Tomorrow the ride officially starts!
Our first day is pretty easy-about 84 km heading east out of Vancouver and heading towards Mission, BC.
They’re starting us out ‘easy’ the first few days, to get us warmed up into the riding, and to ease going through the Rockies, and then will do 124 km on the third riding day.
Apparently this is a tough day as it’s hilly and a bit dodgy on some of the roads.
After that it looks like most of the days are around 124 to 172km, which is pretty manageable, considering we have the day to do it.
So far as training distances back to back, we did the Rideau Lakes ride from Ottawa to Kingston (180km) and then back the next day, a few weekends back.
This year’s ride was a lot easier than last year, due to last year’s intense 42 degree heat on the roads (although this year was freezing cold, again, good training for the crazy weather patterns we may be about to encounter.)
The ride back to Vancouver from Victoria was very pretty, the cycling route taking us on a scenic exit where we passed through freshly cut fields of hay, with the most amazing smells.
Lewis, in the spirit of ‘touring’ type cycling has equipped his bike Mary Poppins style, with a bell and mirror.
The bell was rung along the trip back at every opportunity; every chicken, butterfly and tree branch warranting a ‘bling bling,’ as we rode along.
(There was a chicken that did cross our path, which was also fodder for many jokes for the next 20 minutes or so, with every chicken-crossing-the road-joke worked to total exhaustion.)
I’m not sure what has happened to Lewis, as he has now become a mix between Mary Poppins and Mr. Rogers on the bike, as he also started to invent an entire new bike-communication vocabulary.
We are used to the standard hand signals, right, left, stop, slowing, and ‘watch out’ potentially hazardous materials on the road; however I was amiss as far as his new hand-signals were concerned.
Once we met up with some of the gang at the shuttle pick-up I was once again miffed, as Union Jack Guy has an entire new hand vocabulary, one that was quite confusing, and almost had me crash, as I was intensely concentrating on the complicated series of hand gestures he was pulling off.
We’re now back in Vancouver, where we’ve met up with the rest of the TDC (Tour Du Canada) group.
We’d met some of them in Victoria for dinner-those who are keeners and wanted to do the ‘mile 0’ option; the idea being that you start at mile 0 of the Trans Canada Highway, and complete it at the other end in St. John’s at mile 0.
We arrived at the mile 0 marker, along with a few busloads of other tourists from far away lands. We immediately made a b-line for the prime spot beside the ‘0’ thinking that we have proprietary rights to be pictured beside it since we were about to traverse the country, however we were told to ‘get in line’ by some incensed Dutch tourist!
We didn’t meet up with the group, as they left too early in the morning for us, and our gracious host Dama cooked us a delicious pancake breakfast to set us on our way.
We stayed our last night in Victoria at Dama and her late husband Roland’s place, a dear friend who we lost very recently.
Dama lives in a lovely home in Fairfield, at the end of a very pretty cul-de-sac.
A few days ago Dama helped to organize had a block party (or half-block) so we got to meet some of the very friendly locals-some very interesting people, who have mostly found their way to Victoria from a far.
In meeting up with part of our group for dinner, the stereotype of cyclist being an odd bunch was confirmed.
Anyone who has cycled can attest that for some reason this sport tends to attract people who like to ‘colour outside the lines,’ so to speak.
This bunch doesn’t even seem to hit inside any lines whatsoever.
There are some from Australia, UK, and mostly from Canada, making it not only a colorful, but also colorfully multicultural.
Surprisingly many are of retirement age.
One woman is quite funny; she is very interested in everyone (as we all are) but has a rapid-fire inquisition style of questioning, almost hyperventilating her questions, even asking new ones’ before she’s completed asking the current one.
I haven’t quite figured out how to answer them yet, one at a time, combine them, or what?
I am not sure if she is even interested in the answers; I’ll find out if I start to hear some repeats.
Anyhow, makes for an interesting bunch of people.
We ended up catching up with the group at the shuttle bus stop, and beetle-crawled the rest of the way with the group. I hope we’re not going to ride that slowly for the entire ride, although I think not, as I am sure most people with ride according to their pace.
Today was spent in class, where we learned all about how the Ryder truck will operate, galley duty, (four in a galley, cooking for 27 people every 6 days.)
They provide the food, and a cook book from which we can get recipes from; the food is mostly very carb-rich, with various sauces etc, as far as I can tell.
I am getting practice early, as I drew straws to be ‘galley chief’ so all the chiefs are cooking dinner tonight.
Later that eve:
We are almost packed; I will not likely have internet access for the next couple of days, so sit tight until my next entry!
Cheers,
Sandi
