Outdoor Bunnies

our bikes loaded and ready to go

As it is now October the first and the leaves are beginning to change, it seems I cannot put off writing about my summer adventures any longer. This summer I learned a new outdoor activity: bike touring. When I say I learned, I mean I biked from Victoria, British Columbia to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario with no formal cycling experience.

A combination of factors inspired this trip. My fiancé and I had been tossing ideas back and forth for months about a perfect summer adventure. I was going a little bit nuts in one city, working evening shifts and not getting outside nearly enough. He was feeling burnt out after a challenging first year of a masters degree. Since we both bike to work and school regularly we joked about just biking away. Then his sister announced she was pregnant and we realized we needed to go home to see our family. Over dinner one night Sebastian suggested that we just bike there. I went along with the idea, and a few quick months later we were packing bikes with a massive quantity of gear and questioning our ability to ride the heavy beasts without falling over.

The scheduled departure date was mid-June, however I was offered some last minute work with NOLS in the Yukon and we had to push back the start date to July 11. On July 9 I flew home from Whitehorse after a month of hiking in the backcountry. Before I left we had not yet saved enough money to buy all of the panniers and tires and other general bike upgrades we needed for the trip. All of that work was left to Sebastian. I had been out of contact for a month and I hoped that everything would be ready, and more importantly that I would be able to ride a bike 4000 kilometres.

When I got home the first thing Sebastian showed me was the bikes, they looked wonderful. We went for a ride around town, they had been tuned professionally and the gears shifted like they were brand new. The tires had been changed from mountain bike tires to a hybrid tire that was slick around the middle to be more efficient on roads, but was studded on the sides to allow us to ride on dirt roads and moderate trails. In addition there were handlebar extensions, racks for back panniers and a front pouch, more water bottle holders and a rear view mirror. I was thrilled. Then we got home and began pulling gear for the trip. We lay it all out on the living room floor. There was not a lot of extraneous gear, except for a set of badminton rackets and a Frisbee, and yet it looked like way more than could ever be packed onto a bike. We spent all day on the 10^th packing the gear, and trying to balance the weight distribution on the bikes.

On July 11 we rode away from our apartment in the sunny afternoon. It was exciting to think that within a few hours we would be far from home, on the mainland and totally on our own. As I coasted down my street on my heavy bike I marvelled at how well it rode considering how easily it topples over without momentum. My worries about the bikes being overloaded were slowly slipping away. Then I hit a speed bump. The back pannier bounced off the bike. I realized we still had a long way to go and a steep learning curve to adjust to life on the road. We figured out a better system to attach the panniers and then set out again.

We cruised along a familiar trail up to the ferry, a 2 hour ride, and narrowly missed the 5 pm ferry. Better planning would have told us that the next ferry wasn’t until 7 pm, but we were not too concerned. We waited and had dinner and boarded the boat. Riding onto the ferry with all the cars was a new experience. It was exciting knowing that we were setting out on something very big. I saw leaving Vancouver Island as passing the point of no return. I didn’t know where we were going to camp that night, or the next night. I had no accurate estimate of how much distance we could cover in a day on our heavier than normal bikes, through mountain trails and back roads. I was not worried about those things. I was excited. I knew that this adventure was happening. After months of build up, the trip had begun; we were about to cross North America on our bikes.