Reason for the bike trip

Zoe asked why I did the bike trip.  After I told her, and we both stopped tearing up, she mentioned if I put it online, she could repost it in one of her building community'' posts.

Here it is- well part of it anyway:

At my Zaidah's funeral, someone told a story about my Zaidah, Harold Speevak, and bikes.  There was a man who lived in my Zaidah's neighbourhood named George Cohen, who did all of his errands on his bicycle. When my Zaidah was about 19 years old, and George in his 20s, George lost his eyesight.  My Zaida bought a tandem bike so he could take George on all of his errands and the man could still bike.  I thought that was so admirable and spoke to some of the character traits I love about my Zaidah.  He was such a great role model.

I decided that learning about bike maintenance and becoming more dependant on my bike was something I could do to feel close to Zaidah and also be a reminder to try to be as giving as he was.

I like sports and adventure and camping.  Those are enough reasons to want to bike across Canada.  I also thought it was a fun way of getting in better shape in case the fire department hires me, but I wanted to do a bicycle touring trip because of this story.

An extra tidbit to this story is that my Gramma remembers, before knowing my Zaidah, having seen George every morning take his guide dog onto the street car she rode to work.

Medicine Hat

I'm in Medicine hat right now.  I figured I'd update the blog so people don't think I'm lost or something.  But the folks I'm staying with are really neat!! So kind, and of course I lucked out again- one of them is a bike mechanic and bakes good brownies.  He wants to look at my bike just in case (but my bike is a tank and probably doesn't need anything done).  His brownies were good though.  Maybe they're hers.

So far I've met a lot of people who know about psychology of human development, and about biology- two things I find really fascinating, so I'm really pleased I get to have great conversations with them.

Neat note:  when the little hairs on our body are moved they stimulate a reflex that relaxes the body.  It helps babies calm when they are held near a caregiver.  But it also makes us hungry- makes sense because if a baby is held it probably has a good chance of being fed then too.  So this guy was telling me that when I'm biking in the wind, and all these hairs are being moved, it is calming, but also makes me hungry.

They're big on potery and clay here.  I'm going to go check that out, and also a farmer's market.

Calgary, Strathmore, Brooks

I have a lot of pictures of a hike I did in Banff, and of the road leaving Banff, but haven't posted them.  I'll just add them in to that post later.  In Banff Pat and I realized we wanted different things out of our trip so we split ways.

I biked to Calgary and stayed with my mom's friend Zoe, her doughter Maya, and her fiance Richard.  They were so lovely and so much fun to be around.  They are all bike people, and other sorts of adventure people- so they are my kind of people.  They had wonderful and inspiring stories to tell.  Zoe showed me some of a blog from a friend of hers' journey, "www.sarahouten.com''- London2London.  She's doing a self propelled trip around the world, while spreading awareness for various charities and organizations.

Richard looked over my bike for me and chatted about food.  That was helpful.

I met a man named Don, who I found on the warm showers network, and he spent about 5 hours with me and my bike looking it over.  What a nice guy.  He tought me so much about bike maintenance and also how to fit my bike to me for the most comfortable ride.  My bike didn't have a lot of maintenance needs, but I was curious about a lot of parts so we played with it.  He gave me new pedals and cages because I wrecked mine when trying to take the pedals off and on to pack it for the flight out to Vancouver.  I realized in Calgary, that I had been biking over the mountains with seizing pedals.   Of course I would be doing extra work and think nothing of it....

Took a rest day in Calgary to play guitar, play with my bike, and get to know Zoe and Maya.

On the morning I was supposed to leave, I enjoyed Zoe's company too much and left way to late to make it to Bassano my next destination.  So I told myself I'd just stop when I got tired, which was Strathmore.  Before Strathmore I passed through Chesteremere and took these photos- the town is by the water so this makes sense:

 Leaving Strathmore, it was super windy and cold.  I stopped at a gas station to get out of the wind.  I asked the cashier if I was being a baby or if it was actually as cold and windy as I thought.  She said if the truck drivers were complaining, which they were, then I was not being a baby.  That was enough encouragement.  Also this guy gave me money to buy beef jerky as a good luck gesture.  That was really funny, and very appreciated.

Camped in Brooks, then headed to Medicine Hat.

Banff

Pat's friends lives in Banff.  We are staying with them.

Today I hiked up Tunnel Mountain.  It used to be called buffalo mountain because it's shape looks like a buffalo lying down.  It was renamed Tunnel mountain because a railway surveyor had planned to build a tunnel through it.  He decided to run the train around the mountain instead, but the name stuck.

This is one of my favourite mountains I've seen.  I could see it from the highway going into Banff, but this was taken from Tunnel Mountain. I like this one because to me it looks two dimensional against the sky.

I forget what these are called but they bloom in winter through snow.

This is Banff from the top of the mountain

These were near the trail on Tunnel Mountain.  The deer come into the town because they are safer from predators.  They graze everywhere- school yards, parking lots... Visitors get excited to see them.  People who live here say they're really annoying because they get in the way on the side walk.

Golden to Lac Louise

We stayed at Kicking Horse Hostel in Golden.  We found this hostel on Warm Showers network.  The woman who runs it wasn't there, because it wasn't open for the season yet, but she let us use it.  There were some cats so I fed them.  

These are some goats we saw on the highway.

This is after the Kicking Horse Pass summit, which is around 1630m elevation. 

We passed this lake a bit before the Welcome to Alberta sign.  

We had been told by a BC park's staff member, on the phone, that we could camp in the Lake Louise park, but only in the electric fenced off are.  The electric fence is to help keep bears out of that area.  If you're using a soft sided tent or trailer you must camp there.  When we got there it didn't look very open, so I called the park office to double check.  Turns out we weren't allowed to camp there because the electric fence wasn't turned on yet for the season. So we stayed at a hostel in Lake Louise. 

Before leaving for Banff we decided we should bike over to see Lake louise because we were already there.  We were so happy after passing the Welcome to Alberta sign, because we wouldn't have to climb mountains... but this lake is 4km all up hill, a steeper climb than some parts of the previous mountain passes.  This lake is pretty, but we were pretty upset about the climb we didn't expect. 

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revelstoke

We made it to revelstoke today, from Coldstream. 150 km ride. Tomorrow we will do rogers pass and aim for golden. After golden we do kicking horse pass to banff.

We ate at nomads food Co just now and they paid for our meal because they were impressed by our trip.  I was impressed by their veggie burger (best I've had)

In Vernon

From Mission we biked to Hope.

Saw this near a train track, on our way from Mission to Hope.  Was nice to be encouraged by this little guy.

Stream off highway where we used my pump to clean water and fill our bottles

same stream

Pat at edge of that stream enjoying the water:)

The coquihalla pass, highway 5,  is the rout we took from hope to Merrit.  That highway has a small shoulder and very rarely can you pull off of it.  It's also all up hill to the pass after the first little bit.  The weather started out so hot I was down to my last layer, then there was rain, then sleet, then hail, then snow, and some mixture.  Because we couldn't easily stop to put rain gear on we were pretty cold.  There is one rest stop with heated bathrooms, so we set up our tent behind there and camped.  If we kept going to Merrit, it would be dark before we got there, and there is no way to pull off of the road to fix anything.  In the morning, I cut my hair really really short with my pocket knife so I wouldn't have to deal with tucking it in to keep it dry.  That was fun.

The morning after tenting at the rest stop in the blizzard.  The snow banked around our tent, which probably helped insulate it.  Yay...

The ride to Merrit was very nice.  From Merrit we took highway 5a and turned onto douglas lake road. This was the rout that saved us the time we lost having to stop on highway 5.  Again there was a mixture of weather including hail, but the day ended with warm sun and we camped next to a cow heard.  That was funny to listen too. 



The next morning, continuing on douglas lake road, the road turned into dirt and gravel.  It was not a pleasant on the bikes, because of little traction and we were so nervous of the rocks giving us flats. We stopped at Salmon lake, at an RV campsite.  A woman invited us to have hot chotoclate and deserts, to warm up.  We sat in their RV for a while discussing possible routes and ate desert for lunch:)  She told us we had 26 more km of gravel road on top of the 1.5 hours we'd already rode on it, before it became paved.  It was mostly downhill which was nice, and TERRIFYING.  It was basically like downhill mountain biking, but on bikes with thin tires and lots of weight on them.  It was kind of like when I white water paddle, and have to find the right line of current, except finding the right line on the road with the least sharp rocks.  That view was again beautiful, and terrifying things like that are fun until something goes wrong, and nothing did, so it stayed fun.  This part of the ride is why I need to clean and tune my bike. 

From the cow field on douglas road until this place just past Vernon was about 144km.  It was mostly downhill, with some headwind. 

We stayed in Coldstream, just eat of Vernon last night and again tonight.  Today is treat my bike to a clean up and play with it's gears day, as well as rest.

The woman we're staying with right now is so lovely.  She cooked us some Ethiopian food for when we arrived.  And I am using her Kayak today to go paddle on Kalamaka lake.  There is a railway which is no longer in use, that goes from Vernon to Kelowna.  The communities that own the land along it are voting now on turning it into a bike path.  Today I want to go write and play harmonica on it:) 

I'll try to post some pictures now, but as I said earlier, I'm not very good with that kind of thing, so I might have to wait until Pat wakes up or our host comes home.

love,
Menasheh