Golden Days

This terrible photo shows my lodgings just outside Vernon.  At 4pm I had nowhere to stay so I made a speculative phone call to the Krofts, Warm Showers hosts. Two hours later I was tucking into burgers and sipping berry ciders while shooting the breeze with this delightful family. They let me sleep in their gazebo, went to bed very contented!

A typical evening's camp - fairly rubbish food, noodles, peanut butter sandwiches, just to get some fuel in the tank. If camping alone I bring out my secret weapon, my special luxury of a speaker. Mazzy Star, Dexter Gordan and Kendrick Lamar have helped stave away the loneliness!

Preparing to ride through a snow shelter on the way up to Roger's Pass. Back light attached and a prayer that I won't encounter too many huge trucks/RVs!

Staying in a hostel in Golden, right next to the railroad. Woken a few times by the rumbling of passing trains but, in yet another great act of Canadian hospitality, cycle tourists camp for free in the garden. Fantastic conversations with other travellers and useful advice picked up for the road ahead. Current plan is to divert north to the Icefields Parkway and take a look at the glacial landscapes.

Plodding on

I have passed so many spectacular lakes in the past few days, this is Lake Chute. I've done more swimming in the last week than the last year! They also make great spots for camping and you're pretty much guaranteed good company and conversation from fellow campers. Common themes of conversation have been the lunacy of Trump and Buddhism! (Buddhism generally, not the lunacy of it.)

I haven't encountered any snakes yet but I continue to proceed with caution. Camping in the woods makes me a little jumpy but sleeping with bear spray at my side is some comfort. Hope I won't need to use it...

Friendly Canadian folk on a trestle at the Myra Canyon on the Kettle Valley Railway. Lots of loose gravel tracks make for a tiring ride but if the alternative is the hard shoulder of a highway, I'll suffer on the gravel.

The Okanagan region is akin to the Mediterranean; hot, dry and intensively farmed. There are roadside stalls everywhere selling the abundance of soft fruits of the region - apricots, cherries and peaches dominate. They soon turn to pulp as they crash around in my bar bag. I'll just have to eat them up quicker...

Free at last

After months of planning and preparation I've finally got going. Part of my meticulous preparation meant never fully loading the bike before. The first few miles pedalling out of Vancouver were tentative at best, the frame of my poor bike flexing furiously below me. Soon man and machine were in harmony and we covered 78 miles in day one. First stop was the dairy farm of Anna Gouwenberg.

(by the way, I'm writing this blog with my iPhone, so fiddly! I hope to hone my skills in the coming weeks)

I camped in her orchard but, otherwise, was treated like one of the family; I could have been her eleventh child. Learnt lots on the farm, highlight was the artificial insemination demonstration, a much more hands-on process than I'd realised.

Further meticulous planning meant I had no idea that I was tackling this mighty pass until my burning legs and wheezing lungs told me. At some points I could hardly shift a mile without pausing for breath. What goes up must come down and, on the other side, I cruised the next 20 miles effortlessly. 

I got off the highway to join the Kettle Valley Railway, now disused and opened up to cyclists and hikers. Can't get the picture to upload but I spent the night in a cabin if some locals who took pity on poor, beleaguered me. The hospitality of Canadians had been astonishing so far and any fears of loneliness have been dispelled by their friendliness. Just be aware that, when you embark on a conversation with a Canadian, you may need to fight to get a word in edgeways.

I camped by the aptly named Osprey Lake, adjacent to the KVR. There were ospreys fishing and, more excitingly, my sleep was broken by the distant howling of what must of been coyotes. Though they must have been miles away their cries echoed off the valley walls to create an eerie sensation. Spending time in the hills you feel close to nature.

School's out for summer

After months of anticipation it's proving a bit of a wrench to leave. I had a wonderful send off from my fabulous tutor group, help and kind words from colleagues and friends and on-going, unwavering support from my dear family. The pain of separation...

The optical illusion of photography gives the impression that this cyclist is prepared for a cycle tour. He is not.

The guidebook said it would take an hour to box up my bike. Give or take two hours it was right. Trying to get my bike into the box was about as much fun as a visit from OFSTED. As the sun beat down the box seemed to shrink and the frame seemed to grow.










Whatever else happens this year, this will be my greatest achievement, getting the bike into the bloody box! Stressful. And then I've got to put it back together in Vancouver. Never taking a bike on a plane again...

Practice makes perfect

Half term - time to hit the road and get some miles under the belt. Forecast - wet and windy. Perfect - the worst conditions make for the best practice, right?
Given that I'm planning to more or less cross a continent in my real tour, a ride from Oxford to Lincolnshire to see Grandpa was not overambitious. With northerly headwinds and a detour through Lincoln city the ride up took two days. I was unsuccessful in arranging a WarmShowers stay for the journey up; this presented me with the opportunity to discreetly wild camp in a hidden corner of a farmer's field. Pitching at dusk and leaving by dawn meant I didn't upset anyone. There will be a lot more of that in the year to come I suspect... On the way home the winds eased considerably but I was still grateful for the boost of a tailwind. With the comforts of home acting as a magnet, I managed to return journey of 146 miles in one long day's pedalling.

I used torn out pages from my road atlas, briefly annotated, as the main navigational tool and then backed up with my smartphone for tricky points in towns. Being able to cover long stretches on the National Cycle Network was a real treat. For example, the track between Northampton and Market Harborough follows a disused railway line, is virtually flat and completely car-free. This network is a national treasure!

http://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/national-cycle-network

Lessons learnt - don't regularly cycle 146 miles in one day; I was surprisingly ache-free the next day but completely fatigued. Secondly, I may reluctantly need to invest in some padded cycling shorts. Every seam of clothing that touched the saddle became painfully imprinted on my backside - I won't provide a photo of this but trust me, it rapidly gets from slightly wearing to full on agony. I have to cross the threshold and accept lycra into my life.

The Countdown Has Started

Less than two months until the transcontinental bike tour begins.

Nearly two years in the making, I've now shifted from mostly dreaming about the trip to hurriedly planning and preparing for it. This involves both the mundane, e.g. negotiating with letting agents, organising travel insurance, and the inspiring, e.g. poring over trail maps of the Rocky Mountains, marvelling at how small my sleeping mat compresses to.  But where did this all begin?

This guy was the spark of inspiration that set my own plan in motion:

Oguz Tan, July 2014, Ladakh, Indian Himalayas. I was backpacking for the umpteenth summer and doing one of the activities that all backpackers do if you stay in Leh - riding down from Khardung La. This is the world's highest motorable pass (the sign says so) and an exhilarating ride down. However, this guy, Oguz Tan, was riding up. We stopped to speak briefly. He told me he had packed in his job to cycle here from Turkey via Iran and Pakistan. He seemed serene, calm, fulfilled and in complete control of his own destiny. He was in the same place as the backpackers but having a completely different experience to all the rest of us. I imagined what it would be like to travel the Himalayas at a different pace, being able to see all the places 'in-between', skip the traveller hotspots when it didn't suit, use the backpacker network when I needed it. The seed of an idea was sown and in the coming weeks in India I met other travellers who were seeing the world from their bicycles.

The objects of my inspiration - trail maps, small sleeping mats and the awesome Adventure Cycling Handbook.