Tag: adventure

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

368 Days Later.

And it’s done! What a week. 363 – 368! Ithaca to NYC.

It’s been odd, this week more than most, knowing that it’s coming to an end in the coming days. There were moments of About time! excited, and moments of Maybe just one more loop? apprehension. The biking’s been good. Nothing has gone wrong and closing in on the end goal provided an easy way of falling into that dreamed-of zone where cycling becomes effortless. That’s not to say there weren’t crazy climbs, because there was (looking at you Pennsylvania), but with the momentum of a year coming to an end they weren’t enough to cause any delays.

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Being in gung-ho mode, necessary to make the end in time, there’s been a lot of saddle time. That’s often lead to nights in the farmland of NY, PA and NJ states, riding at night on the empty roads. It was surprising how remote it can be considering how close it is to the biggest city in the US. One of those nights lead, by coincidence, to a roadside invitation to crash at a lakeside cottage where Marianna and Elizabeth, two Buddhists, were staying. They were awesome, insisted on making some amazing food, and it was an amazing place to chill out when most moments recently had been a bit of a head-spin.

A few days of cycling later, and it was the final day. So close to being done. So close that something was bound to happen. ‘Course it was. I got sloppy and stumbled onto the highway. In parts of North America you’re allowed on the highway, in others you’re not. In New York you’re not. It was a blast – flying down the shoulder, knowing that this was the fastest route, seeing the New York skyline for the first time and realising it was so close.

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Oops. The police weren’t happy. Fortunately the officer was hilarious and other than an insistence to get off at the next exit, he wasn’t all that fussed. 90 minutes later I rolled into New York via George Washington Bridge and met my folks. It was like an ultra high definition skype call and amazing to see their faces after so long. And it was the end. 

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If you’re reading at this point, thank you! The emails and blog comments in the tough parts were a massive motivator, it played a huge role in seeing the trip through to the end. So thank you. And to everyone who donated or helped with a place to crash along the way or agreed to be featured in this project – I’m still blown away by how awesome you all were.

So that’s it. So much has happened that it’s a flurry, but it’s clear this was something special. The one-more-loop-thought has faded (for now) and it’s exciting to think about what happens next. Hopefully you’ll stick around as the blog will now get pretty fun – snippets of unpublished interview, retrospective articles, footage of getting blasted by sprinklers at 3am – but that’ll all start in a couple of weeks – for now I’m off to catch up on a years worth of half-sleep and wonder around the city until the flight home. And if anyone knows where to get the best slice of pizza here do just shout. Because pizza’s great. Thanks!

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Horror Movies and Frisbee Trickery [VIDEO]

348 – 355: Sault St Marie to Toronto. 

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Spooky moments. There’ve been a few over the last few days. It snowed a lot leaving Sault St Marie, and several hours into the slowest ride ever it was obvious that rather than make minimal ground and camp in the open, it would be wise to seek shelter if any became obvious.

Being in farmland there weren’t many options, other than a single barn on a side road. It looked like it didn’t see much action so I resorted to the age old tactic of – ‘as long as you pack up early enough it’ll probably be fine’. Luckily it worked and the combine harvesters didn’t slip.

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It snowed on and off for a couple of days, but other than that the ride was pretty much plain sailing (except for a bizarre night in the town of Espanola which is a story for a separate post coming soon). To make up some of the lost snow time, I opted for a train ride again to increase the chances of being able to cycle into NYC to finish up. It would suck after so long to finish by train or hitchhiking. As always seems to happen, it’s the time off the bike that provides most of the stories. Fittingly, being halloween and all, what happened next wouldn’t be out of place as an introduction to a horror movie.

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The train was scheduled to leave a small station on the outskirts of Sudbury at 1.30am, and looking at the map, there was a 24 hour Tim Hortons a few km away. Seemed like as good a place as any to wait until the early hours, so I left downtown Sudbury and began cycling to Tim’s. It was late, and at a traffic crossing I very briefly bumped into an older gentleman out for a walk. Then a few minutes later in the cue at TH, he was there too.

“Are you travelling somewhere?”, he said.

We chatted for a while and it turns out he’s a friendly chap called Bruce who’s been based in Sudbury his entire life, except for a 10 day hitchhiking trip he took around the Great Lakes as a 24 year old. Since then he’s been living with his wife and they’re content in the city, scratching any travel cravings with online photos and by chatting to people who are passing through town. He’d been working night shifts so this was his afternoon, and he generously offered to go get his van and then drive me to the station as it’s hard to find. We started walking to the his house to pick up the van and somehow the conversation turned to movies and axes.

“You know, I gave my daughters boyfriend a fright a few months ago. We watched a movie, and the main character is sent a message from God that he has to remove some evil souls from the Earth. One day he’s driving along a country lane and see’s a beam of light land on a barn. He goes in and it’s shining on an axe. The movie is about the guy’s task to kill various people.”

It’s 12.30am. We’ve just met and are walking back to Bruce’s house, where he’s going to pick up his van and drive me to a train station on the outskirts of town. He’s explaining the plot to a movie where a man is tasked to kill people with an axe. Anything suspicious going on here? Then came the kicker.

“Oh, by the way I’m not an axe murderer or anything. Although I could be. You’ve just met me. Or you could be a murderer. It’s hard to tell.”

Hmmm, where’s that bear spray? Should I just leg it? Had a moment of woah-this-is-a-bit-intense, which is laughable now because it turns out Bruce is a truly awesome dude, with a lovely wife called Brenda, crazy kindness, a real van, a knowledge of out of town train stations, and no axe in sight – you had me there for a second Bruce!

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The train showed up at 3am. On at Sudbury, quick snooze, off at Toronto. Magic. Quite convenient timing as far as trains go because it meant waking up and starting the day in the city, instead of arriving at night with no time to explore properly. And what a place. Incredible downtown architecture and amazing graffiti dotted around. Had a fun morning getting lost and then stumbled across a park where there was a bunch of people walking dogs and taking lunch breaks, and in the corner there was a guy doing insane tricks with a frisbee.

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Jolan Canrinus is a freestyle frisbee expert, and in this Vague Direction People video we chat about how he ended up learning such a unique skill. It was frickin’ cool. (If you’re reading this in your email browser, click here to watch the video)

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

A milestone, a thanksgiving, a dog attack & a train.

338 – 346: Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie, ON

As each day goes on, it’s more and more obvious that the jaws of a harsh Canadian heavy winter are approaching, snapping away and closing in quickly. Holy smokes it’s getting cold and the prospect of a snowfall that lasts increase daily. It’s one of the first times where I’ve felt like this project has come full circle, with the days now being similar to those first few setting off from New York during 2012’s Nor’Easter snow. Speaking of which, I looked at the remaining route on the map closely for the first time in a while yesterday, and it was a bit of a milestone. There’s less than 1000 miles left, which is kind of insane to think about. Suddenly the scale is more akin to a small island like the UK than a hefty continent like North America.

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The last ten days have been intense. Spent a few of them in Thunder Bay, and managed to get a tune up from the folks at Rollin’ Thunder as the gears had been playing up and as everyone knows front derailleurs can only be fixed with dark magic. The results were amazing – the bike ran like new again and suddenly there was a range of new gears to ride in which had been previously forgotten about.

Leaving Thunder Bay, you pretty much instantly hit hills. Brutal hills. Not as lengthy as some of the previous mountain sections but much more intense, on a par with Big Sur in terms of steep climbs, fast descents, more steep climbs. It’s not a bad thing, if anything it was quite refreshing, but it definitely took some getting used to after so long on the flats. Much more physically demanding than the prairies. These hills take you around the edge of Lake Superior, which provides an amazing setting when the dense trees open up and other than the fresh water the scale of the lake makes it hard to tell the difference between it and an ocean.

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Something that was unexpected setting off on this trip, was the occasional curse of public holidays, and it was Canadian Thanksgiving the day after leaving Thunder Bay. It’s not a day we celebrate back in ‘blighty, so it wasn’t a big deal really, but when you’re camping rough in a rest stop whilst it’s literally freezing outside, and your main company is the peanut butter sandwich you’ve just made, it’s easy for the sighs to begin and flashes of depression to reach your mind when you know that close-knit groups nearby are celebrating with a kickass Turkey dinner. Of course there are small perks to these days – it’s super quiet on the roads, there’s no distractions etc, but still it’s a part of road life that I doubt will be missed much when it’s done.

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Nearly got attacked by a dog which hasn’t happened for a long time. Casually riding through the woods with the familiar, almost-getting-annoying sound of overplayed hip hop in my headphones, and in the corner of my eye there’s a blurry four legged creature coming in FAST from a wood cutting yard across the road. Is it a horse? A moose? No it’s the mother-of-all big dogs, not sure what kind but one of the frightening ones that you don’t want to mess with. It was kind of a sketchy situation in that the dog ran straight across the road and three cars had to stop suddenly, and it was soon resolved when the owner was honked repeatedly by the held up traffic, but nevertheless that minute-or-so provided that days adrenaline kick (maybe too much because a few hours later a chainring snapped in half).

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Reading other cycling blogs, there’s a lot of talk about the Algoma Central Railway linking up nicely with the sparse section between Wawa and Sault St Marie. It’s a railway line that goes through Agowa Canyon, and is mainly used for hunters and summer tourists to take them to log cabins nestled in the depths of the Shield where roads don’t go. The train or a floatplane are the main options. It’s not a frequent on-the-hour deal – it runs 3 days per week, but it happened to be running in the right direction on the right day so I jumped on at Hawk Junction after an intense down-to-the-wire burst from Wawa town. It’s a fairly short trip, covering 155 miles and shaving off two days, and knowing that this trip means you don’t get the reward of a huge downhill is tough, but like the reports suggested it was a great mini-journey well worth taking if you end up in the area.

Being winter the train was deserted. In fact that goes for general road life at the moment too – people are inside now the temperatures have dropped so it’s mainly a quiet and isolated existence. Occasionally a hunter would jump onto the carriage and soon jump off at a lone cabin (once carrying a moose’s head), but other than that it was a quiet, slow journey through some amazing territory under rainy skies. After 6 hours (told you it was slow), the train pulled into Sault Ste. Marie station around 7pm – the transition from heated carriage to bitter city air briefly shocking – and that was another section of the journey ticked off.

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It’s a race against the clock now because of flights, and whilst relatively speaking this trip is nearly over, there’s a lot that can happen in 20 days, especially at this time of year. Here’s hoping the heavy snow holds off a while longer.

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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 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

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: 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

255 – 270: Whitehorse, YT to Fort Nelson, BC

There’s been a lot of road days and momentum since the last trip update, so here’s some highlights from the last 15 days on the road.

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260: Whitehorse

It took about 4 days of being holed up in Whitehorse, focusing on RICE (or more specifically RI). But it worked! Seemed like my knee might be okay again. I was pretty keen that the first day leaving Whitehorse was a light one. Not too much strain and just a test more than anything else. Well that plan was quickly demolished – leaving Whitehorse involves climbing a massively steep hill for a couple of miles. Pedalling started as being cautious – push hard with the left, and quickly spin round with the right – but when it was obvious that the knee issues weren’t a problem, that soon became pushing hard on both legs. It’s an amazing day to be on the road and it was great to be moving. HOT. The mosquitos seem to have changed to dense clouds of midges but move fast enough and they’re not a problem.

261: Nr Jakes Corner

Woke up in a rest stop near Jakes Corner, the tent getting blasted by the sun. Take yesterdays heat and multiply it. Hottest day so far and it’s barely 9am. Woke up to a water bottle that had leaked, and there was nothing for another 70km, so I waited for just a few minutes until a couple of German tourists pulled in to the rest stop in a ginormous RV stocked with plenty of water. Haben sie wasser? Take that GCSE German. Can’t remember being so delighted to see refrigerated water.

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Ride went well. Bursts of wind made for quick patches of cool instant relief. I’ve started using milepost.com, which is a really awesome resource and comes in handy on these remote stretches of roads. Mainly for telling you when gas stations etc are located, but also it tells you about what significance some of the landmarks along the way have. Today involved crossing the Teslin River Bridge, which turns out to be the third longest spanning bridge on the highway. Crossing that river soon led to a stretch of road that traversed the side of Teslin Lake. Kinda reminded me of that phrase ‘Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink’. I had loads of drinking water but by now it was as though it’d been in the microwave – so cycling past this lake brought obvious thoughts – jumping in it. For ages there was nowhere to get close to the water, until a curve in the road brought firsts sight of a pebble beach and a track to the water. Three hours of escaping the midday heat was amazing.

265: Watson Lake

The most unusual day for a while. So it’s been blisteringly hot for a long stretch – since Whitehorse. The blue skies have shown no signs of changing. I left Watson Lake in the morning and the bike was playing up – nothing new there. This time the chain was skipping like a mad person. Think it’s a worn out cassette. Every half stroke and skip, skip, skip. Some adjustments later and three gears were okay. 3 out of 27 isn’t great, but there was enough range in those three gears to cover up, down and flat. Just like a fancy fixie really. In hindsight I’ve been totally naive about this highway when it comes to mechanical stuff – there are no bikeshops. Get a broken bike out here and unless you can fix / bodge it yourself – you won’t have a rideable bike. This is the only section of road where I would recommend carrying ample spares – a tyre, 3-4 tubes, loads of patch kits, a chain, spokes. Oops.

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Ignoring the sudden lack of gears, soon outside Watson Lake is this place called ‘Lucky Lake’ – I wasn’t aware of it, but the sign posts said that it was a ‘recreational community water park’. Well it was hot – so any excuse really. WOAH. This was probably the nicest swimming spot so far. Sandy beach next to a warm and clear lake – with a floating platform about 50 metres out. Lucky. I swam out and dived around a bit, in the scorching sun. An hour or so later, the rumbles began. Big roars of thunder. I hadn’t even noticed but looking up now the sky was DARK. You know just before it storms sometimes it gets weirdly cold? That was happening. There were a few other parties there too – young families on vacation – and all of a sudden after the first roar, everyone was quick to pack up their things and leave in a hurry. I did the same but rather than having an RV to retreat to, figured I’d try to just pedal on before the looming rain began. That was a mistake.

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Less than a kilometer away from ‘Lucky’, the sky opened. And I really mean opened – like nothing I’ve ever witnessed before. First started the rain. A few heavy drops on my shoulder initially teased. Then a raging downpour of the biggest rain imaginable. There really was nowhere to hide, so it was mostly a case of hood up, head down, try and get somewhere where there was some kind of shelter. And then the rain turned to MARBLE sized hail. Big chunks of ice falling out of the sky. After about a minute the road was covered – just minutes ago the surface was dry. Now it was white with these blocks of hail covering everything in sight. It was the kind of hail that is amusingly painful – imagine someone constantly prodding you, or someone shooting paintballs at you and you’d be close. And then the lightning started to happen. It happened in Louisiana too – being on the road in the pouring rain whilst there’s lightning. Every time it’s quite a scary experience. About 50 metres to each side of the road is dense forest, but that leaves a 100 metre section of openness in between the trees. A wet human being on a metal bike in that openness probably isn’t a great idea. Your heartbeat definitely gets faster. And then, as though a sign, there was a, erm, sign. Rest stop 1km ahead. A rest stop can sometimes mean just a gravel turnout (i.e. not much better than where I was), but sometimes it can mean a proper reststop with restroom buildings. YES. Two tiny concrete washrooms just about big enough to cram a bike into. And an escape from the craziness outside. (There’s video footage of this happening which I’ll try to edit together soon.)

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267: Laird Hot Springs

Go here. Honestly, if you’re in the area, do it. It’s a bizarre paradise. You arrive and it just looks like an RV park & campsite in the sticks. And then you see the start of the boardwalk. A 5 minute walk later and the boardwalk opens onto a tropical blue pool, with steam floating off the surface. Put your toe in initially and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the other visitors had special heat resistant skin or something, because it does initially feel as though you’re stepping into a kettle. I had a great time here, one of the best days for a long time. There were a bunch of ace characters at the first pool. The second deeper pool was closed off because a griz had booked it out.

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By chance I met Kelen and Yeren from Madrid who had been teaching in Canada for 2 years and were taking one last road trip vacation before heading back to Spain again. It’s easy to see a place and meet people and talk about how friendly and ‘nice’ everyone is, but being honest, the last few towns haven’t been like that – maybe there’s something in the water but in Watson Lake for example, there was about 2 nice people, and the rest that I had dealings with were the opposite of that. Kelen and Yeren had similar experiences in Watson Lake too – a local vs tourist thing maybe. They were super cool and had similar interests, so it was fun just to hang out.

From Laird Hotsprings there has been more mechanical issues including a split rear tyre, bursting tubes (valves ripping right off) and more – it’s been a bit of an epic being on the road over the last fortnight, a fun one mind, but finally in Fort Nelson there was a (semi)bikeshop so maybe the mechanical issues will stay quiet for a while. I’ve never done anything that destroys gear as much as cycle touring – my advice if you’re ever thinking about doing this is to get rugged and decent gear, strength over weight for sure, especially bike parts because it’s hard to avoid putting every single part through a ton of abuse and you need stuff that can stand up to it.

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Results of the comp are in. Congrats to Kevin (US), Bastab (India) and Nigel (UK) who won Premium accounts, and Shannon, Keith and Tim who won some funky new T-shirts. Thanks to the wonderful Dora – mayor of Cape Charles, VA & Misslette The Singing Cowgirl from Texas for taking the time to choose.