Somewhere in Horseshoe Bay...
Dipping our wheels in the Pacific Ocean! June 2nd dawned with a beautiful blue sky that reminded us both of the sky on our first bike trip on August 5, 1998 (see the picture at the top of this blog page). Another sign that God was smiling on our trip! We are a little nervous about what lies ahead and what it's going to take to get across the country, but that does nothing to take away from the excitement that we have to finally get this trip going!
Our Heros of the Day are the Corbet family - Blake, Tracy, Emily, Thomas and Owen. Blake (Cam's favorite investment banker... and now Ken's too!) met us at the water at 9AM to help us mark the occasion with pictures and videos. He then started to ride across Canada with us, but only made it 13.5 kms to his amazing house in West Vancouver where we were met with on the street with a wonderful welcome by his lovely family. They then served us our inaugural X-Canada breakfast. Cam was amazed by how polite and sweet Blake's kids were, but not so much after meeting Tracy! (just jokes Blake...!). Ken said it well in that "we couldn't have had a more perfect start to the trip". Thank you Corbet family!
Our Heros of the Day are the Corbet family - Blake, Tracy, Emily, Thomas and Owen. Blake (Cam's favorite investment banker... and now Ken's too!) met us at the water at 9AM to help us mark the occasion with pictures and videos. He then started to ride across Canada with us, but only made it 13.5 kms to his amazing house in West Vancouver where we were met with on the street with a wonderful welcome by his lovely family. They then served us our inaugural X-Canada breakfast. Cam was amazed by how polite and sweet Blake's kids were, but not so much after meeting Tracy! (just jokes Blake...!). Ken said it well in that "we couldn't have had a more perfect start to the trip". Thank you Corbet family!
Superheros of the Day - Tallinn, Emily, Tracy, Thomas, Blake, Owen. Although we didn't want to leave, we eventually found our way back to our bikes and were given a royal send-off. Cam wanted to be the first to stay in the guest room, but that honour is reserved for Tracy's mom who is coming this week... too bad Cam!
And so, we hit the road heading north to North Vancouver, across the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge where we joined the TransCanada highway - something that we won't soon forget. Perhaps we should have realized when we saw the sign for 37 kms of construction, but we carried on oblivious... The shoulder was soon replaced by concrete barriers with makeshift shoulders that ranged from 6 - 24 inches. We carried on... Multiple roads merged into and off of the highway at full speed and traffic increased passing just feet to our left. We carried on... After about 10kms of this, Ken was in the lead, and Cam was riding a 12 inch shoulder between the highway pavement which was raised about 2 inches above the shoulder. Suddenly, the raised pavement began to narrow into the concrete barrier and Cam had to make a decision to either try to climb the drop onto the road, or stop. He reached for the brakes and squeezed over towards the barrier, and as he did his pannier got caught by three pieces of rebar sticking about 2 inches out of the barrier, ripping the pannier off his bike after which it rolled onto the highway. He was able to stop without falling, quickly leaned his bike against the barrier and ran back to save the pannier before it got run over. He grabbed it, turned and saw that the weight of the other pannier - still intact on the bike - caused the bike to fall onto the highway. He ran back and saved his bike before it got hit. Ken had stopped and came back to help get the pannier on in about 12 inches of shoulder. Just after a tanker truck flew by, a foot from Cam, Ken got it right when he said "I can't imagine worse riding conditions". We decided to take the next exit and follow Blake's wise advice to ride the Lougheed Highway (pronounced in BC as "Low heed"!) which was a far more pleasant ride. After this adventure, we are thankful for many prayers raised for us, and in fact encourage even more of them! An important lesson was learned by both of us (we promise mom...!).
Because of the detour to the Lougheed, the day ended up being 111 kms, rather than the 96 kms that we had expected. We reached Abbotsford at about 6PM and were greeted by one last very tough hill before checking into the Coast Hotel on Sumas Road. Allen at the front desk gave us an awesome deal, so the Coast Hotel is now the preferred hotel of the Cross Canada Adventure.
Below is the map and elevation of our first day. Some key stats:
- 110.6kms
- Riding time: 5 hours, 33 minutes
- Average speed: 20.0 kms/hour
- Climbing: 2883 feet
More details on the ride are on Strava (click here).
Check out the Photo Gallery for today's ride.
And so, we hit the road heading north to North Vancouver, across the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge where we joined the TransCanada highway - something that we won't soon forget. Perhaps we should have realized when we saw the sign for 37 kms of construction, but we carried on oblivious... The shoulder was soon replaced by concrete barriers with makeshift shoulders that ranged from 6 - 24 inches. We carried on... Multiple roads merged into and off of the highway at full speed and traffic increased passing just feet to our left. We carried on... After about 10kms of this, Ken was in the lead, and Cam was riding a 12 inch shoulder between the highway pavement which was raised about 2 inches above the shoulder. Suddenly, the raised pavement began to narrow into the concrete barrier and Cam had to make a decision to either try to climb the drop onto the road, or stop. He reached for the brakes and squeezed over towards the barrier, and as he did his pannier got caught by three pieces of rebar sticking about 2 inches out of the barrier, ripping the pannier off his bike after which it rolled onto the highway. He was able to stop without falling, quickly leaned his bike against the barrier and ran back to save the pannier before it got run over. He grabbed it, turned and saw that the weight of the other pannier - still intact on the bike - caused the bike to fall onto the highway. He ran back and saved his bike before it got hit. Ken had stopped and came back to help get the pannier on in about 12 inches of shoulder. Just after a tanker truck flew by, a foot from Cam, Ken got it right when he said "I can't imagine worse riding conditions". We decided to take the next exit and follow Blake's wise advice to ride the Lougheed Highway (pronounced in BC as "Low heed"!) which was a far more pleasant ride. After this adventure, we are thankful for many prayers raised for us, and in fact encourage even more of them! An important lesson was learned by both of us (we promise mom...!).
Because of the detour to the Lougheed, the day ended up being 111 kms, rather than the 96 kms that we had expected. We reached Abbotsford at about 6PM and were greeted by one last very tough hill before checking into the Coast Hotel on Sumas Road. Allen at the front desk gave us an awesome deal, so the Coast Hotel is now the preferred hotel of the Cross Canada Adventure.
Below is the map and elevation of our first day. Some key stats:
- 110.6kms
- Riding time: 5 hours, 33 minutes
- Average speed: 20.0 kms/hour
- Climbing: 2883 feet
More details on the ride are on Strava (click here).
Check out the Photo Gallery for today's ride.
