C2C XXXIV – Dedication
Today’s dedication is to everyone that contributed to this trip and helped us through our wonderful journey!
To Canada; a fabulous, very large, very diverse place we are honoured to call home!
To our blog followers; the comments and support was phenominal and some days was the reason our legs kept moving! Thank you for your encourgement and interest!
To the weather; we had it all!
To the people who’d met us and hosted us en route; the Saunders, Michaela and Rob, the Johnsons (x2), Ronny & Ginny, Nana and Auntie Carolyn, Katie and Meg, the Finley Cooper Nova Scotians, and Dana!
To two very significant people; Mom and Andrew! They both hopped across the country to meet us at different points, cheer us on and were fantastic supporters… They are both here in Halifax and we are so excited to have them at the finish line!!! -()-
To the other bikers (/country crossers/grocery kart pushers) we crossed paths with; everyone had their own inspiring story and shared the same Canadian passion!
To dad; my other, other half!
To visa; enough said!
To the communities we stayed in; we were always welcomed!
To dreaming big and biking forever!
We awoke like all other days and prepared ourselves for the last ride of this tour. One century ride to the coast
The weather was clear but like typical east coast weather, we waited 5 minutes and it was raining. There were hills and head winds but nothing was going to stop us from reaching Halifax
We took a break in Truro, the “Hub” of Nova Scotia. Carolyn met us and augmented our spare tube supply. From there she went to the airport to pick up Andrew who was flying in for the final leg. I have discovered a new phenomena I call the “Andrew Effect”. It is the sudden rise in peddaling cadence and power output that comes when ” the boyfriend” is in proximity. I have been dropped by this effect on several occasions during our tour!
The sun came out and we rode into Dartmouth to cross the MacDonald bridge. Carolyn and Andrew passed us as we crested the bridge. The harbour was beautiful and Dads Naval Destroyer was in dock. A quick stop on the bridge for a photo op and we then slid down to The Halifax Historic Properties A quick stop at a local liquor store for the token bottle of champagne and we headed to Point Pleasant Park, our final destination
And what a reception we recieved!
My sister Joanne, her husband Steven and their daughter Brianna were there Roma Cooper and Steven”s mother Eve were there cheering us on. Carolyn and Andrew had found the Park! Even a CTV camerman
Cheers all around popping champagne and a dipping of the bikes in to the Atlantic were on the agenda. This was followed by an emotional final dispersing of my fathers ashes into the Atlantic
Ashes to ashes, Park to Park, Vancouver to Halifax and Sea to Sea Thirty days of biking, four rest days and stories to last a lifetime.
It has been one heck of a ride. Thanks for coming along. Find your gear in life and you will find no hill impossible to climb
Greg and Sara
C2C XXXIII Dedication
On this, the second last day of our cross country bike trip, I reflect on the one person who has been either in front of or behind me for the past 29 biking days. That would be my eldest child; Sara.
This adventure started as an off the cuff comment half a year ago as a way of celebrating her university graduation this spring. Without any hesitation she agreed and I started planning and dreaming. Through all the unknowns like how many k per day, what type of support, what supplies etc, the only certainty was that Sara was not going to quit. I knew that it would be crying wolf before her. I call her a little bulldog because of her tenacious grip on everting she does. She says she”s not competitive but when she sets a goal , she is commited. She was up every morning rain or shine. Mountains and monsoons couldn’t” stop her. When the hills got steep she found a comfortable gear, put her head down and climbed to the top. An unexpected steep climb in Quebec on a bike trail looked unridable. It was short but very steep. Sara said to me that she thought she might not make it up. I cajoled her and said “she had to bike it, that was the rule”. I could say that because I knew she would. She half cried in anger at me ( Dad, this not a race) and half laughed ( laughing in the face of death) She stood on her pedals and made it to the top. It was never in doubt
Although she is focued and internally driven, I admire her ability to make everyone in her company feel welcome. She will help a fellow competitor before tthinking of herself.
On this trip she has been a great navigator, chief cook and companion She has ridden through pain, abraisions and fatigue. She can now change a flat in ” no time flat”. All of this while putting up with very ungirl like things such as; biker”s tan, thunder thighs ( you can those off), saddle sores no hair creme rinse, bug bites, and her father”s old man related things. Her only treat was bringing along nail polish. Makes a girl feel special
So to Sara our oldest child. It has been an honour and a pleasure to ride across Canada with you. Happy graduation My hope was to have provided you with a continuing love of your country and a life long desire for adventure
My only request is that when it comes time to sign my admission papers to the Shady Acres Rest Home that you not hesitate to tick off the upgrade option that includes the spinning classes! !
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should
With all it’s sham and drudgery and broken dreams, it is a still a beautifulworld
Be cheerful
Strive to be happy
( from Desiderata)
Love Dad
ps. I”ll beat you to the Atlantici
(we hadn’t numbered our first rest day in Calgary so we have skipped XXXII to make up!)
Wow, today was a full on adventure… It started early, saying bye to mom at the motel and taking a combination of highways and backroads towards confederation bridge! We couldn’t avoid some sections of highway that were under construction, the grated pavement was like a full body wake-up massage!
Shediac was our break early in the day where they were in midst of their annual lobster festival… It’s a town with an east coast feel, the little cabins all brightly coloured along the rocky shoreline… The biggest lobster in the world and you know what.. It’s STILL French! New Brunswick is truly a bilingual province! As we met back up with the highway at the end of a backroad section, I looked down and saw a Honda pilot go under the underpass… “hey, that looks like Mom!”. Sure enough, mom had gone to fetch fresh fruit and sushi to send with us on the LONG bridge ride! Thanks Mom! It was a 100km section to the bridge deck and that is as far as we were allowed to go! A shuttle for pedestrians and bikes which costs $6 (very cheap relative to the $48 car fee!) pulled up almost immediately! We got that timing right! And there we were, bikes in tow, sucking on sushi, sopping wet (it rained all day!) enterig our 8th province!!!! Woooo-hoooo! And it wasn’t even noon! A very friendly local couple was in the shuttle with us, giving us details of the Taylor swift concert on the island the night before… The line of cars waiting to cross the bridge from PEI was evidence of the event, it was bumper to bumper for a solid kilometer, some cars we turining away and joining us in the opposing direction!
We had a route chosen to cross the island that took us off the trans Canada for a bit… The only thing was that I wasn’t completely sure if the roads would be paved, we figure we’d try anyway! Good fortune again, everything seemed to be hardtopped fine and dandy… The pavement took on a somewhat reddish colour in the distance at one point and as we got closer we found out that it was soil, rich, red PEI soil! And we rode it! Why not?
At the end of the section we had a red line up the back of our panniers and back from the backspit! Our ‘off road’ adventure also took us past the PEI ski hill. While we climbed a very steep hill we joked that ‘this must be the 150m highest point in PEI’ only to crest it and be face to face with a chairlift! Yep, highest point! If anyone is under the impression that PEI is flat, it’s not! Although its max elevation is around 150m, it fluctuates from 0 to 149m VERY often! Beautiful, rolling countryside and wonderful people! We eventually came back onto the trans Canada, saw a woman pull over to ask a police officer (who had his lights flashing and a car pulled over infront of him… Obviously working!) for directions! From there we pleasantly passed through Charlottetown keeping our eyes open for a local PEI restaurant… None really caught our attention and we soon realized we were out of Charlottetown and 40km from the Wood Islands ferry! It was 4:15 and we were hungry! There was a ferry that left at 6:15… Do we rush it and try to get to Nova Scotia early or do we try to find a restaurant and cycle at a pleasant pace to meet the 8:00 ferry as we had planned!? The rain, fatigue and excitement got me going, let’s do it! We grabbed muffins and trailmix, filled our bottles, emptied our tanks and left at 4:30! Dad got a flat 5km later, we thought it was game over but we pushed anyways! It was the hardest and fastest I’ve ridden on this trip and I was ‘in the zone!’, nothing was stopping me! I kept checking the map and pushing harder… 5:50 and WE MADE IT!! The only thing that I could think of for the last 5km was that when we were on the ferry years ago, there was a cows ice cream parlour on the top deck. I’ve been wanting ice cream for about four days now and I knew that if we made the ferry, I’d be the first in line! So pecan in a waffle cone it was! Dad scavenged some food from the cafeteria downstairs and we were both tired but happy people! After 200km we crossed into province #9 (#3 of the day!) followed by a 10km bike to pictou where my mom (again!) is visiting her aunt and uncle! We had dinner, caught up, did laundry and prepared for the FINALE into Halifax Harbour tomorrow! We can’t wait!
Sara
C2C XXXI – Dedication
After a long, wet, hard day in the saddle… Everything comes down to balance
You are taught your whole life how to balance things… Between the day your training wheels are removed to juggling work and family as you get older… We strive for healthy proportions and equity!
Today was a day that we were consistently off balance! But, we worked wih it, redistributed as the day went on and in the end, if we were to repeat today tomorrow… we would be unreal! To start the day, the fact that the only consistent things we do in life these days are; eat, sleep and bike is a little askew but it’s my full time profession right now (that balances work!) and we have thrown in tons of our friends and family (so there adds social!).
After the skewed number of hours a day we spend in a tiny saddle dropped onto our handlebars… Packing was this morning was very unbalanced. We had 150km of nothingness routed out, 8 pitas, costo sized licorice bag, granola bars, 4 bananas, 2 plums, extra water bottles and the whole works… We got up the first hill, and we both agreed that we very frequently did 150km trips on 1 water bottle and 1 granola bar… I dont think for the first hour I climbed a hill in my big ring… It was about 2 hours in that we were dumping ziplocs of trail mix, pitas and even dads licorice… We’d open the bag, dump the contents after taking a baby sympathetic bite from each pita… Dad though, did pour out a little bit of water from his extra bottle instead of ditching all the licorice! It really does prove our light weight strategy helps!!!
After dumping comes the speed; too fast, too slow… I feel like we never actually bike at the perfect speed, we just average the perfect speed!
Then the balance of a sore bum! Too much cream and irritation is initiated.. Or too little that chafing dominates… The balanced seat height so you get power and comfort and the list just goes on and on…
So tomorrow we will try again to balance things correctly… And Lets hope we aren’t throwing food for the fish (weve already fed the mainland animals) overside confederation bridge and that we can find the right balance between being too wet or too warm if mother nature gives us showers two days in a row!
An Epic Day in the saddle
This was going to be the big day. The cross country trek from Plaster Rock to Moncton via 108 E. This has been the “short cut” across the province rather than dip down along the Trans Canada. It saves you 60 to 70 k. The catch is you travel over rugged hills with absolutely nothing for 136 k. So we packed up, and to the shock of our lovely B&B hosts, we packed a lunch and headed off. Think of Peterson road for 120 k without any houses. Just road and trees. Hilly roads that put the Ontario Trans Canada to shame for road conditions. That was until the midway when we hit 5 k of washboard. Ouch. We got though it and made it to civilization on the other side in Renous. We realized that we over packed with food and fluid for our trek. Given the hills and the heat we had to reluctantly toss food overboard. Eight sandwichs was 6 too many and several went
to feed the local wild life. I even discarded much valued licorice in the quest for gram shaving. Licorice isn”t toxic to fauna is it?
The big surprise was Carolyn catching up with us, all the way from Ontario, to provide support and meet us at our Halifax destination. She had a cooler full of food. All is good
Back on the road, we decided that going north via Miramichi made more sense than Moncton. The skys opened and we road throgh rain until the clouds cleared for the last 20 k. One flat about 10 k before our finish topped off the epic ride. Bits of lobster claw in the flatted tire had me thinking that our flat was a desparate attempt to stop our inevitable Halifax meeting with several boiler bound crustaceans. You can’t stop us lobbies!
Our second longest ride of the tour at just under 270 k. Carolyn had more food waiting for us in Bouctouche The perfect end to a great day of riding. It sure beat Trans Canada riding. Given that we didn’t feel the pull of Moncton”s magnetic hill, we will leave the mud flats for another time
Off to the PEI bridge tomorrow morning and onto Pictou NS. The end is near friends, the end is near!
C2C XXX – Cabano to Plaster Rock
Today marks one month from the time we dipped our bikes in the pacific ocean and scattered some of Grandpa’s ashes off the West coast! To celebrate… We decided we’d go for a bike ride… Just head east dad said, it’s a good direction!! So here we are, all of a sudden in plaster rock!
Although, I am convinced that somewhere along the route we did a little hoky poky and turned ourselves around and are back in the western Rockies! If we weren’t going up today, we were going down (wooooo!!!). They say that if you uncoil your intestines you’d have something like a 15 m straight length… If you flattened our route today, you could probably have a highway all the way to Moncton! Over the past month I have noticed that there are consistently three routes overland… Trains, traffic and telephone poles! The train route tends to follow the river with no drastic change in direction or elevation… The telephone pole (or high current electic cables) follow the most direct route, or the path that would coincide with the direction crows fly! Then there is the traffic route, the path of least resistance, when transports are involved it is more closely matched with the trains and when there are no transports involved (today as an example) there tend to be more similarities with the telephone poles! Occasionally the paths cross and occasionly they run parallel… But thus far, we can vouch that they all definitely head east!
The day started off sluggishly… We were both exhausted from 4 days of inescapable heat and it was another warm morning! We crossed into New Brunswick early in the day…. To our surprise though, there was no big entrance sign. It was suprising because it was the first province boundary that was included on road signs, at the bottom of each giving the distance to ‘nouveau-brunswick’! So I had worked myself up for definitely a road sign and potentially fireworks and a magician that could make a rabbit appear! None of the above were included but our clocks did jump ahead an hour! So, as a token to ‘N-B’ I took a picture of the first road sign that did appear…
At mid-day we had blue skies ahead of us but it was dark, raining with sporadic thunder crashes en derriere! Not even my rose coloured glasses could see a rainbow in my rearview mirror! The weather worked out for the best, we rode with the front of the storm for the rest of the day, it had a brisk breeze and the odd light sprinkle just to cool us off perfectly!
At Grand Falls we came off the highway and are taking the northern, sparse route across the province! The roads at hilly, fun and have very little traffic on them! Tomorrow we have a 150km section with NOTHING on it! Not even a farmers field or a gas station… (we’ve made 8 pitas and dad has a family sized bag of licorice (think costco!)). But before tomorrow is tonight.. We are in the small town amongst small towns; my definition of small is when you walk past the cemetary, I could only distinguish 3 different last names amongst the stones, a lucky find is a hyphenation of two of the three! Another small town distinguishing feature was that the road coming into town didn’t have any lines on it (white or yellow!). It is though, a small town with big ambition… They host the annual world pond hockey tournament (biggest in the world!) and there was a sign saying that they have the biggest fiddleheads (if your not a bussel sprout person… You probably have steered clear from fiddleheads too!). We are at Bakers B&B for the night with wonderful hosts, we are fueled up on food from the chip hut- esque place nextdoor as everyhing else closes down before 7 in small towns (we should have known!)
We look forward to a big day tomorrow that will inevitable bring us close to Moncton! How close? You’ll have to wait and see!
3 biking days remain, a different province each day and at the end… Friends, family and lobster!!! Start boiling the vat of water now because here we come! (we’ll likely have leftover pitas too… But don’t count on the licorice!)
Sara
C2C XXX Dedication
Carolyn”s Gifts
As we ride through New Brunswick I am fondly reminded of the time Carolyn and I spent here as part of the Dalhousie Family Medicine Program. We loaded up the U Haul and her old reliable Plymouth 2 door dragged it and us to the east coast. I think Sara and I could have given the the old Chrysler a good chase up some of these hills. Reaching the tops of some of the bigger hills took alot of reassuring patting on the dashboard and leaning forward. We did make it, toured the hospitals of Moncton St John Fredricton and Halifax, stayed together, returned to Ontario, dicovered Bancroft, and as they say, the rest is history
Today I ride the familiar roads and hills of New Bruunswick in honor of Carolyn, my wife of many gifts
Intelligence. The smarts to whip through medical school and still keep her country girl smarts. Choosing me as her husband…… we’ll call that an inspired move too
Compassion. The real Mc Coy for her family patients and students Just ask any of them
Gift Hoarding. She has a basement full of things that make the right gift at the right time. All you have to say is ” Jee I wish we had a whatchamacallit to give to Fred ” and Carolyn will be up from the basement in 5 minutes with one! That makes her day
Conviction. For someone a little over five feet tall, she can put up a good scrap for things that are important to her. They are usually important to her family, patients and community too
Beauty. The inner and the outer kind
Our children. Thanks for producing and nursing ( even when the old boys in the Belleville General Board Room didn’t approve of breast feeding at their conference table) three beautiful children, the oldest of whom you have allowed to go on this half baked crazy bike ride with me
These are just a few of Carolyn’s gifts. I forgot to mention that she can ride her bike with clipless pedals too! I know that many unknown gifts are still to be unwrapped
To the best wife, mother and physician in the world
Love Greg
ps. Leave those dirty dishes alone. I’ll get them when I return
C2C XXIX – Dedication
Today dedication is to health and resources!
A conversation with a fellow ontarian this morning who expressed how he would love to do an adventure like ours but wouldn’t make it reiterated many of the comments we’ve had over the past month!
There are many people that would love to even be able to ride a bicycle who either are physically bounded or don’t have a bike of their own!
I have to remind myself that the activity I do every day (that does seem very monotonous sometimes) is special, I have good health and for that reason I am lucky and thankful!
So here’s to enjoying our physical capabilities and pushing their boundaries just a little bit!
Sara
