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Showing posts from May, 2025

Saskatchewan’s Small Towns

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Saskatchewan’s pretty good looking when there’s no snow covering it As of May 28 we are in the heart of Canada’s breadbasket. I can’t say for sure but I’d guess we’re taking a route across the country that no cyclist has done before, so that we can maximize seeing people we know along the way. So far our route has meandered from Vancouver to Banff, through Sylvan Lake to Edmonton, across to Waldheim, and down to Gray. Next significant stop: Winkler, Manitoba! I spent a lot of time wondering how much this barn would sell for in Vancouver Cycling is an inherently more social mode of transport than driving. In a few small towns it feels like we’ve become local celebrities, with people randomly coming up to us at gas stations or grocery stores to ask us what we’re up to. One day, for example, as we were riding to see our uncle and cousin in Waldheim, a friendly couple we didn’t know from the town rolled up to us and asked if we were the people pedalling across Canada. They had clearly been...

Rest and Recovery

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We spent four days at Gill’s house eating all the food in her fridge We didn’t think we’d make it to Canada’s separatist province so quickly! It’s our first significant milestone, and now if wildfires or something else derails our biking at least we’ve accomplished something by making it this far. Also, now when strangers come up to us and ask us what we’re up to, instead of vaguely saying, “we’re heading east” we can begin to more confidently say, “we’re biking across Canada.” Two days before reaching Edmonton, we learned about the challenges of headwinds. We were planning on having a relatively chill, five hour bike day going from Cremona to Sylvan Lake. A 20 km/hour headwind turned that five hours of biking into a difficult ten hours. Unlike mountains, which are inevitable and culminate with a sense of accomplishment, wind is random, unpredictable, and unsatisfying to bike through. That same day Karen also learned about the benefits of drafting, and spent the whole day strategically...

Alberta Bound

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 A  picture  of  the  Misty—  I  mean,  Rocky  Mountains.  Keeping the Tolkien references to a minimum is an ongoing challenge with this blog. This past week we said ‘goodbye’ to BC. Biking over mountains has been much more fun and rewarding than I imagined. Some of the best days so far have looked like this: get into a low gear and grind uphill for tens of minutes (or sometimes several hours) while trying not to think about how slowly we’re moving; feel a thrill and sense of achievement at eventually making it to the top of a pass; reward ourselves by bombing down the mountain at full speed; repeat the process several more times throughout the day. Summation of our time in BC Both our bikes and bodies are holding up reasonably well this week, apart from karen having a persistent sore knee. Both of us are surprised that her body is causing more issues than mine, given my pre-exiting injuries, but that will likely change in the upcoming w...

Flats and Hills

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The view of Osoyoos from the top of Anarchist Summit It’s been quite the first week. The actual biking is difficult but going well, and we’re really enjoying the beginning of our big trip. BC really is beautiful, but there’s a hell of a lot of hills. We said ‘goodbye’ to the Fraser River on May 3, we crossed the Cascade Range and we’re currently (as of May 7) in Castlegar in the Columbia Mountains. The weather has been as varied as the elevation: sun, wind, hail, and rain. Our accommodations have all worked out so far. We’ve had very kind hosts through Mennonite Your Way and Warm Showers, and have also done a combo of staying in motels and campgrounds. One of our Warm Showers hosts offered up his book store to sleep in. I had crazy dreams that night and I don’t think it’s a coincidence we were sleeping between the Fantasy and Sci Fi shelves.  If we were to have corporate sponsors for this trip they would most likely be No Name canned tuna and Tylenol. Our least likely corporate spo...