Category: Adventure

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

It Can’t Be… Can It?

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326 – 335: Winnipeg, MB – Thunder Bay, ON

It’s been fairly quiet on the people front for 10 days or so, but a fair bit’s happened in the saddle. So after setting off from Winnipeg, it all went pretty smoothly really. Leaving the city was a bit sketchy, dodgy roads and such, but 20 miles out things got a lot better. There’s a bite in the air for sure, and generally camping involves every piece of clothing that’s kicking about in the bags, but the day time is cool and to stay warm the best thing to do is pedal which makes decision making quite simple.

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Leaving Winnipeg marks the end of the prairies and the start of the Canadian Shield. Brings back memories from BC listening to the horror stories about “The Prairies” and how on more than a few occasions sheer dread would fill the air as people recollected their experiences crossing the monotonous landscape. Gotta say my experience is pretty much the opposite of that. Maybe they were unlucky or vice versa, but if anything crossing the plains seemed quiet low-stress and varied enough to be consistently interesting.

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Soon after leaving Winnipeg you enter Ontario. Those signs are a welcome sight as always, progress and all, but Winnipeg is up there – definitely a highlight – so it was bittersweet and not totally YEAHHHH ONTARIOOO! like some other lines. Having said that though, Ontario has the Great Lakes so maybe it’ll live up to it’s neighbour.

Riding from Ignace to Upsala turned into a night ride. And in the haze of the night what generally happens is your concentration is firmly on the road, and your peripheral is focused on looking for rogue moose who might want a concrete fix.

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It happened in my peripheral. I looked at it, then looked ahead again. It was a few seconds later that it clicked. “No way. It can’t be. Can it?!”. And to the left was a green and purple tint that was taking over the sky above the trees. But it was quite faint. Hard to see with regular vision. So I pulled over, propped the bike up, unpacked the camera and set up a long exposure to make sure. Wasn’t expecting to see it on this whole trip, thinking you had to be in northern Alaska or the Northwest Territories to have any kind of chance at this time of year.  But sure enough, there it was, the northern lights. An awesome surprise, and for a moment, the counter-argument to goal-setting became obvious.

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Another marker of progress is the final timezone crossing. Back to East Coast time. This was a rest stop outside of Upsala, and was last nights (un)stealth camp. Earlier in the day, a gas station worker had recommended taking bear precautions, as there’s black bears kicking about. It’s something that hadn’t even crossed my mind for a couple of months so was a good reminder. At about 1am, there was a noise coming from outside the tent, near the bike. Rustling. In the midst of being half-asleep, I fumbled about for the bear spray expecting to unzip the tent and see one clawing for cookies. “BAAAAAAAHHH”. Turned out to be a lorry full of sheep instead. The pitfalls of sleeping in a truck stop.

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This morning this happened. That means it’s all downhill from here, right? Cracking time on the road recently, a good mix of epic, spectacular, adventure and all that other good stuff. Fingers crossed the Great Lakes provides more fun.

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Thanks to Selah Motel in Kenora for a sweet hookup for the night. Check it out if you’re in town.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Video: Curling in Winnipeg

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A couple of days ago there was an opportunity to quickly take a return trip from Winnipeg to San Francisco for an event (more on that soon), so there’s not been much route progress since the last post. Tomorrow morning the momentum builds again and it needs to be pretty full on for the next 6 weeks or so. It’s very much autumn now – seems to have switched from ‘kinda autumn’ a couple of weeks back. Really looking forward to hitting the road, it’s perfect for biking at the moment.

Speaking of the weather… Manitoba gets cold. Hopefully it won’t be too brisk for a while yet, but in Winnipeg a cold winter can be more than 40 below celcius. It gets icy, and so like a lot of Canada, ice sports are all the rage, hockey especially. One that doesn’t seem talked about as much is Curling. Turns out Winnipeg is basically the world capital of curling, and the Granite Curling Club, which stretches back to 1880, is known to the Curling Community as the ‘Mother Club’.

Had the chance to visit a few days ago and talk to Lisa, a competitive curler, and Churchy, a hobbiest and also the clubs Ice Maker. Hope you enjoy the video! If you like watching Brits fall on their faces this one’s for you too.

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P.S. In other news, yesterday was the first Vague Direction / Huffington Post collab. The plan is to write a few stories about some of the meetings that have taken place so far, and you can read the first one, about meeting Brad, the cross-country walker, here.

P.P.S. Big up to Bill at the Guest House International in Winnipeg. Stayed here for a couple of nights and it’s an amazing hostel setup with a basement that’s perfect for stashing a bike. He also wrote a book about Canadian Spy, William Stephenson, who is apparently the basis of James Bond!

P.P.P.S. Where’d September go?

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Adventure Bicycle Travel Interviews Philosophy

Vague Direction People: Sierra Noble [music maker]

‘Sup from Winnipeg!

“I guess I went through a little bit of a period when I was younger of wishing that I could have had a normal teenage life. Which I didn’t have at all because I was on tour all the time. But that was my normal, and looking back on it, I wouldn’t trade a single thing to go to one party on a weekend.”

Sierra Noble is a singer-songwriter from Winnipeg and one of Canada’s leading fiddle players. On Saturday in the city centre, she was headlining the Concert For Peace – which is based around the UN’s International Day of Peace.

We caught up on the streets of her hometown before the show (and during) to record a live gritty session and chat about her path into music, growing up on the road, finding inspiration, ignoring haters, and the lessons she’s picked up along the way. Wicked fun. Got 5 minutes? It was a blast to make.

Here’s the direct YouTube link. You can keep up with Sierra and listen to more at www.sierranoble.ca.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

303 – 313: Lanigan, SK to Portage La Prairie, MB

Some notes from the last week or so.

303: Lanigan

Another morning. Pack up the stuff, load up the bike, get going slowly but surely. One of those mornings where any excuse would do. Resting sounded like a great option. Things often just seem to fall into place and today was another one of those days.

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Whilst cycling past Ross Inn in Lanigan, Tara Ross was doing some work in the yard and we got chatting. She’s one of those people who immediately radiate positivity.  She was the owner of the inn and had free space that night and generously offered a motel room to kip in (first rule of cycle touring is never turn down a bed if it’s offered, specially if you’ve been tenting it for a while).

I interviewed her the next day and the conversation became about how faith is very important in Tara’s family. I’m not a religious person (different strokes for different folks), but have met enough people who are, to know that a higher belief has the power to change lives for the better and in hugely profound ways. That was the case with Tara. One thing for sure is there’s been a ton of generosity during this trip on more than a few occasions that has come from the religious community. There’s not always a bunch of time on the road to edit the footage, so instead of keeping a load on hard-drives I’m going to start posting some very quick uncut sections. There’s not much to them but you’ll get an introduction to the characters along the way. Here’s an uncut section from the Tara interview talking about a part of her belief.

We spoke a lot about how Tara’s belief has changed her life, and how many of the toughest decisions she’s made have become less tough because of that belief. One of the things I struggled with for a while on this project is the fleeting, skim-the-surface nature of some of these heavy-topic conversations. I’d love to (and will) come back in the future and remove the travel element, and just focus on some of these stories. There’s always a battle; do you even talk about the heavy stuff? Because without really knowing someone and really taking the time to explore (i.e. weeks / months rather than days), suddenly jumping into a big subject seems a bit superficial. Perhaps a bit tabloidy and even a bit unethical? Alas, because of the looming visa deadline and all that stuff, I won’t settle on this trip, and over time have become ok with the movement and fleeting nature of some of the conversations. But it’s definitely fuel for future, much more in-depth projects. It was another case of amazing hospitality from Tara and if you’re ever in town do swing by because their place is ace.

 307: Churchbride, SK to Russell, MB

A lot of people have mentioned the mental game in the prairies. It can feel samey but it’s not been too tough. Could be a lucky streak but the weather’s been playing ball, there’s been no rain and the wind’s been literally an amazing boost. The samey nature can mean that often days are uneventful though. You can have 5 day + spells of: wake up, pack up, eat breakfast, cycle, eat lunch, cycle, eat dinner, pitch tent, sleep, repeat.  It’s been a long time since seeing other cyclists – it’s getting a bit late in the season and anyone with any sense probably chooses a more southern trip at this time of year, but in between Churchbridge and Russell, there were two figures in the distance frantically pedalling and quickly getting closer.

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It’s nice meeting other cyclists, and one reason for that is that it makes you aware that there are other people drawn to a similar, seemingly bizarre, mission. Alberto and Fausto are from North East Italy and are cycling from the East of Canada to Alaska, hoping to catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis before the winter arrives in full swing. Best get pedalling chaps ‘cos it’s getting nippy. Super friendly folks who are loving life in the saddle, and you can follow their progress through a blog and video at www.ibou.it.

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 312: Gladstone to Portage La Prairie

It’s been the first time in months and months when it’s been chilly at night. The leaves have begun to fall from the trees and suddenly it’s clear that proper autumn isn’t far away. The mornings are getting frosty and I’m digging out clothing from long lost pannier compartments that haven’t seen the light of day for several months. Hoping the Canadian Winter starts off slowly and holds off for a while longer. It gets to -40C so it’s nothing to take too lightly.

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The general direction of the wind in the prairies is favourable for anyone heading east. There have been days that it felt like cheating – so easy to cycle, because really there’s not much biking involved. It’s more like sailing. Sit down and get pushed across the flats. That’s reversed in the last couple of days and the last couple of days have been brutal in terms of the wind. Cycling straight into it has been unrelenting. It’s hard to go very far and even a small day done feels like an achievement. It also seems to be the way that maintanence of roads is increased the nearer you get to a city. Means the shoulders are gravel and not conducive to moving at pace.

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Super excited for Winnipeg which is just a days ride away. Going to take a couple of days off (to coincide with the incoming rainy streak) to rest the legs, and hoping to film some fun segments over the next few days. Misplaced the LED light a couple of months ago (good job it’s been summer), and haven’t done any night riding since, so am picking up a new light from the always rad Gemini Lights and am stoked to pedal into the night again. Cycling at night seems to generate a different mood entirely, and it seems much easier to get into the zone and bike for longer.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

295 – 302: Lloydminster, AB to Lanigan, SK

First off – a HUGE thank you to everybody who donated and helped spread the word after the last post. Totally blown away, thanks! The game goes on because of you! [If you missed the last post and are able to help out at all, all the details are here.]

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300 days on the road. Nothing like century numbers to make you realise how long it’s been. It’s been a stint of plugging away, making a bit of progress in the prairies, then exploring Saskatoon, then cycling more prairies. It’s been crazy hot – the locals are shocked and say it’s very unusual. It’s not uncommon for the first snow to fall in September so a T-shirt and shorts climate of 27 C+ isn’t a yearly thing. Makes for tiring sweat-ridden days in the saddle, and it’s kind of weird but it seems as though the surface of the road becomes softer and slower. Gloopy tarmac that tries to eat at your tyres. Could just be a placebo effect though.

The approach into Saskatoon definitely was slowed down though – no placebo there. There were road repairs which meant cycling through unset tar, followed by loose gravel and sand. The 20 miles into downtown Saskatoon were so sluggish. It would have been faster to jog as the bike tyres were now a big tarry mess. Saskatoon is an amazing city though. I spent a couple of days exploring and definitely think there’s something about that place that’s appealing. It’s under the radar compared to other Canadian cities and is gritty enough to not feel touristy when downtown, but with a super friendly, young and diverse community to be welcoming. It’s made the ‘one day go back and explore properly’ list.

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Like several people have mentioned, the actual riding is quite samey in terms of landscape. But unlike some reports I’m not finding that to be a bad thing (not yet anyway!) – from Thunder Bay onwards it’s going to get steep again, so for now the flatness is appreciated. The only thing you have to be careful off is drivers throwing apples at you near North Battleford. Just kidding – you just have to be careful of the one driver who does that. Who’d have thought someone who eats fruit would be so aggressive? But it does gives you good practice at flipping the bird.

The prairies make awesome visuals, as the horizon can be so far away. There’s nothing like cycling into the wind all day on the flat plains, having spent the day face down with your eyeballs occasionally looking up for direction, to realise it’s 8pm and a killer sunset has just formed behind you. It’s hard to see how anyone can get bored of the prairies when it’s like this day after day.

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Thought I’d sign out with a quick lesson about all-you-can-eat chicken from day 294.

After the most unsubtle camping session for ages, I woke up in Lloydminster hungry and sore. It was definitely going to be a slow start. The kind of morning where you yawn for the first hour and can barely open your eyelids. But then something great happened, there was a sign, through the blur of half-open eyelids, that read ‘All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet for $10’. Protein – that repairs muscles right? Good for soreness? Unlimited protein? It was on.

I’ve never eaten so much chicken. Unfortunately, upon standing up and leaving the buffet, something was wrong. I’d eaten far too much, and could hardly move. It’s the novelty of something being unlimited. Cue stomach cramps. I kind of figured that maybe it’ll all be ok in an hour or so, and it would be fixed by sitting it out for a while. I sat there for ages, meat sweats dripping down my face, altogether in an uncomfortable and embarrassing way, forehead resting against table.

“Do you think they’ll convince everyone? You know, Obama and Cameron?” 

Talk about a curveball. The chicken greed meant any form of decent communication was impossible, other than through banging my head on the table surface and groaning. It didn’t get better, I didn’t cycle anywhere that day and it was a thoroughly pathetic site.

“Not sure, sorry.”  It was a conversation that didn’t get very far.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

290 – 293: Edmonton to Lloydminster, AB

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Just a quick blog post and images before heading forwards on into Saskatchewan. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Road life’s been going pretty well recently. Leaving Edmonton was super built up and was definitely more precarious than arriving, but darting traffic and getting hit by the gusts from passing trucks keeps you on your toes / pushes you along nicely.  It didn’t take too long to be out of the city and back in the depths of rural farmland, where the fields begin and are consistent throughout the day – green wherever you look, loads of barley fields and the biggest round hay bails you’ve ever seen. It’s often really similar to riding through the countryside back in the UK but without the hills.

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One major positive shift is that it goes dark again, which makes the whole travel part seem a lot more thrilling – obviously it didn’t happen overnight but there’s now a lot of darkness and cooler temperatures from about 8pm. Whilst it means not as much road time, it also means overall quality of sleep and body clock is vastly improved. It’s now possible to be fully recharged after camping rather than just a bit rested, which is awesome and has a big effect throughout the rest of the day. There’s been a lot of stealth camping happening – beside a baseball pitch was probably the best, and now that the stars are on show again the night photography has re-started.

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In a rest stop near Ross Creek, at sunset it looked like a perfect night. The sky was an intense red, but the cloud cover was minimal, until about 3 hours later when the mother of thunder and lightning storms began. It lasted maybe two hours, and offered intense rain and the type of lightning where you can’t pin down where it’s coming from, it’s just happening all around you. It was super dramatic with huge flashes of bright white light and shaky rumbles of thunder, but being in a rest stop there was a bunch of lampposts and trees and all that good stuff so it never felt sketchy. I doubt there’s anyone on earth who could sleep through those roars, so I digged into the RadioLab podcasts (check out the episode – ‘Limits’) and hunkered down with a chocolate spread sandwich. Yep. Happy days. Typical view:

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I’m just writing this post whilst passing through Lloydminster, on the way east. Down the road is the start of a new province, Saskatchewan – it’s crazy really because it didn’t seem like much time was spent in Alberta compared to everywhere else.  Nonetheless, those simple road signs are a great boost and a literal indicator of progress. Onwards to Saskatoon. Intrigued to see what this next province will bring.

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290: Edmonton – Ross Creek
291: Ross Creek – Mannville
292: Mannville – Lloydminster

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Adventure Bicycle Travel Interviews Philosophy

Vague Direction People: Samira Mostofi

Why choose a risky, insecure and in-no-way-guaranteed path when there’s a safe and obvious one staring right at us? That’s a question that we all deal with in some form when making our own big decisions.

Samira is a kickass photographer and movie assistant, and it was only after realising that making movies was an actual job that real people do, that she transitioned away from the relatively safe path of becoming a lawyer, to a riskier one chasing a long lost dream of making movies.

This is a small segment from some footage that was shot earlier in the year, just a quick edit of some of the raw convo, where Samira has tons of actionable and inspiring points that apply to everyone about overcoming intimidation, taking a leap, ignoring reality and leveraging the positives of rejection.

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Sidenote: Speaking of photography, if you have a few minutes and want to be inspired, take a look at these.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel Interviews Philosophy

Vague Direction People: Tim Koslo

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This weekend it was the close of the Edmonton Fringe Festival, so the south side of the city was bustling with street performers / singers / comedians / artists. Quite a culture shock from the recent remote weeks and it did take a little adapting to, but there’s some amazing acts (one of my favourites was from Maggie, an elderly lady who told me a poem about how she genuinely thinks we’re all from the moon), and it’s a very inviting atmosphere.


Whilst pottering about for a day, I bumped into Tim Koslo who was selling T-shirts on the street. He sells his work during the summer and is a standup comedian throughout the rest of the year. It became obvious fairly soon into talking to him, that like Brad, he’d been through more than his fair share of tough times, battling with addiction as a young adult.

Tim was open to talking about his struggles, so the conversation ended up being steered down a rabbit hole of addiction, recovery, complacency, finding what your calling is and how focusing on that can, as a convenient by-product, fix the other problems in life.

We can get caught up in the best way to do something most effectively, with the least resistance, the biggest impact and the loudest noise, but time and time again it seems like the most important and longest lasting changes come about simply by making the decision to just start.

Hope you enjoy this quick snippet video:

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

271 – 287: Fort Nelson, BC to Edmonton, AB

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So the last post definitely acted as a bit of a release. Setting off from Fort St John after publishing it was like a new beginning. Weird how that works. A healthy (if a bit brash) reset. I didn’t think that posting a blog like that would have such an impact on overall mood but it definitely acted as a big exhale. Ahhh. Being basically a nomad at the moment means every now and then my overall perspective can get hazy, but hopefully that’s the hardest month over with (don’t mention the Canadian winter, ok?) and things are only up from here.

I booked the bike in to a Fort St John shop for repair. After however many miles it’s been, the drivetrain was a mess and needed swapping out – a new cassette, crank and chainrings. Picking the bike up post-repair, and taking it for a 30 second spin, it was immediately obvious that the trip was going to go a lot more smoothly than it had been doing. And that perhaps a lot of the stress in the last month has come from a bike that barely worked. There were no clunks, no skipping, all the gears worked. No tyres with holes in them and daily punctures. It was like a new bike, foreign since Arizona, and it was fast. Much faster than it had been for months. Suddenly, with a vent and a working bike, things were looking up.

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The forecast was in and it was looking good for the next 7 days. I decided to intentionally minimise being connected. 7 days straight of moving everyday, taking in the prairies and Alberta, and making a very conscious effort to get things back on a positive track, stopping to chat and film segments with the locals whenever possible and just getting back into it. It worked. It was exactly what had been missing over the last month or so. Consistency and inertia.

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The best part about the physical aspect of this trip is the tranquil state you get into when the cycling is consistent. You aren’t concerned about steep hills, mechanical issues, how many miles you’ve got to do or what time it is. It’s hardly about the cycling at all. It’s just simple. And in the prairies, which have just started, it’s amplified simplicity. It’s flat with the occassional rolling hill. Long stretches of fast and sustained movement. Plus going west to east means the wind is mainly pushing you along. Bonus. All that combined brought back a mindset that I’d been missing – less about the act of cycling and more about the state of mind it puts you in. You turn off. The human version of Sleep Mode. Suddenly you can make clear decisions, you’re more creative, more present, happier and less concerned. It’s a meditative state that I’d never personally experienced before this trip and I’d recommend it to anyone. There’s probably tons of other ways to experience a similar thing; running or swimming etc, but if you can find whatever it is that puts you in that place you’d be doing yourself a disservice to ignore it.

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In the last fortnight, the landscape has totally changed. From relatively mountainous to now vast green farmland and barley fields. Roads that stretch to the horizon and a stellar magic hour night upon night. It’s definitely getting a lot more populated now, which is very appreciated after 5 fairly remote weeks. Edmonton is the first city since Vancouver that seems really vibrant. It’s refreshing to be in a built up area for a few days before hitting the prairies again, and being a city there’s Warmshowers hospitality available which is awesome, so big thanks to Amie and Alberto for the floorspace.

It’s dark at night again, brisk in the mornings, and the land is new. The Prairies have begun and I think they’re going to provide a lot of stories.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel Philosophy

Reality and Covering It Up

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To post or not to post? I read my pal Andy’s blog post and could relate – it acted as a catalyst and a realisation that, for the last month or so, the content that has been published on this blog has been covering up the reality to avoid negativity. It’s easier to be positive if you just focus on what’s been happening in front of your eyes instead of behind them. And who wants to read a negative post, really? There’s enough negativity in the world without yet another blog joining the bandwagon. But covering up the truth in fake positivity is  disengaging and it’s see-through. And maybe writing this stuff down will be therapeutic.

There’s been emails from people saying things like “Savour every moment”, and “You’re living my dream!”. And I just think about how ghetto it is, or the hour every night spent finding a place to sleep. Waking up in lay-by’s and carparks day after day, week after week, is not something to savour.

It isn’t glamorous, and there are times when I sit on the grass in the morning, looking at the bike with resentment. Why did I sign up for this?

In retrospect I’ll look back on this as ‘living the dream’, for sure. There are times now that I look back on with such fondness. It’s been one of the best periods of my life. No doubt. A bike ride across a continent and a trip that has brought me together with people who I’ve looked up to and taken inspiration from for years. Pinch-me, how-on-earth-did-this-happen moments.

But it can be so draining, demoralising and depressing, even when you’re in the most amazing areas. And there’s times when I think about those emails and think, it should be them doing this, not me. I’m a fraud and they’re not. They’d wake up stoked about pedaling all day, whereas I go through phases of waking up with dread. What’s the point in yet more days in the saddle? The tough parts are pedaling every day to get anywhere, and having to find a new place to sleep, dry out, wash and escape the rain, every single day. That quickly adds up.

I always looked at ‘adventurers’ with a hint of annoyance. They’d use terms like ‘quest’ and publish ‘memoirs’ about their time away. It would often hum of pretension and schmuck, and in more-than-a-few cases I got the feeling that their adventures were more about public speaking gigs than the actual experience. Even now, when somebody refers to themselves as an adventurer it makes me shudder. I’d read the blogs, and just didn’t buy it. Wasn’t this just hyperbole designed to appeal to a reality TV audience who didn’t know any better?

They’d talk about how mentally tough it had been, and I’d think, hang on a minute, you’re rowing across an ocean in a boat with a Sat Phone and pinpoint navigation, all you do is row, it can’t be that hard. Get-bloody-on-with-it or stop complaining and quit if you don’t want to be there.

The real adventurers were those who operated under the radar – they’d sail to uncharted lands at a time before GPS, flares and helicopter rescue, or escape from a prisoner of war camp and walk for a year through the jungle, battling anacondas and avoiding the arrows of tribesmen. The explorers who fought pirates with swords. They were heroes, rather than self-branded, media-savvy “adventurers”. And they got on with it rather than purposefully trying to grow an audience by telling everyone how epic it was. I thought that in a modern and connected world, adventure was nearly impossible to find.

And then I set off on this trip and my opinion didn’t change. If anything it was reinforced for the first few months. It wasn’t hard. It was sore but never unbearable. You’re connected almost everywhere. And then after a while, slowly my opinion did start to change.

It’s not the physical side that makes a hardcore adventure. You don’t have to walk through the jungle for 18 months or fight pirates. It’s 100% mental and unique to each person. It’s the toll of time, not the toll on your body. Overcoming the demons that grow in your head and scream at you to stop. It’s like athleticism in that respect. It’s arduous. The best athletes are the ones who do their time, push through it and put in the 10,000 hours. Results don’t come from a single race. But committing to that time is an intimidating thing, even after nine months.

My subconcious constantly asks “what’s the point of what you’re doing?” It’s ignoring that question, or trying to answer it, that’s challenging. It’s keeping going.

It’s this weird way of life where nothing is moderate. It’s great or it’s shit. Rarely it’s in between. Honestly, there’s no place I’d rather be most of the time. I feel a sick and twisted attraction to the mental game. But at the same time, sometimes it’s the polar opposite of enjoyable. That’s strange and full of hypocrisies, I know, but it seems to be the curse of movement, the road, and living a stripped down life that at the moment is literally strapped to a set of wheels. There are no sides – I love it and hate it at the same time.

This project has totally changed how I view adventure – it is real. And if it is mental, then this is most certainly a really wild adventure. But it’s still not a quest, ok?