chanting but not so melodic either) singing. Of beer, I must presume. Or football. Or war. Or any/all of the above. German was our best guess.

These guys were having a blast. Fifties and older I’d guess. Three on one side and four on the other of the trestle table and benches. It took me a while, based on their dress, to figure out they were cyclists still dressed as cyclists. They were regularly breaking into song, sometimes locking arms, sometimes swaying or pounding the table in rhythm, and generally physically messing with each other all around. Drunk for sure. I’m not judging, just experienced observation. One had some sort of item that may have been a bike pump, it was shiny metal about a foot, still with one end in the hanging packaging. He would pull it from a pocket periodically and wave/brandish/bestow others with it, always to greater laughter from all. They were having a time and hurting no one, except maybe the odd butt slap and face rub of each other. Much jocularity ensued as more pints were bought, with none spilled despite the melee that encompassed them and their end of table.

The beer kept flowing and there was no letting up it seemed. We wondered if they were perhaps a subset of the group that had filled our hotel earlier and/or perhaps from the Savoy. We joked that they had broken free from the lounge-space-catered-get-together we had seen earlier after the luggage had arrived, and all the cyclists had cleaned up to attend.

It was about 830 when we finished our pizza and beer and, as they were loud and unrelenting, we moved on. Leaving the brewery in the rain that had continued off-and-on all day and evening we saw, up against the patio-surrounding planter:

Seven bicycles all with full fore and aft paniers.

They still had to make camp . . .