Tall trees and tent invaders: Cycling in Northern California

Posted on by Debs and Jo (brakesandcakes.org)

Usually there’s not much of a change as you cross state lines in the USA, but California felt different. It looked different. The land was brown rather than green. It was dry out here, and hard to believe that just a few days ago we had been pedalling through heavy rain and fog. At least crossing the state lane provided us with plenty of new tunes for the internal radio. Our first night was spent sleeping in a church in Crescent City, and from there the highway turned inland into one of California’s most famous parks – where there would be plenty of trees – the Redwoods.

Redwood trees are tallest trees on earth, and can grow to over 350 feet (over 100m). They can live for over 2000 years. These trees are seriously big – they hurt your neck to look at them while riding. They don’t have low branches, so the trunks seem even taller. The first thing we had to do was ride a big pass, it was hot but the trees provided good shade and kept things cool for us. We met some interesting people that morning. First, at the start of the climb, was a guy who told us with great pride how he had driven all the way from Pennsylvania. Sure, that’s a long way, but when all you have to do is press one pedal at a time (highly unlikely to need a clutch over here) and stay awake, you are not going to impress people who have cycled that far. He also said he loved hugging trees. The second interesting meet was about half way up the climb, we could see a bike ahead with two people stood to the side. When we got closer (slowly, it was steep) we realised it was a tandem, but the two people didn’t look like cyclists. Gradually we could see they had on jeans and backpacks and were smoking. Not your average cycle tourist. They were finding the hill tough. I said “it must be fun downhill though?” to which they replied “I dunno, we haven’t ridden down one yet!” It turned out they had hitched/walked from Missouri (this is a long way, we were impressed this time) and on arrival in Crescent City someone had given them a tandem. So the first thing they had had to do was ride up a huge hill. Bad luck. We said they should probably check the brakes before riding down. They laughed. We repeated this several times, without laughing, and left unsure as whether they knew if the bike even had brakes. Hopefully they survived. On the way down the hill we met a guy riding North (this is very rare) who was carrying everything he owned, including a large knife strapped to his shin. On the the outside of his trousers. Just in case I guess. What was this place?!

It is all about the trees in this part of California. The first place we found to stop for water was a complex with three buildings: Trees of Mystery, Forest Cafe, and Motel Trees. We passed the Immortal Tree (survived lightening, fires, etc), Chimney Tree (hole in the top), Grandfather Tree (old), Big Tree (this made us laugh), two Tree Houses, One Log House… Pretty much anything you could wish for, as long as it was a tree. None of these grabbed our attention until we saw signs for the Tour-Thru Tree. We paid our dollar each to the lady in the booth who told us the road up to the tree was steep and she GUARANTEED we would have to push our bikes the last bit. I heard the word CHALLENGE instead, so of course we rode up. It was steep, but there were no cobbles or gravel – give us a real challenge California. Riding through a tree was fun the first few times, and then it was just as fun watching car drivers try to squeeze their huge vehicles through. We told Ms Cyclist Challenger on the way out that we rode up, did we get a prize etc, and she was very unimpressed. I mean it’s not like we drove there from Pennsylvania.

That night we camped at a state park and were the only people in the hiker/biker site that was miles from anywhere else so quite creepy. We set up camp and watched the Great British Bake Off in the tent (like you do) and then came out to find a raccoon had eaten half of our biscuits and chucked the rest all over the floor. Evil. Why would you waste biscuits like that? This mindless vandalism continued in the night as I was woken up several times by rustling in the tent porch. Each time, I shone the torch on the raccoon which he did not care for in the slightest, staring back at me whilst trying to pull a non-food bag out of the tent. Other times his partner in crime the skunk would wake me. I say me – Debs remained asleep throughout all of this. In the end the only way I could get them to leave the tent was to throw a shoe at them, which worked four times until I ran out of missiles. I was finally getting a bit of decent sleep until it was broken by shouting outside the tent at 6.40am. A college cross country race was passing right by our camp spot and they HAD to set up that early, using very loud voices despite the obvious sign (a tent) that someone was trying to sleep close by.

We only had 25 miles to ride that day but it felt like 100. We were taking up an invitation to stay in Arcata by a family we met in the San Juan Islands. They lived at the top of a huge hill (of course) and on the way up we stopped at a yard sale where some ladies were selling lots of stuff we were not interested in but also had a plate of muffins that we were very interested in. They tried their hardest to offload some books on us and were disappointed to hear that we only wanted muffins, but gave us four anyway as well as a bunch of dried lavender. As we rode off we heard one of them say “look at her leg muscles” and we spent the rest of the ride arguing which one of us they were talking about. Debs has no muscles but was closest to them at the time, so it’s still an unsolved mystery. The 25 miles were completed by early afternoon so we had time for a few hours at the brewery drinking strong local beer in English sized pints.

After a rest day in Arcata it was back into the redwoods for a couple of days. The Avenue of the Giants is a scenic drive through trees so close to the edge of the road that you have to be careful not to ride into them. It really is mesmerising riding through the forest, it makes you feel very small. Not just feel small actually, I enjoyed letting Debs ride ahead of me and see how small she looked when dwarfed by the redwoods. We camped in the state park right among the trees and didn’t see much sunlight for a couple of days. After a particularly brutal pass we suddenly popped out on the coast again, blinded by the sun and instantly amazed by how good the coastal scenery was. So good we had chocolate milk to celebrate.

To rejoin the coast we had left highway 101 behind and forked off onto smaller highway 1. This made a big difference in the amount of traffic squeezing past us as the big trucks stuck to the bigger highway and for the next three days to San Francisco we had the best coastal stretch so far. The road climbs and then drops suddenly to get around a gulch (why not just build a bridge over the gap…. anyway) then climbs again, and repeat. Steep up, steep down. One morning there was a fair amount of fog so we didn’t get any rewarding views for the effort, but on the whole the sun shone and the sea sparkled. We called into Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, where industrial waste was dumped into the sea up until the 1960s. A lot of it was cleaned up but the glass and pottery was left and has been broken down and smoothed by the waves so that now the beach is covered with “glass” pebbles. Pretty cool. As we got closer to San Francisco more and more sports cars passed us and the small towns we passed through became more and more posh. This was the California we were expecting.

Eventually the Golden Gate Bridge emerged on the horizon. The sky was so blue that it seemed to shine against the background. Reaching the iconic bridge felt more momentous than any of the milestones to this point. It has a bike path down the side so for once we didn’t have to fight traffic for space. Unfortunately being a Sunday we had to fight other cyclists instead. These came from two camps – the roadies trying to race across and weave in and out of the slower traffic, and the tourists on rental bikes trying to ride and take selfies at the same time. And then there was us with our wide loads. I’m not sure whether it’s more difficult to dodge truck wing mirrors or selfie sticks – at least wing mirrors follow a predictable pattern of movement. But we made it across safely and into San Francisco.

For two and a half days we left the bikes in the garage and wandered around the Mission neighbourhood where we were staying. It’s a diverse area with Latino bakeries next to posh coffee shops, and alleys full of street art/graffiti (delete as appropriate depending on your perspective. We thought it was cool.)


We sat in Dolores Park, enjoying the view of the city and the people watching. We were close to the Castro neighbourhood, famous for a history of LGBT activism, so joined a walking tour of the area (‘rest day’…).


We had managed to go the whole last five and a half months without going to an American sports fixture so took the opportunity to watch some baseball over in Oakland. It was a Monday night at the end of the season so there was hardly anyone there but it meant we got good cheap tickets. The teams repaid the low crowd with a low score (4-2 loss) and it was difficult to stay awake for the whole match, but we managed. My tv-influenced image of drinking beer and eating pretzels while watching the game was shattered when we saw the prices – $11.50 for a beer (not even an English sized pint), so currently about £9. How do people afford to get drunk there? Despite the low score it was fun to experience a true American Sporting Spectacle.

San Francisco is a cool city, no doubt about it, but walking around you also can’t help but see it’s ugly side – the high level of homelessness. We walked through streets where the sidewalk was lined with tents and people sleeping rough, and along with this comes sanitation issues. Trash/rubbish covered these streets and as you can imagine when people live in tents with no toilet, it didn’t smell great. Homelessness has been very visible as we have ridden down the west coast, more so than any developed country I’ve ever been to, but in San Francisco the gap between the rich and the poor appears to be bigger. Homeless people sit outside expensive whole food shops and cafes, and the tech money pouring into the city is evident in the miles of shiny apartment blocks we rode past on our way out of the city. Our hosts explained that affordable housing is little more than a dream concept and the gentrification of neighbourhoods is driving people out of the city or onto the streets. All of this gave us much food for thought whilst riding out of the city in our own strange situation of self-selected, temporary homelessness.

We had been told many times that the best of the coast was coming up in the next few days, so thought about this instead and hoped for clear skies and a tail wind…

Thanks to Katie; Allison, Ryan and Arwen; the yard sale ladies of Arcata; Judy; Mark; and Ruth and Edward.

Olympic Games and Olympic waves: Cycling US Highway 101

Posted on by Debs and Jo (brakesandcakes.org)

We had crossed North America by bike. So what next? The Pacific Highway (route 101) winds its way down the West coast of the USA, and all across the country people had been telling us how beautiful a drive it was. It’s also a popular cycle route, being a much shorter way (a mere 1800 miles) to cross the country than the East-West route. Six weeks riding by the sea? Ok then. It seemed like a logical next step for us. 

Vancouver, BC. Not a bad place to “rest” for a couple of weeks

First we had some friends to catch up with in Vancouver BC, one of our favourite world cities. This coincided nicely with the Olympics, so we had a couple of weeks swapping cycling for sitting watching cycling. The last time we were in Vancouver four years ago it rained pretty much solid the whole time, but this visit we were treated to sunshine so enjoyed all that Vancouver had to offer. We climbed Grouse Mountain, saw a couple of grizzly bears, made Yorkshire puddings, went to a few different beaches, ate lots of ice cream, took part in a huge water fight… All essential tourist activities. The bikes were away and we barely looked at them. We also spent a few days on Salt Spring Island, right next to a lake perfect for swimming, canoeing, stand up paddle boarding, and relaxing. The sun continued to shine. It was all too perfect, and before we knew it two weeks had passed and it was time to get back on the bikes before we forgot how to pedal.

Hanging out by Cusheon Lake, Salt Spring Island

We crossed back into the USA from Vancouver Island, spending the night in Victoria – probably the most British town in British Columbia. There’s red buses and black taxis and everything. The best thing that happened there was nothing to do with British heritage though. Victoria is on the south coast of the island, and we were riding around the headland enjoying views across the sea to the USA when a guy in a car slowed down next to us and shouted that there were some Orcas (also called killer whales but they are actually the largest dolphin) on their way. We raced round to the next viewpoint and there we saw three of them passing by not far of the coast. They are huge! We felt pretty lucky as people who live there told us they had never seen them before.

The orcas were too far away to get a good picture, so here’s some killer cyclist sign instead.

The next day we packed up and left The Best Place on Earth (British Columbia’s modest tag line) and caught a ferry to Port Angeles on the Olympic peninsula. This would mark the start of our west coast trip, ending in Los Angeles – making it an Angeles to Angeles ride. Unlike most ferries, on this one cyclists are treated as foot passengers rather than cars. Good points: no need to queue with cars to get on, no riding down into the car deck, no hanging around breathing in exhaust fumes, nice waiting room to sit in rather than standing out on the dock. Bad point: wheeling a loaded bike through passenger queues. As we had to go through customs and immigration, this was not easy. The low point was trying to manoeuvre them around the maze of bollards while queuing to get into the US. You know when you queue to check in at an airport and it can be quite hard to get your luggage around the corners? Getting a loaded bike around those corners without dropping it or taking out other passengers was quite the challenge. But we made it, and although we were sad to leave Canada and our friends behind, 1800 miles of coastline lay ahead. Pacific Highway 101 starts here and we would mostly follow it all the way to LA. 

The start of our Highway 101 trip. Next Angeles… Los!
Nice people around.

The Olympic Peninsula in Washington state is the most westerly point of the US mainland and has a wild feel to it. The forests are old and huge and the towns few and far between. The only town we passed through on our way to the West coast was Forks, famous for the filming of Twilight and seemingly living purely off this – not much else seemed to be going on. The Olympic National Park goes right up to the coast so we followed 101 in bright sunshine for the afternoon, looking forward to camping overlooking the beach and our first west coast sunset. But just as we approached the coast, we were plunged into thick sea fog. Suddenly it was freezing cold and we were stood overlooking Ruby Beach, one of the most photographed spots on the Olympic Peninsula, and though we could hear the sea, we couldn’t see a thing. As we rode south down the coastline there was the strange experience of blue sky above the trees to our left, and thick white fog to our right. Arriving at South Beach campground we were offered a spot between two RVs right on the front overlooking the fog/beach. Gradually as we set up camp it cleared and we were treated to the most spectacular sunset over the sea. This is what we had been hoping for!

The sea started to become visible when we got to the campground…
West coast sunset. Hopefully the first of many!

For the next couple of days to the Oregon border the road is mostly inland through more forests. One morning we stopped for a huge milkshake on the recommendation of a local. Later that day we were back by the sea again in a popular oyster catching area, so stopped to sample a couple of fresh cooked-in-front-of-you samples. Debs had a hot tijuana (chilli, lime, cilantro, tabasco) and I had the rockafella (parmesan, bacon, breadcrumbs, oregano, basil). Awesome. The day of great food was finished off with a couple of slices of key lime pie as an accompaniment to the first episode of the Great British Bake Off. The next morning our friendly camp neighbours came over to offer us breakfast burritos – we were cooking porridge at the time but we never pass up a food offer, so after a two course breakfast we were full for at least two hours that morning.

Oysters, milkshake, key lime pie, Great British Bake Off. A good day.
Cycling by the water. Whats not to like?

Crossing into Oregon was probably the worst cycling we have done since Naples. Highway 101 crosses the state border estuary on a narrow 4-mile bridge that was not designed with bikes in mind. The shoulder was about two feet wide, not big enough to ride in easily but big enough to make car drivers think that we should. This is a popular tourist drive, and it was Friday afternoon, so it seemed like every other car was towing either a trailer or a boat – fast. Nobody on their weekend away wanted to be delayed by a bike for a few seconds. Scary stuff. The heavy traffic continued and we were relieved to arrive to the town of Seaside and catch our breath. It had been hot again and I commented to some other cyclists that after a month of hot weather I would quite like a couple of days of cloud cover to stop my skin from frazzling. No prizes for guessing what happened next….

Entering Oregon. Preferably not by bike, but hey, that was our only way…
Wise words. Not sure about the spelling though….

Thanks to Andrea and Dave, and Robin, Dane, Riley and Sasha and all of their friends for an amazing holiday in Vancouver; Robin and friends for the great camp spot at South Beach; Marnie and John; Ray and Charlaine; and Neil and Carrie.

Colorado turns epic

Posted on by Debs and Jo (brakesandcakes.org)

Epic: (inf) Particularly remarkable or impressive.
On our first day in mountainous Colorado a thunderstorm trapped us at the garden of the gods visitor centre. As we sat watching the rain hit the giant rocks a couple starting chatting to us about our upcoming route. We said we would be going on Trail Ridge Road. “Epic” she said. “You’ll be counting down every quarter mile but it’s epic.” On our rafting trip our guide was excellent, enthusiastic and knew a lot more stuff about epic things in Colorado. Up until now the scenery of our ride had probably been more of the long poem or book type of epic. Now it was big and in your face epic; mountains, snow, fast rivers, canyons, lakes. 

A few days rest at 8400ft probably helped us adjust to the altitude, but our first day back riding was a real toughie. Stubbornly, we wanted to go back to the exact place we had been picked up from on the edge of Denver so we had an unbroken line of cycling. The real downside was that this was in almost the opposite direction to where we needed to go. We went back anyway and had a brutally hot afternoon on the c470 bike route. Handily we had some homemade birthday cake to cheer things up (thanks Lesli) and later met a cyclist who offered us a bed for the night and recommended a beer garden. As it was my birthday, we decided to stop after 50 miles in Golden. We read some historic information, had a leg ice bath in the very cold river and tried out the local brews. Just when we thought the day couldn’t get any better we had a scenic drive (in a car – and not just any car…) and Chinese food. An epic birthday.

We had stopped before the big climb – the next morning was a real beast. Golden Gate Canyon went up and up, with some of the steepest grades in the west. It was very scenic and we took plenty of stops to enjoy the views. They got even better when we finally reached the top and joined the ‘Peak to Peak Highway.’ Clue in the name, things didn’t get flat anytime soon. It was beautiful riding, forests, snowy mountains, icy streams. We had a fabulous descent into Estes Park the following day but found it hard to really enjoy losing so much height knowing that our next day riding would take us over 12000ft. 

Estes Park was a fun place to have a (tourist watching/ice cream eating) rest day. It was great to see some areas of Rocky Mountain National Park that we wouldn’t see on our ride through it, including an extremely cold dip in a waterfall that was probably snow about two minutes previously. Thanks to our host Annie for taking us on a tour.

Yep that was the road we came up… looking down from about halfway up the climb

We made an early start for the big climb. Trail Ridge Road goes right through Rocky Mountain NP, and is the highest paved road in the lower 48 states. We left early and took our time over the climb, enjoying the views and plenty of snacks. It was a steady grade, the hardest thing was the Fathers’ Day traffic squeezing past us. We didn’t appreciate the fake summit and little descent before the true top. The last few hundred feet of ascent made us a little light headed and we were excited to find a sofa with a view for our lunch stop at the visitor centre. 


The descent really was epic this time. Twisty but not too tricky, lots of snow and stunning scenery. Tired, the next day we did half a day riding, and spent the afternoon playing in Granby Lake at an awesome campground. I’m sure you were expecting this, but being epic Colorado the sun set beautifully over the water. 

One more big pass got us well on the way to Wyoming. We crossed the Continental Divide for the second time and watched the landscape change back to rolling plains as we rode to Walden, our last Colorado town. Our time in Colorado had come full circle as we were back to empty vistas and camping in a small town park. Walden was right out of the Wild West, though had an excellent public library. It also had something bigger, better, more epic. The mosquitos were in clouds, persistently seeking thinner areas of clothing to bite through. Just like the Spanish computer game, if the mosquitos didn’t get you, the sprinklers probably would – the park had an extensive network. 
Colorado bade us farewell the next morning with another steadily graded climb. An epic fortnight. 

Thanks to Sue and Lesli (again), Justin, Shauna and the Tacoma, Rick and Ryan in Nederland, Annie, and Connor and Maggie.

Gettin’ some Kicks: Cycling Route 66 in Illinois

Posted on by Debs and Jo (brakesandcakes.org)

Everyone should drive on Route 66 at some point in their life. You don’t need to take it the whole way from Chicago to LA to get a flavour of its iconic status and enjoy the touristy fun. Especially if you love 50s kitsch, burgers and ice cream, giant statues and bumpy roads. The route is crammed full of things to stop and look at, some good, some not so good, some bizarre. Even four days by bike is enough to see why so many people flock to the USA to drive on a route that doesn’t really even exist anymore. 

We didn’t start in Chicago – riding through miles of city suburbs isn’t that appealing – so joined “historic Route 66” as it is officially called just south of the city. This day marked quite a change in the trip, as it was the first time we had ridden for a whole day on busier roads. Straight away the noise of the interstate that runs alongside the route was noticeable after being accustomed to peaceful bike paths. The heat had also been cranked up a few notches, to the point where sweat dripped from various bodily locations for the first time. The scenery opened out and we could see for miles and miles. I’m not sure where the mid-west officially starts but life felt different in more than one way from this point on.


Day 1 highlights (or lowlights, everyone is entitled to their own interpretation) included a large spaceman holding a large fish; burgers and milkshake in a diner that had comedy mirrors and more Elvis memorabilia than you think could fit in one building; a small jail; a restored train dining car; and a couple of restored gas stations where the women who worked there could not have been more different in their welcome. First up was a Route 66 enthusiast who complemented Debs on her shorts (yes they are Lycra) more than once, and then when she insisted on taking a photo of both of us in an old car only managed to turn the camera off rather than take a photo, despite having very clear instructions to press the large button to shoot. We took the first opportunity to escape (after at least 20 minutes) without even making use of the toilet. Further down the road her oppositional counterpart barely looked up when we entered, and definitely did not have any drinking water for us. Pick your Route 66 attractions carefully.


Our final stop of the day was Pontiac, home of many Route 66 murals (including the largest one in Illinois) and a museum that couldn’t have fitted more old stuff in. The main attraction is a VW van owned by Bob Waldmore, a guy who spent most of his life driving Route 66. Such was his iconic status that the makers of Disney Pixar’s “Cars” modelled the character Filmore on him, and initially wanted to name the character Waldmore. The museum has some interesting letters between Bob and Pixar as to explain why this didn’t actually happen. It’s a good story, google it. It was so hot outside we sat in the museum foyer and ate sweaty cheese sandwiches until they closed. That night we ended up between campsites and were saved by an invitation by a friendly family to sleep in a their trailer (caravan to the Brits).

Day 2 continued in much the same fashion, though without the sunshine which cooled things down a little. More old signs, more old diners, more big things, more museums. And then day 3 too. There’s not much variety. It could get repetitive, but it’s all good fun for a few days. We ate burgers, ice cream and cream pie. It’s fun travelling the route at cycling speed because there is something to stop at every 30-45 minutes to break up the monotony of what is a fairly unexciting road to ride on, often right alongside the interstate. Maybe in a car it would get annoying stopping every ten minutes, I don’t know. Another reason that bikes are best 🙂

The final day riding into St Louis was a short one at only 45 miles but we still made it take all day by stopping for a long bakery breakfast on the way. As we got closer to the end point of our Route 66 adventure, the attractions dried up and we switched to Lewis and Clarke information, the explorers who set out from Missouri to ‘discover and claim the West for America’. We crossed the mighty Mississippi River into Missouri on the old chain of rocks bridge, now closed to cars and famous for having a 22 degree bend in the middle. It had got really hot, and it was hard to believe that just seven days (and 500 miles) previously we had been sat watching it snow from a window in Michigan.


We would follow the Lewis and Clarke route for a few days out of St Louis but first we had to explore the city. Doug and Marta our amazing warm showers hosts met us at the Gateway Arch (gateway to the West of course) and took us on a bike tour of the city. The next day was the most tiring rest day imaginable as we went to the St Louis City Museum. This place bears little resemblance to a museum but is more accurately a huge adventure playground for adults and kids, with pretty much everything made from salvaged material. There’s an old FBI plane to climb through, a school bus perched on the roof top, a large ball-pit, underground caves and mazes of climbing frames made from old industrial factory cast-offs. We spent four hours hauling ourselves through small holes and climbing over things (including small children), to the detriment of our arms the following day. It’s a very cool place. But it’s not a museum. And It’s definitely not a rest day activity.


Before leaving St Louis we just about had time to try some local delicacies. On the way we had already experienced concrete, a frozen yoghurt that does not move when you turn it upside down. Second up was gooey butter cake, a cake that was very gooey and buttery. Finally we went out to Blueberry Hill, a very cool place where Chuck Berry still plays once a month, for burgers. Yes these are everywhere but as a side order we tried deep fried ravioli – though it’s called toasted ravioli for some reason. I prefer it’s abbreviation of T-Rav. Sounds much cooler. And it tastes ok too.



Big thanks to Neil; Theresa and family; Tom, Martha, Alex and the rest of the family; and Doug, Marta and friends.

A little Canadian holiday

Posted on by Debs and Jo (brakesandcakes.org)

So after nearly two weeks riding in the USA it was time for a new country and a holiday north of the border. Cutting through Ontario made sense distance wise, and although we had already cycled around the area before it meant we could have a catch up with some of Debs’ family and a few days off the bike.

A cold day by Lake Ontario

Crossing the border meant swapping US dollars for Canadian dollars, restrooms for washrooms, miles for kilometres, a crazy presidential campaign for a stud premier, Dunkin Donuts for Tim Hortons, and other barely discernible differences. Oh and the accent apparently (eh) but I’m rubbish with those. After the Niagara Falls border crossing day (see here) we had our coldest day riding yet in North America. The planned bike route along the shore of Lake Ontario became a stay-as-far-away-from-the-lakeshore-as-possible route as the wind whipped up off the lake and smashed us around. We stopped at a boarded up ice cream cafe and reminisced about relaxing here in baking sunshine previously whilst we sat huddled in thick coats using the building as a shelter and eating cheese wraps with two pairs of damp gloves on. Not all days on the road are glamorous, and this was one of the least enjoyable yet.


But we made it to Milton, Ontario and the home of Wendy, Phil and Nathan which was to be our respite for a few days (that easily became six). Time passed quickly as we ate good food in good company, slept, tuned up the bikes, washed our clothes (twice, luxury), went for some walks, watched squirrels, had a day out in Toronto and witnessed Leicester City win the Premier League. Watching our small city back home swallowed up by such an insane achievement and the associated celebration brought a tear to my eye more than once. Listening to it repeatedly on the news over here brought home the scale of this – and they even pronounced Leicester correctly. It’s still tough to explain the achievement over here as there’s no real comparison but once we say that they were 5000-1 at the start of the season that seems to hit home. If in doubt, resort to the global language of betting odds.


Getting back on the bikes is always tough after a break with great company but they weren’t going to ride themselves so we set off west again. Unfortunately, and as will be the case for the most of this trip, the wind was blowing from the west making progress half as fast for twice the effort. Our first stop was with friends from our previous visit and Gail and Gerry pulled out all the stops to give us another great evening (that just happened to be my birthday) and threw in a tour of Stratford, the home of Shakespeare in Canada and the mighty Justin Bieber. As the sun set over the river Avon I thought again how lucky we are to meet kind and welcoming people over and over again on this and previous trips. 

Sunset over the river Avon, Stratford

This stretch of Southern Ontario is open, mostly flat farmland which made for pleasant riding along country back roads, particularly as the wind gave me a late birthday present and switched direction for a day practically blowing us to the border. The two final days in Canada were uneventful but followed the typical bicycle touring rhythm that becomes the norm for body and mind after a short while – get up, eat, ride, eat, ride, eat, ride, eat, ride, find a place to sleep, eat, sleep. It’s funny how in this respect every day follows the same pattern, yet the details make every day completely different to the last. One day we ate lunch by a fishing lake; the next it was on a small patch of grass outside a bank by an intersection listening to Fleetwood Mac on the iPod. Not the ideal picnic spot but it worked for us. 

Gas station snack stop
Intersection picnic

After a ride down the St Clair river that forms the border between Ontario and Michigan we were just a short ferry trip from being back in the USA. Goodbye for now Canada – see you again in British Columbia! (A mere 3200 or so miles away…)


Big thanks to Wendy, Phil and Nathan; Gail and Gerry; and Tom and Val.