Michael Cowgill - Cycle Trekkers

November 18, 2016March 14, 2017

Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack: Gear Review

SPECS for the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack:

Weight: 950gms

Dimensions: 38cm x 35.5cm x 35.5cm

Price paid: $55 USD + postage on Amazon

PROS:

25 kg capacity!
Well-made and sturdy ‘one piece’ construction
Plenty of attachment points for cargo
Looks cool with a kick ass matte black paint job
Adjustable height
Can fit pretty much anything you would ever need on tour on the platform

CONS:

Very wide and awkward for touring / locking in public bike racks
Mounts in the thru axle, which can mean buying a longer quick release skewer on some bikes
Fairly heavy
Cannot carry panniers
Does not come with longer quick release skewer or even instructions on how to mount the rack

origin8 classique cargo front rack bike — The beast!

OVERVIEW:

I purchased the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack while still at home in Perth, Western Australia to aid me in my never ending beer runs from work (at a liquor store) where I was constantly lugging 30 plus cans and bottles of sweet delicious life giving beer home for essential taste testing. I was so impressed by the way I could pile huge amounts of weight onto this bad boy without it even flinching that I decided to pack this big bulky awkwardly shaped bugger into my backpack to come for an adventure with me across Canada and beyond. And just like that the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack became apart of our gear for our trip across Canada.

DESIGN AND FUNCTIONALITY:

The Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack is a very well thought out and designed piece of equipment that also adds a classy stylish professional cargo bike look to any bike you use it with.

Designed to attach in three points to your bike; above the fork in the same hole you would attach fenders to and at the bottom of the rack using your bikes quick release axle skewer. I attempted to attach the rack using the skewer my bike came with but it was not long enough to lock down with the rack attached so I had to get creative and use the lower fork eyelets to attach the rack.

This was not a major issue, but the lack of mounting instructions and hardware provided was a bit frustrating and I was lucky that I happened to have some spare screws and washers that allowed me to mount it in this fashion.

The lower attachment holes are designed for the quick release skewer to fit through with the skewer end cap holding it in place, so as such the holes are quite large openings and cannot be used with the smaller M5 type bolts that fit in standard bicycle attachment points without use of an oversized washer to stop the screw from simply slipping through the opening and not holding the rack in place.

To get around this I simply had to use a large washer to prevent the screw from slipping through the racks attachments holes, again not a major issue and I still feel it was perfectly secure in this manner, but not quite as neat looking…to be honest I’m not a fan of racks that use the skewer as an attachment point anyway as I think it can put added stress on a fairly important part of your bike!

Apart from my axle mounting issues, the rack was fairly straightforward to attach to my bike. The legs of the rack are extendable and can be used on bikes with 26-29 inch wheels and lock in place with use of bolts and holes screwed at various intervals along the extendable portions of the legs. The extending portion of the legs can take a bit of convincing to pull out, but were easy enough to twist and pull down with my bare hands without the use of pliers.

The top attachment point is also adjustable so you can fine-tune the angle and distance the top platform sits in relation to the bike.

I love the layout of the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack! It has four thick, round bars on the massive top platform plus the outer frame making it incredibly easy to attach anything you want to this rack without much hassle at all. The multiple struts connecting the top platform to the legs give you endless possibilities of places to loop your straps or bungee cords around and keep your load safe and stable as you cruise around town.

When loaded up heavily it does drastically change the feel and steering of the bike…but that is always going to be an issue when riding with a loaded bike. This is especially the case when the weight is high up like on a cargo rack, but you do get used to it and just have to take the load and weight into account when cornering and steering. Ultimately having the load up high and the way it effected the cornering caused me to reconsider riding around the world with this rack, but as a grocery runner and general around town hauler this rack is a total boss.

origin8-classique-cargo-front-rack-side — Side angle of the rack

DURABILITY:

The all in one construction means it is super strong and feels rigid and sturdy when attached as opposed to some racks that fold down and require assembling. The thick and strong round aluminium struts make you feel totally confident about the durability of this rack and it’s ability to carry pretty much anything you feel like strapping to it…as long as it’s under the HUGE max weight limit of 25kg.

I’m actually pretty sure I’ve exceeded that weight limit hauling beer around town before and had no problems, but probably wouldn’t recommend it.

The tubes on this rack are super thick and all the welds are very professionally done and neat with multiple struts reinforcing and holding the top platform in place.

I can attest to the strength of this as unfortunately, I have crashed my bike with it on several times. I’m a bit of clumsy fool and took a few tumbles at home on bike paths after sampling a few too many of my works goods, plus a fairly major fall in the rocky mountains near the start of the trip. The rack did hit the pavement in the crashes and came out fully intact, some very minor scratches to the paint but otherwise unscathed. Considering the impact that the rack took I was very surprised how well the rack survived and particularly how well the paint job stood up.

Bomb proof rack!

warmshowers saviour — Work getting done on the bike! You can see the rack in the front.

SUMMARY:

I love the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack. I do not want to get rid of this rack, but I kind of feel that I have to.

If I was running errands around town, picking up groceries and doing beer runs, I would never need any other rack than this, but for long distance touring it’s just not working out for me.

When fully loaded with rear panniers and a backpack on the top of the rear rack the addition of any substantial weight high up on the top platform of this rack makes the ride wobbly and unstable, so on the next leg of our trip I will be opting for either low rider front racks or fork mounted bikepacking style cargo cages such as Blackburn Outpost Cargo Bottle Cage or Salsa Anything cages. As for the beer – I’m going to be carrying growlers in future (no joke)!

The wobbly unstable ride is not the fault of the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack, the fault lies with the amount of crap I’ve been carrying on tour. It’s not meant to be a rack for touring; it’s a cargo rack…for carrying cargo around town.

If you are considering getting the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack to tour with I would have a good long think about exactly how much stuff you intend to carry high up on the front of your ride, because chances are you don’t need a rack this big and capable carrying such weight. Also consider the width and chunkiness of this rack for touring; if you need to squeeze it into a bus or car to hitch a ride, it can get awkward. I’ve also found it difficult locking Kelly’s bikes and mine together sometimes as the rack gets in the way and pushes the bikes apart.

However, if you’re looking for a rack to haul all sorts of crap around town and help your best friend move a fridge, then this baby is for you! Well made, looks sexy and super easy to strap stuff too.

I give the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack 4 out of 5 stars. (Amazon/ Our Gear List)

Read my gear review about cycling with the LifeStraw Go water bottle filter or with the Goal Zero Rock Out 2 Speakers.

November 3, 2016March 14, 2017

LifeStraw Go water bottle filter: Gear Review

lifestraw bottle and lid,LifeStraw Go water bottle filter

SPECS for the LifeStraw Go water bottle filter:

Weight: 221gms

Dimensions: 22.85cm x 7.6cm x 7.6cm

Volume: 650ml

Filter capacity: 1000ltrs

PROS:

Easy and quick filtration method
No batteries or chemicals needed
Fits in standard water bottle cages
Easy to clean
Can be operated one handed on the bike (flip top mouth piece)
Comes with caribiner and attachment point for connecting to backpack
Replaceable filter

CONS:

Leaks when not upright
Small volume
Don’t get big gulps of water due to water passing through the straw fibers

OVERVIEW

On our previous cycle trip we relied on a Steripen U.V filter and iodine tablets to purify drinking water that we suspected was not clean and while both these methods worked fine, the Steripen is very time consuming and requires batteries and the iodine leaves a pretty funky taste in your mouth and doesn’t filter out any chunky bits so we were very excited when we came across the LifeStraw Go water bottle filter!

lifestraw bottle and straw — What the straw looks like out of the bottle

FUNCTIONALITY:

This a brilliant piece of equipment and integrates Lifestraw’s revolutionary Personal water filter into a water bottle for conveniently transporting filtered water instead of just being able to suck it up directly from a lake / stream river / puddle or whatever you can now fill up and filter on the move!

It uses hollow fiber membrane strands packed tightly inside the large straw to prevent pathogens and bacteria from passing through so you only get a mouthful of good clean H20 instead of all the other potentially nasty stuff that could be lurking in the water. It’s super easy to clean out only requiring you to blow out the excess water from the straw to expel any dirt or nasty stuff that his been trapped in the filter and you’re good to go again!

The manufacturer claims that the straw can filter up to 1000ltrs before being replaced which is pretty impressive and I’m guessing it might even be more than that depending on how dirty the water is that you use with this. We’ve used it collecting water from rivers and lakes across Canada that appear fairly clean so I think we’ll get at least a thousand liters out of it if not more as opposed to if it were being used in muddy rivers or ponds.

The most appealing part of using this water bottle for me is the fact that you don’t have to sit down and pre filter your full days worth of drinking water; you can simply fill all of your water containers with dirty water and just refill the LifeStraw Go water bottle filter with the dirty water throughout the day and filter it as you drink! Saves a lot of time and messing around and you don’t have to ration your drinking water if you haven’t filtered enough at the start of the day.

DESIGN AND DURABILITY:

The bottle itself is pretty sturdy and made from solid plastic, so not quite as convenient for cycling as a squeezy bottle, but that’s not what it was designed as so I guess you can’t hold that against it! A few weeks ago going over some pretty rocky cycle paths in New Brunswick the LifeStraw Go water bottle filter popped out of cage at fairly high speed and hit a rock on the side of the road. The bottle itself didn’t crack, but a small piece of plastic from the near the mouth piece broke away, I think it is made very solidly though and any other bottle would have probably sustained similar damage from the impact.

The bottle has a rubber seal around the top that doubles up as an attachment point for the included caribiner clip which is a very nice touch and would definitely come in handy for lashing to a pack when hiking or even clipping on to a pannier if you don’t have enough bottle cages on you bikes.

The mouth piece is a flip top with convenient thumb grip to get it open allowing you to use it one handed when on the go hiking or riding and has a soft silicone covering over the valve.

The straw itself is completely protected inside the water bottle, but if it were dropped when refilling the bottle I think it would survive pretty well as it’s constructed of hard plastic and feels solid so would take a fair bit of impact to cause it any damage.

There are only two major drawbacks with this bottle that I can see, the first is the volume of water it can carry, 650ml is not a whole lot really, but is still enough to keep you going for a short period. If LifeStraw came out with a larger volume version with a longer straw, like maybe 850ml that would be ideal for touring and hiking.

The second and most annoying drawback for this bottle is that it is not leak proof despite being advertised as such. The leak doesn’t occur from where the lid attaches to the bottle, rather from where the mouthpiece pivots to join the lid. It’s not a heavy leak where if you turned it upside down the water would flow out of the bottle rapidly, rather a slow leak where the water drips out gradually, but it is still enough of a problem that I don’t trust it in the tent at night or lying on it’s side for long periods. This problem occurs with both mine and Kelly’s bottle so I don’t believe it is simply a faulty bottle, I think it’s more of a design flaw…still not a major issue just a minor irritation.

lifestraw bottle and lid — What the lid looks like! You can also see the crack in the bottle lid from where I crashed on the bike.

SUMMARY:

I give the LifeStraw Go water bottle filter 4 out 5 due to leak issue, other wise this baby is a total life saver and an essential bit of kit for a world cycle tour!

This was one of those purchases where at the time we didn’t really think we needed it as we already had a filter, but since using it for the last 4 months cycling I cannot imagine living without it! It’s extremely convenient and totally reliable, as you won’t get caught out by batteries dying on you when you’re parched. Having the ability to filter ‘on the go’ is awesome and gives you a sense of security when cycle touring knowing that you can filter water in an instant and the fact that it happens to fit in my bottle cages is an added bonus!

I would definitely recommend the LifeStraw Go water bottle filter for cycle touring. (Amazon / Our Gear List)

Want more? Read my gear review on the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack, EVO Low Rider Fork Mounted Front Rack and Goal Zero Rock Out 2 Speakers.

October 28, 2016March 15, 2017

EVO Low Rider Fork Mounted Front Rack: Gear Review

SPECS for the EVO Low Rider fork mounted front rack:

Weight: 635gms

Dimensions: 24.9 cm x 31.75 cm

Price Paid: $39.99 (CAD)

PROS:

Easily attaches to mid blade eyelets and lower fork eyelets
Doesn’t interfere with mechanical disc brakes
Cheap!
Low profile, Can’t be seen when panniers attached

CONS:

Unstable, causes “wobble issues”
Cheap poor quality materials and substandard welds
Will break…multiple times
Aluminium is not easy to weld if (when in this case) breaks
No stability loop bar over the front wheel

OVERVIEW:

I had made it all the way to Regina from Vancouver with far too much crap piled up high on the bikes’ front cargo rack which caused my front end to sway out of control if I wasn’t giving the handlebars the ‘grip of death’ constantly to keep it stable and I had finally had enough. I needed to re distribute the weight, a low rider rack and front panniers seemed like the best option.

In Regina I had the choice between an axiom lowrider and an EVO Low Rider fork mounted front rack and seeing as I had been told bad things about Axiom racks from a Warmshowers host I opted for the EVO Low Rider fork mounted front rack…oh what a horrible choice!

evo front rack — The EVO front rack on the bike without the panniers.

DESIGN AND FUNCTIONALITY:

The EVO Low Rider fork mounted front rack is a simple design attaching to the bikes mid blade eyelets and lower fork eyelets and has some slight room for adjusting to fit your bike with three possible different attachment points for the mid blade eyelets so you can have it angled to suit your needs.

Right out of the package it was very simple to fit to the bike and I was able to position it easily so it did not interfere with my disc brakes, it does however limit the use of the wheels quick release lever so I needed to position the lever in a way that I could still gain access to it once the rack was attached meaning I needed to tighten the nut on the opposite side of the wheel to the quick release lever more as the lever could no longer move freely. Not a major issue as it is not advertised as disc brake specific rack, but something to bare in mind.

I purchased a pair of Axiom Typhoon 18ltr panniers at the same time as they were the only bags available to me and they fit the rack perfectly, it has plenty of space on the bottom bar for the bags to hook on to and the top bar is nice and wide allowing the clips to drop into place easily.

That’s about where the positive features of this rack come to an end.

When riding with the panniers loaded you can actually see the rack slightly flex back and forth due to the lack of a stability loop over the front wheel to connect the two sides of the rack…I knew these guys weren’t going to last pretty early on.

It had been my hope that getting the weight lower on the bike would stabilize my ride and get rid of the wobbles I’d been experiencing, but unfortunately due to the flexing issue they only added to the problem.

It didn’t matter what I had in the front panniers; I tried it with heavier gear like our food up front and lighter stuff like sleeping bag and clothes, but it didn’t matter what the racks were supporting, they still flexed and wobbled horribly.

evo rack front — Close up of the front rack, with the panniers attached

DURABILITY:

These things are a joke. It took less than a week for the first break to occur snapping at the top weld connecting the flat inner bar to the outer frame. Luckily for me we were staying with a Couchsurfing host in Manitoba who just so happened to have a blacksmith neighbor with an aluminium welder who managed to reconnect the broken section, but I was warned by the welder that he felt it was a cheap alloy and would most likely break again. He was correct.

Over the coming month these pieces of shit snapped in several different places and I had to hold them together with hose clamps until finally the outer was no longer salvageable and I limped into Ottawa with these useless hunks of crap flapping wildly on my front forks.

Contacting EVO was pretty much pointless. The customer service was terrible and I was told ‘sorry for your misfortune’ which pissed me off even further. It was not my misfortune, it was their terrible product that was the problem.

evo rack bike — Another photo of the bike with the racks attached

SUMMARY:

I give the EVO Low Rider fork mounted front rack 1.5 out of 5. Some nice design features, but made with terrible weak material and shoddy welding. Steer clear of EVO racks!! (Amazon / Our Gear List).

Like this review and want to read more? Check out my review on the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack, LifeStraw Go water bottle filter and Goal Zero Rock Out 2 Speakers.

October 21, 2016March 15, 2017

Goal Zero Rock Out 2 Speakers: Gear Review

SPECS: Goal Zero Rock Out 2 Speakers

WEIGHT: 340gms

DIMENSIONS: 17.8 x 6.4 x 9.5 cm

POWER SOURCE: USB Rechargeable built in lithium battery

RECHARGE TIME (MANUFACTURER CLAIMED): 2 Hours

RUN TIME (MANUFACTURER CLAIMED): 20 Hours

PROS:

Attaches to bike very easily and securely
Super rugged and water resistant design
Very good bass and loud enough to be heard over traffic
Good battery life
Quick charge time
Uses AUX cable to attach to device instead of bluetooth so doesn’t drain devices battery as much
Function buttons on outside of case make it very easy to control while riding
All in one case design means it protects and stores your MP3 device safely during use
Glove friendly large rubberized zippers to open case

CONS:

Slightly heavy / bulky for cycle touring
Despite manufacturers claim, the battery does not last for 20 hours
Slight distortion at high volumes (very slight)
My first speaker purchased malfunctioned and had to be returned to manufacturer

The speakers attached to the front of the bike

OVERVIEW:

I need music while travelling. There are times when my brain turns to sloppy mush after a hundred plus kms in the saddle and I need distracting with some tunes. So there was no way I could survive a round the world cycle trip without some speakers along for the ride!

The Goal Zero Rock Out 2 speakers ticked all the boxes for me on paper. USB rechargeable, water resistant, system for securely attaching to the handlebars and uses an AUX in cable instead of Bluetooth. So far they have survived 7000kms across Canada and I am extremely happy with their performance and very glad I chose these over other products on the market.

goal-zero-rock-out-2-portable-speakers-open — Inside the speakers – as you can see I store my ipod inside.

SOUND:

The sound is crisp and incredibly clear for the size of the speakers and the bass is rich and deep. Far far better than I could have hoped for! I listen to a wide variety of music from punk and metal through to softer folky acoustic stuff with the occasional bit of hip hop chucked in for good measure and for me the sound is lossless. I don’t feel like I’m listening to a track through a tin can like with some other portable speakers.

These bad boys get LOUD!! There have been times where the traffic has been screaming past us or flying down a mountain with the wind howling past my ears and I can still hear the Goal Zero Rock Out 2 speakers pumping out the tunes over the top of it all!

Overall I am very happy with the sound quality the Goal Zero Rock Out 2 speakers offer. I have only ever had any sound quality issues when they are on maximum volume and some slight fuzzy distortion occurs on the bass, but really minor in comparison to other similar portable speakers.

goal-zero-rock-out-2-portable-speakers-side — Side angle of the speakers

DURABILITY / FUNCTIONALITY:

The Goal Zero Rock Out 2 speakers are as tough as nails! I feel very confident that they will be with me for the rest of the trip and survive perfectly. The outside material is made from some form of tough woven nylon material wrapped over a lightweight wooden or plastic box with the front face plate made of hard plastic with metal screws attaching it to the box.

I have dropped these and they survived perfectly with the added bonus of protecting my mp3 player inside which is housed in a mesh pocket with bungee cable and soft plush liner.

They are water resistant, but definitely not waterproof. I have ridden with these in the rain because I’m an idiot and forgot to take them off the handlebars and had no issues with the speakers getting water logged or damaged, however there were drops of water inside the case that I suspect leaked through the zip so there is the potential for rain to get inside the case and damage your mp3 device if left out in heavy rain. I believe light showers would be fine, but if it gets heavy pack them away hombre!

The control panel is a total breeze to use with all the function buttons (power, reverse track, forward track, play/pause and volume controls) set out in a clear obvious manner and easily accessible on the front of the speakers. The buttons are low profile and rubberized and set a mm or so apart from each other making it easy to know which button you are pressing when you’re on the move.

The zippers to open the case and access the mp3 player and leads are large and rubberized making it very easy to open and close while wearing gloves and feel solid and durable.

The inside of the case is very neatly set out with both the usb charging cable and built in aux cable recessed into the plastic case with a hook to keep them in place when not in use. The built in usb cable is a very handy feature and the perfect size. Not too long that it gets in the way and not frustratingly short like some other speakers.

One of my favourite design features of the Goal Zero Rock Out 2 speakers is the attachment system on the back of the speakers. It uses a super neat bungee cord and five small plastic hooks that can be configured in multiple different ways allowing you to attach the speakers to various different things however you see fit.

I have them set up on my handlebars and looped around the handlebar stem. It’s quick and easy to attach and they do not move or bounce around at all. It’s an absolutely rock solid attachment set up and no way of them working themselves loose on bumps or rocky trails. When you hit the campsite they detach easily and can be hung from a tree, inside the tent or where you want them pumping out sound! I can also imagine them being handy and very easy to attach to a pack for hiking.

The only slight downside to the Goal Zero Rock Out 2 speakers is the weight issue, but I feel 340gms for the quality you get is actually pretty good. For me there is no point taking any of the smaller ‘pop up’ style speakers as you can’t actually hear them while riding unless you’re on a dead quite back road with no wind. They are small enough to stuff into a pannier or backpack without really taking up a whole lot of room. Also, they feel pretty light in your hand while still being super tough and durable and capable of protecting your device and keeping everything neat with no cables sticking out all over the place.

goal-zero-rock-out-2-portable-speakers-back — The back of the speakers

SUMMARY

I give the Goal Zero Rock Out 2 Speakers 4.5 out of 5. It would have been a solid 5 if not for the fact that the first set of speakers I ordered malfunctioned within the first week distorting horribly at anything above the lowest level and one of the speakers barely having any output. Though at first I was understandably less than impressed, the customer service from Goal Zero won me back by having a new set shipped out to me in just over a week without the need to send the faulty speakers back to them. Excellent service particularly seeing as I bought them from an ebay store. I would most definitely recommend these speakers for cycle touring, hiking, camping any outdoor activities and even for use at home or on road trips. These speakers are a beast! (Amazon / Our Gear List)

Enjoyed this gear review? Check out a few others, the Origin8 Classique Cargo HD Front Rack, EVO Low Rider Fork Mounted Front Rack and the LifeStraw Go water bottle filter.

Rocking out to some tunes while riding the bike

September 28, 2016March 15, 2017

AND THE PRAIRIES ROLL ON…BIKING MANITOBA!!!

Michael’s write up of biking Manitoba during our cycle tour across Canada in the Summer of 2016. Click here to read Kelly’s write up of biking Manitoba.

Manitobans had a lot to live up to after the super friendly Saskatchewan locals made us feel welcome in the prairies. The border sign and their license plates say ‘friendly Manitoba’ so I think they’re up for the challenge!

We parted ways with our German cycling buddies Jacque and Luisa in Deleau and rolled into the small town of Hartney. Our first dealings with a local was at a gas station that only accepted pre paid gas cards (which we didn’t have) when we tried to fill our camping stove without success until the kind farmer paid the 80c with his card to let us fill up! Not exactly a huge amount, but a pretty kind gesture and it made cooking dinner slightly easier with fuel!

First impressions of Hartney were that it was a borderline ghost town, but after visiting the local supermarket and chatting with the cashier we were told it was actually the town festival that night and we should stick around for beers, fireworks and general shenanigans. It didn’t take much convincing (they mentioned beer) and we decided to call it a day and check out how they party in Manitoba!

Biking Manitoba… Friendly Manitoba!

It wasn’t quite on the scale that we’d been led to believe but it was still a fun night where we met half the population of the town and had drinks bought for us the whole evening before watching a surprisingly kick ass fireworks display. We were even invited to a wedding, had several offers of places to stay and given contacts for our onwards journey.

Unfortunately the night got a bit shitter after the party when we returned to the municipal campsite next to the public swimming pool which had basically been transformed into the underage kids after party. We had a swarm of smashed teenagers sitting meters from our tent cranking shit music, drinking and shouting until 4 am before ripping down the fence around the swimming pool to jump on the diving board. It sounded like we’d set up our tent in the middle of the shittest blue light disco ever held.

The police eventually came and the kids dispersed…only to come back again briefly to finish the beers and discuss how hardcore they were for vandalizing a fence.

Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep so the next day was a slightly crappy time on the bikes, and when we eventually decided to call it a day in Belmont didn’t really feel like staying at the town’s campsite….it was also their the town festival and the campsite was in the same park. Never fear though, friendly locals to the rescue! A lovely old lady called Irene invited us back to her place to camp in her ridiculously big back yard where we sipped fireball and hot chocolate and scoffed down a massive plate of banana bread courtesy of Irene’s wicked baking skills and slept like fluffy little lambs.

elgin manitoba — Love these small town buildings we kept passing as we were biking Manitoba

Awesome campsites… a plus of biking Manitoba!

One of the best parts about biking Manitoba was never having to worry about where we would be sleeping that night because there was always a town roughly every 20 Kms with a municipal campsite for a measly 10 bucks a night! Felt odd for us getting to shower that regularly and being able to set up the tent without fear of having the cops called on us or having a farmer shoot us in the butthole with a 12 gauge for sleeping on his land.

Saved by a couchsurfer!

We had a couchsurfer lined up near Morris and had planned on riding down the unpaved gravel rode to his farm until my newly purchased EVO front low-rider rack decided to be a metallic prick and snap in two making it a bit hard for me to carry all my crap along a bumpy road without having an accident and potentially injuring my precious face. Our couchsurfing host Jordan kindly offered to drive out and pick us up and it just so happened that his father had an aluminum welder and his neighbor was a blacksmith! Well that’s handy isn’t it!

Over the next couple of nights at Jordan’s place we heard all about the Mennonites and Hutterites.

We even got a chance to visit a Hutterite colony and see how they lived which was a pretty cool experience. They were pretty much self-sufficient growing and making nearly everything they needed to survive and spoke a German dialect and wore traditional clothing. They did drink beer though and baked some mighty fine bread so it seemed like a pretty rad life and one I could probably put up with.

Everyone in the colony was very friendly and welcoming to us even though they are generally suspicious of outsiders and even gave us a parting gift of a jar of honey from their own beehives, a fresh loaf of home baked bread and 3 dozen eggs. Yes, 3 dozen eggs. We were on a protein high for weeks.

Turns out as well as having a Hutterite hook up, Jordan also had his pilot’s license and half owned a light plane with his father so we were off the bikes and into an airplane! It was a very random couchsurfing experience but it gave us a different view of Manitoba and from the sky confirmed what we had suspected; it was a fucking flat place and the roads were dead straight as far as the eye can see.

view from plane canada manitoba — The view from Jordan’s plane – you can see how flat the Prairies are!

We were nearly out of the prairies!!!

At times it seemed that they stretched on forever but we were finally rolling to the end of theses flat friendly lands! To give us a proper send off they decided to give us one last tornado experience in the town of Vita where we stupidly set up outside a local school under a rickety old wooden storage area.

The rain and wind started up not long after we hopped in the tent and soon sounded like a freight train approaching our flimsy little home to mount us in our sleeping bags. At the time we thought it would be smart setting up somewhere under cover to shelter from the rain, but soon realized it was not the wisest choice as it seriously sounded like the whole aging wooden structure was trying its best to rip away from the earth and fly off into the night.

Luckily no debris flew off the shelter and sliced us in two and we weren’t crushed in our sleep, but we did learn a valuable lesson about where not to set up a tent in a storm. Later we heard from locals that a tornado did indeed touch down in some fields not too far from the school so were pretty lucky really.

We could see trees! Lots of trees!

That was a dead give away that our time in the prairies was at an end. We spent one last night camping near the U.S.A border in a weird town called Middleboro In a local park where we had some kids stand outside our tent while we were in it discussing if they should ‘tackle’ the tent. Happily they decided not to and I wasn’t forced to use my mad knife fighting skills to defend our home and the next day we zipped to the U.S.A border to enter Trump country! So we have come to the end of biking Manitoba and the Canadian Prairies.

Goodbye Manitoba, your license plates are correct you friendly little minx!

Interested in what gear we took with us – check out our gear list! Kelly’s also been a bit geeky and kept trip notes and stats of our trip through Canada.

September 17, 2016March 15, 2017

HEADWINDS AND MOSQUITOS: STRUGGLING THROUGH SASKATCHEWAN ON TWO WHEELS.

Michael’s write up about discovering Saskatchewan on two wheels during out cycle trip across Canada in the summer of 2016. Click here to read Kelly’s write up about Cycling in Saskatchewan and Pedalling the Prairies.

Ready to discover Saskatchewan on two wheels

We rolled out of Calgary full of hope for dry weather and favourable winds through the farm belt of Canada; the prairies! We were both still in need of a bit of a break and the one full day off we had in Calgary wasn’t really enough, so spent a couple of nights in Airdrie just outside Calgary guzzling craft beer with our awesome couchsurfing host Kolin, playing with his 3 cats and cleaning our stinky tent as it now smelt like a sweaty pair of soiled manpants. After a few extra rest days, we were ready to head to Saskatchewan on two wheels.

It didn’t take long for the scenery to change and the Rocky Mountains to recede into the distance behind us. The world became flat! Yellow Canola fields popped up everywhere and the farmland began again. We spent a night camping in a rest stop next to horseshoe canyon with dozens of cute furry prairie dogs darting around our feet hoping to catch some stray spaghetti falling from our plate…no chance little prairie dogs, I’m a hungry cycling fatty with a huge mouth.

[ctt template=”8″ link=”rU3GT” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]SASKATCHEWAN ON TWO WHEELS[/ctt]

Drumheller was an interesting place, a mix between Cappadocia in Turkey and a weird tacky dinosaur theme park.

Cool mars like rockscapes and the most intense heat of the trip so far…but around this time is when the mosquitoes really became an issue. Horrible swarms of the nasty little shit-tards would descend on us and annoy the piss out of us constantly, not just when the sun went down but during the day! The rudeness! Mosquitoes are supposed to give you a break until nighttime, that’s the rules!

The constant headwinds, savage horrible mosquitoes and heavy rain took it’s toll on us through Saskatchewan, as well as the distances between towns to get water and food as we had chosen a less travelled route along the number 4 road to avoid the busy trans Canada highway. Although it did make for a trying period of cycling, I’m glad we decided to take this route as we met some incredible people and experienced levels of hospitality we hadn’t come across since cycling in Iran several years ago.

Our introduction to discovering Saskatchewan on two wheels was long stretches of not a whole lot other than abandoned farms and ominous storm clouds rapidly approaching us. On the second night we were forced to take shelter in a slightly creepy (but also slightly cool and photogenic) abandoned farmhouse on the side of the road. The thunder and lightning had started up and it was raining very heavily so we reluctantly dragged our bikes inside the derelict house that was still furnished with a burnt out old cot bed, an oven that appeared to predate Christ and some busted up kitchen cabinets. We managed to squeeze the tent into a dry section where the roof wasn’t leaking and settled in for a pretty poor nights sleep, both of us half expecting the roof to blow away in the middle of the night or an axe murderer to appear and help us shed weight from the bikes by hacking our legs off in our sleep.

Death by Mosquito

The mosquitoes were relentless and whenever we saw a slight hill in the distance a sense of impending doom gripped us knowing that we would slow down going up hill giving the bloodthirsty little pricks a chance to land and feast on our already weakened bodies. I’ve never ridden anywhere before where the mosquitoes actually keep up with you while riding and attack every inch of you body including your face. Saskatchewan on two wheels definitely had new challenges we didn’t consider – mosquitos being one of them!

We pulled into a tiny village called white bear with a population of 13 to treat ourselves to an ice-cold beer at the bar…only to discover that they were closed on Mondays. Locals in Eston the previous day had told us of this pub and it’s reputation for ‘the best wings in Saskatchewan’. Not really interested in the wings, but after a few days of boring hot riding with occasional freak downpours, the thought of a cold beer and being able to refill our water bottles was pretty appealing so we were close to broken when we arrived at the pub to see it was closed. We plonked ourselves down on the table next to the pub feeling very sorry for ourselves and started sporking our jars of peanut butter and Nuttella when a guy called Russ pulled up in his truck for a chat. He invited us back to his place to refill our water and ended up offering to let us stay in his ‘spare house’ behind his own place!

Befriending the locals

The pub may not have been open, but we did end up getting fed many ice cold beers, met nearly the whole town and ended up at a BBQ at the bar owners house where he cooked up a feast and we learnt all about life and history of White bear! The bar owner was originally from Bangladesh but had lived in Toronto for 25 years and randomly ended up buying the local pub in White Bear, but his wife and kids weren’t too keen on the isolation of living in a town of 13 in the middle of the prairies so chose to stay put in the slightly larger Toronto.

Being a pair of weirdo biking vegetarians at a BBQ in rural Saskatchewan we filled up on baked potatoes and salad while the others scratched their heads as to why we weren’t touching the mountains of chicken wings and burgers. We didn’t help get rid of the meat but I definitely did my best to help clear the beers and felt pretty rough riding the next day. After the BBQ we visited a local couple Lynn and Darryl’s farming property nearby, had a few more beers and then returned to Russ’s ‘main house’ and into his amazing crazy basement saloon for a chat before sprinting like fuck to his ‘spare house’ to avoid the clouds of savage mosquitoes.

My memory of our time in the prairies is always going to be linked with mosquitoes and the feeling of being constantly on edge and under attack, it was not possible to step outside without being swarmed and face fucked from all angles. I think I am going to be permanently mentally scarred by Saskatchewan mosquitoes.

We pushed on through the prairies stopping in Swift current for our first hotel of the trip where we basically lazed around in air-conditioned glory and I filled my system with booze and chocolate. You’ll notice a theme to my traveling habits here; booze and food. It’s basically why I ride.

Amazing People and cheap campsites

One of the best parts of riding throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan on two wheels was not having to worry about where you will be sleeping that night, particularly in Manitoba as there was a town roughly every 20km and the vast majority of them had a municipal campsite for 10 bucks a night! We also had quite a bit of success with the website ‘warmshowers’ in the prairies meeting some amazing people who have been involved in the cycling community for years. Glenda in Moosejaw was particularly cool seeing as she wasn’t really into biking, had never done any bicycle touring, but over the years had hosted hundreds of cyclists! She called it her “summer hobby” looking after cross country cyclists and giving them awesome history and cultural lessons in her kitchen while feeding us amazing food and telling us about her time in the 80s as a best selling microwave cook book author! Not surprising really seeing as she had also rescued and looked after 6 or so cats too! Cycle tourists are pretty similar to stray cats really; living off scraps, sleeping in bushes and bathing themselves in public.

The ride through Saskatchewan while sometimes boring and windy was made a whole lot better by the quietness of the roads allowing us to ride side by side without fear of losing a limb to a passing truck. It got busier heading into Regina, but even then pretty cruisy compared to most other cities we’ve ridden in.

Warmshowers’ Legend!

Ron in Regina was another colourful character we stayed with; for over 50 years he’s been tinkering with bikes and touring across Canada and since his retirement from teaching he’d set up his own fully decked out bike shop as a hobby in his basement and helped out cycle tourists and locals with low cost repair work and maintenance. Ron was a super cool generous guy with a big heart who cooked amazing Asian dishes and while he could no longer cycle due to knee issues was still passionate about biking and pretty much an encyclopedia of bicycle knowledge…handy for me because I don’t know a fucking thing. He replaced Kelly’s stretched chain and I used his workspace to fit a front low-rider rack as I was getting pretty sick of wobbling all over the place due to an unevenly distributed load on the bike.

We had to stay a couple of nights longer in Regina as it was a public holiday and Kelly needed to see a doctor about her eye which had developed a red swelling since the beginning of the trip and had not gone away, so we got to stay indoors for a while like real life normal people which was nice for a change.

The whole ‘sleeping indoors’ thing continued as we left Regina and stayed with a warmshowers host’s brother Brad and his wife Lisa and their kids in a little town called Sedley 50 km from Regina. Brad and Lisa ran the local newspaper for Sedley and the surrounding areas so we got quizzed about the trip while enjoying a few frosty cold beverages and we eventually made it onto the front cover of the local paper so felt like cycling celebrities!! Fame at last!

Tornado?! WTF?

The weather had not improved and we rolled out of Sedley in the rain the next morning, made it 50km before finding out the town of Stoughton where we had planned to camp was under a tornado warning! A fucking tornado! The prairies really did hate us, but we loved its people so in the end we won the battle. There was really no point continuing any further for the day as every km we pedaled into the 60km an hour headwind brought us closer to where the tornado was supposed to touch down so we decided to camp in the small town of Fillmore where we had heard about the imminent tornado. There was no need to bust out the now rarely used tent as a local lady called Ava heard of our plight and immediately offered to let us sleep at her place! Sleeping indoors again! We really were being spoiled. Ava and her family were totally cool, took us around the local farms and showed us a little bit of harvesting of wheat, fed us a kick ass dinner and gave us a warm comfy place to sleep. The kindness and generosity of people really never stops amazing me and is always a highlight of cycling. As well as being able to drinks lots beer and eat lots of food without feeling guilty, that’s a highlight too.

[ctt template=”8″ link=”50ly0″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]The kindness and generosity of people really never stops amazing me and is always a highlight of cycling[/ctt]

The weather cleared up the next day and we managed to make up for lost time by smashing out 137kms, our biggest day of the trip so far! Unbeknownst to us, we had had two other cycle tourists hot on heels for a while now and today they finally caught us! Jacques and Louisa were also cycling across Canada but had started in Victoria and zig zagged through the Rockies and other areas, and had first heard of us from Glenda in Moosejaw and then Ron in Regina who they had stayed with days apart from us! It was awesome getting to ride with another couple doing the same thing as us and we spent our last evening in Saskatchewan at a cheap official campsite in Redvers chilling out with our new friends over a few beers and huge camp dinner.

Visiting Saskatchewan on two wheels had pushed us to our limits mentally sometimes, but the friendly helpful locals had made it a great place to ride in the end and if we had to do it all again I definitely would not skip this province! I’d skip the mosquitoes though. Actually I’d strap a giant vacuum cleaner to my bike and suck all the little fuckers out of the air before depositing them in a blender. Bastards.

Next stop Manitoba!

If you’re planning a trip across Canada then you might find our trip notes, stats and book helpful. You can also check out these 10 secrets to cycle touring!

August 10, 2016March 15, 2017

CYCLING THE ROCKIES TO CALGARY!

Michael’s write up about cycling the Rockies to Calgary during our cycle trip across Canada in Summer 2016. Click here to read Kelly’s write up about cycling the Rockies to Calgary, and to the start of the Prairies!

THE ROCKIES TO COWBOY COUNTRY

Hello Rockies!

After a pretty harsh introduction to cycling the Rockies to Calgary that involved me crashing my bike like a clown and mangling up my once devilishly handsome ankle, we decided a bit of a rest was in order as we were both exhausted and sick of having our bums glued to bicycles. We enjoyed the spectacular scenery on the way into Jasper national park, but were dismayed to see that all campsites were marked as ‘full’ on the road signs. No room at the inn for smelly cyclists.

The despair didn’t last long though as when we eventually arrived at the first campsite we found out that only the sites for the big ugly R.Vs (cheat mobiles) were full, but hiker / biker walk in sites were available! Yay! A shower and a chance to clean my filthy greasy wound!

Jasper was a nice town, appeared to be purely for tourists but still had some charm and most importantly; an all you can eat Indian buffet!!! Hungry vegetarian cyclists are the Indian buffets worst enemy and only known natural predator in the wild. We ripped it apart and left no chickpea or naan bread unchewed. We also severely savaged the Jasper brewing companies tasting platter before shakily riding back to camp to pass out before it began raining yet again.

[ctt template=”8″ link=”ZSe5d” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Hungry vegetarian cyclists are the Indian buffets worst enemy and only known natural predator in the wild. [/ctt]

After a day off the bikes and a short hike we were on the road again cycling the Rockies to Calgary, via the amazing Icefields parkway towards Banff….and back into the rain.

There was no relief, I think it had rained pretty much everyday since we left Vancouver, but the scenery was stunning with plenty of waterfalls, glaciers and excuses to hop off the bikes and look around along the way. We even spotted a bear doing a happy little jig across the road at one point.

Flying down the extremely steep Sunwapta mountain pass was a pretty terrifying experience as my hands were so numb from the freezing wind and rain that I was having trouble squeezing the brakes. Brakes can be important for a cyclist when riding down a mountain by the way.

The scenery approaching Banff national park was jaw droppingly beautiful, around Bow lake and near the Icefields park centre were particular highlights and I’m definitely glad we took the time to get off the bikes and walk out to the edge of one of the Glaciers. Avoid the tourist trap that is the Icefields park centre though, huge masses of tourists jostling there way off tour buses to pay $6 for a coffee and $5 for a cookie. We stuck to our gourmet diet of granola bars and Nalgene bottle coffee for this stretch to stop our budget getting sodomised.

We had some pretty amazing camp sites along the way and as it is illegal and actually enforced that there is absolutely no wild camping allowed within the parks, we stayed in official government run sites in the Rockies so did get the luxury of a shower and some shelter with wood stoves in some spots which was kind of a nice change….but it still kept raining.

Cycling the rockies and the icefields parkway — Making it to the Icefields Parkway!

We rolled into the ultra touristy Lake Louise area after a few days and gorged ourselves at the bakery and filled our bellies with the warm fuzzy goodness of rum and hot chocolate around the campsite to try and forget about the relentless punishing rain.

On a ‘rest’ day we thought we’d take a leisurely ride to check out Lake Louise. It had been sunny all morning until it came time for us to ride the 4km basically vertically uphill from the campsite when mother nature decided we hadn’t experienced enough wet weather recently so turned on a torrential downpour for us. We pretty much rode up a river to get to a lake to battle with other soggy holidaymakers to get a snap of Lake Louise in all its moist glory. It was a pretty place, but I think the scenery and smaller crowds around Bow lake made that a bit more enjoyable, still worth a trip to check out though.

The amazing views and stunning cycling along the Rockies towards Banff town and into Canmore where we had a Warmshowers host called Jeff to stay with.

We had lunch and a coffee break by the river in Banff (where it of course pissed down) before taking the amazing ‘legacy trail’ two-lane bike path all the way from Banff to Canmore, which was one of the highlight cycle days for me so far. It was pretty special being able to fly along side the main highway surrounded by stunning mountain ranges in every direction without fear of being run off the road by an accountant called Bill on holiday from Winnipeg in a Winnebago roughly the same size as a small eastern European country that he has no idea how to control.

The legendary Jeff and his lovely wife Paula fed us to bursting point and filled us with beer and helped massively with planning the next leg of journey telling us all about which roads to take, which to avoid and which towns were best for hungry cyclists!

After a couple of pleasant nights feeling like human beings and enjoying laughing at the rain from inside a nice warm house it was time to roll on to Calgary and the stampede! Yeehaw! We even got escorted out of town by Jeff who rode with us for about 20km to show us the right road to take!

cycling the rockies — Cycling the Rockies to Calgary

With all of our dramas at the start of the trip taking Kelly’s bike back we lost a couple of days and were now in a race to reach Calgary in time for the last day of the famous Calgary stampede to watch the cow Olympics or whatever the shit a stampede is.

We had managed to claw our way back on track, even through the Rockies and were going to make it in time for the stampede! So we smashed out a 110 km day through an insane downpour on the highway that basically turned into a full blown flood. We were forced to seek shelter at a farmer’s market where a lovely local lady cheered us up by giving us a bag of carrots as I think she felt pity for the two very wet cycling bums. Small acts of kindness like this can really make your day when you’re riding! Plus it’s nice to have something to sex up your traditional meal of pesto pasta a bit by throwing some fresh veg in the mix!

[ctt template=”8″ link=”hU9Af” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Small acts of kindness like this can really make your day when you’re riding! [/ctt]

We made it cycling the Rockies to Calgary!!!

After several weeks stampeding against the clock to get there before the festivities finished, we had actually arrived in time to use our tickets that we purchased months ago! Just after we got to the city, a freak hailstorm broke out which we got to enjoy from the warm comfort of a swanky airbnb while sipping rum and munching free carrots before heading out for an evening of chuck wagon races! Yeehaw doggy!!

It was an incredibly satisfying feeling knowing we had made up for lost time and managed to get into town for the stampede…I have absolutely no idea what the fuck was going on during the chuck wagon races, but a good time was had by all and they had beer and funny hats. What more could you want?
Prior to the races we also wandered around the grounds and looked at all the tacky shite for sale and randomly bumped into a First Nations guy that we had met two days previously cycling through a reservation on the way to Calgary! Pretty bizarre experience being in a city where you know absolutely nobody and attending a very busy major international event only to bump into someone you met in a different part of the province days earlier!

So after all the dramas at the beginning of the trip we had achieved something we had basically thought impossible and made it to the stampede in time!!! To treat ourselves we found the swankiest (cheapest) breakfast buffet in town and swarmed all over it like a pair of savage Canadian deer flies sucking its prey dry of blood. Our prey happened to be French toast and waffles; way better than deer blood.

The waiters in this particularly trendy little café seemed appalled at the sheer volume of food we were able to consume and attempted to bring us the bill after a mere two plates! Hahaha! Get the fuck out of town my friend, come back when the chef is broken and sobbing on the floor because he misses his family and wants to go home; we are cycle tourists and we’re in this buffet game for the long haul!!

We enjoyed our couple of nights in Calgary and were anxious to see what the road ahead held for us! Would the flatness of the prairies be easy after the cycling the Rockies to Calgary? Will we eventually drown in the constant rain? Will the Canadian Mounties chase us down and have us hung for crimes against buffet humanity? All these questions and more will be answered in the next boring installment of this blog where we tackle Saskatchewan head on and wrestle it into submission like the little prairie dog it is!! Or we get run over by Bill in his Winnebago, whichever comes first.

If you’re planning for first cycle tour, then check out these resources for cycle touring to help with your planning.

bow lake: cycling the Rockies to Calgary — The Rockies were absolutely stunning – despite all the rain!

July 30, 2016March 15, 2017

VANCOUVER TO THE ROCKIES; WET DAYS ON TWO WHEELS.

Michael’s write up of our the start of our cycle trip in Canada, cycling from Vancouver to the Rockies. Click here to read Kelly’s write up of cycling in British Columbia.

It’s here! Cycling Vancouver to The Rockies!

After 3 years of having very vague plans to ride across Canada the time had finally come! So here it is, my write up of the start of our world cycle trip, cycling Vancouver to the Rockies. You’d think after that long, it would all go pretty smoothly right? No, the start was a massive pain in the sensitive delicate rectum region.

We had subjected ourselves to that horrible thing known as “having a job” back home in Australia in order to save some extra cash for the trip seeing as we couldn’t save at all living in Vancouver. After 7 months we had finally saved up enough pennies to get back to Canada and begin our next adventure! We arrived in Vancouver after some major flight delays (8 or so hours) plus missed connecting flights, lost baggage and dramas getting our camping stove, ‘Colin‘ on the plane (when the stove did eventually make it to Vancouver it had been damaged on the flight…fuck you WestJet!).

We were ready to rock from Vancouver to the Rockies! Well sort of.

Before starting a bicycle trip it is probably a good idea to have a bike. We had purchased 2 bikes on the recommendations of a bike shop in Vancouver to pick up when we arrived, I would not recommend anyone else trying this method, not a good idea. We thought it would save time organizing bikes before arriving but in the end it was a major hassle and cost us several days and a whole lot of stress.

Seeing as we are planning on spending the next few years riding, I had wanted to get steel framed bikes capable of touring around the world so we invested a little more cash than last time, but we still couldn’t afford the top of the range touring bikes so I was pretty happy when I found a store that had two of last years model bikes in our price range of under $1000 (bikes were $820).

When we arrived though I soon realized that Kelly’s bike a Norco search S3 only had two chain rings at the front giving it a total of 18 gears…my bad I thought it had 3 at the front…sorry Kelly!

You like pushing up hills though right?? The bike shop had talked up how great these bikes were for touring and how they’d be perfect for what we needed them for, but really the gears on this bike were not exactly ideal for lugging a whole ton of shit through the rocky mountains and beyond and the shop should have been straight with us instead of trying to clear out old stock on a couple of tourists.

We persisted though, the shop swapped out the rear gears for something with a wider range, but on the day we left Vancouver it was clear it was not going to work, we made it 65kms to Kelly’s friend’s house near Abbotsford and she couldn’t get the bike up a hill so mountains were gonna be a pretty big issue! Cycling Vancouver to the Rockies – Kelly couldn’t even make it 100km. Something had to be done!

New day, new bike.

The next 2 days are a blur of stress, anger and frustration contacting the store, dicking around attaching and detaching crap to the bikes and eventually managing to exchange Kelly’s bike and pay the difference of about $450 to get this years model touring bike the same as mine (Brodie circuit) instead of a unsuitable cyclocross bike.

I’m sure there’s plenty of good cyclocross bikes for touring and I believe you can tour on just about anything, but as we were planning a pretty massive trip we wanted something better than we had last time. It was a frustrating experience and I could go into more depth about the shit that went on but it’s in the past now and thinking about it makes me want to curl up into a big shiny bald ball and cry my little peepers out so we’ll leave it there. We were just lucky that Kelly’s friend Kira is such a legend and gave up a whole day to take us back to Vancouver to sort it out.

brodie green bicycle circuit — Kelly’s new bike!

Vancouver to the Rockies – take two!

We greatly underestimated the sheer volume of shit that we had brought with us for this trip. It was ridiculous. The bikes were so heavily loaded up they were wobbling like a drunk cowboy at the Calgary stampede and still struggling to make it up hills, so over the next few weeks tough decisions were made and we both ended up donating various crap we could do without to people along the way. It’s still an ongoing process though, I feel like I have a lot more stuff than when we rode from France to China, but at least the bikes were actually up to the job!

After the initial stress and disappointment of starting the trip like that it felt great to finally be on our way plus we were riding through a place called Chiliwack so that cheered up my small childlike mind a bit. Spent a night wild camping next a river near Cultus lake and had all the old feelings of total freedom flooding back as we pitched our tent in a hidden little spot in the trees.

[ctt template=”8″ link=”mt45A” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]The bikes were so heavily loaded up they were wobbling like a drunk cowboy at the Calgary stampede[/ctt]

The tour had begun! Finally we were cycling from Vancouver to the Rockies!

In the morning I snapped my chain before we even left our little camping spot (first ever snapped chain for me!) and Kelly was stung by a wasp, but we weren’t gonna let it get us down goddammit!! Fixed up the chain and hit the road again passing through some beautiful B.C scenery at Bridal Veil falls, through the Othello Tunnels near Hope and camping next to a highway down an embankment hidden from sight.

People kept talking to us about the Coquihalla mountain pass and making us regret our lack of physical fitness and pre trip training as we pedaled through the rain towards this hilly beast. Our legs definitely got a little shock when we hit it, but memories of some of the horrendous climbs we’d tackled through central Asia and Europe made it seem not so bad.

The rain persisted on and off so we were going from shivering and wet one minute to baking and sweaty the next having to constantly put on or take of layers of clothes. We cruised through valleys and mountains and passed through cool little towns on our trip through Kamloops to Merrit camping in hillside scrub, rest stop areas barely hidden from view and one particularly stunning spot on our way to Kamloops next to a river with perfect views on our little tents’ doorstep!

After about a week we decided a shower was in order as we had various plant life growing on us and had begun to smell like a French cheese boutique.

We found an airBNB in Clearwater to escape the still constant rain and scrub ourselves raw. Felt nice to be indoors and have access to a kitchen, as our stove had died on us a few days previously and we had to buy a tiny emergency twig-burning stove to heat up our meager rations of oatmeal and pasta. Also felt nice to fill my insides with sweet delicious beer!

Spent a few hours checking out some amazing waterfalls in the nearby Wells Gray provincial park with our awesome Airbnb owner and then hit the wet road again! Climbed higher heading towards the rockies and smashed out our first 100+ km day of the trip so far through an isolated stretch heading to mosquito capital of the known universe, Blue river BC.

Our Airbnb host in Clearwater who took us to Wells Gray Park

Mosquito Flats

As we pulled into the small mountain town looking for a clearing in the forest to duck into and set up camp, A large friendly black bear appeared casually chilling on the side of the road roughly 4 meters from Kelly so we decided perhaps this was not the ideal spot to rest our weary bones for the night and continued on into the town. I asked a couple with a young daughter if they thought we would get into trouble if we set up a tent in the local park next to a lake, but turns out they weren’t locals either and didn’t have a clue.

The Spanish couple quickly offered us a backyard to camp in overnight and we were set…apparently the town had been having a bit of a bear problem recently with a particularly big grizzly stalking the area and they showed us the large trailer parked across the street from their house with a huge metal bear cage trap. Felt a bit better knowing we were near a house at least and we could store our food inside to hopefully keep the furry little buggers from eating our tent and us.

We had no encounters with Yogi or his friends that night, but my god the mosquitos were savage! We had originally thought we’d get to hang out and practice our now terrible Spanish over a coffee with the nice couple that saved us, but instead were forced to rip everything off the bikes and dive head first into the tent as quickly as possible before we were sucked dry of all our precious blood that we need for living and stuff. Thousands of them. Thousands of the horrible little shits. Looking up in the tent at the outside was terrifying; it was a covered black mass of swarming bloodthirsty winged shit heads. I already felt a bit dizzy from dehydration, I think if anymore had munched me I probably would have passed out.

It was onwards and upwards.

We had another big day with stunning scenery and pedaling close to 100km getting to Valemount to stay with our first Warmshowers hosts (like couchsurfing for cyclists) Tom and Peggy. Was great meeting this couple who had an incredible amount of experience cycle touring all over the world for years, plus Tom was a pretty handy guy who brought our poor little stove ‘Colin’ back from the dead! He could no longer simmer and only functioned in the ‘off’ or ‘burn the absolute shit out of everything’ modes…but he was alive! Pretty stoked we could cook food and boil water for coffee again without scavenging for dry twigs when it had been raining solidly since we arrived.

Spent a nice evening with Tom and Peggy chatting and getting lots of helpful tips about the route and then had a leisurely 40km day started off by gorging ourselves at the local Swiss bakery before setting up camp in one of those weird ‘non wild camp on the side of the road’ official government run campsite thingos near Mt Robson. Campsites with showers, toilets and water?!?! Who knew!

cycling the rockies, VANCOUVER TO THE ROCKIES — Cycling the Rockies

It continued to piss down solidly over the course of that day and the coming days as we finally finished cycling from Vancouver to the Rockies!!!

To celebrate cycling from Vancouver to the Rockies I decided it would be a grand idea to clip a guard rail with my pannier while trying to take a photo, throw my camera several feet in the air into the middle of the road and crash off the bike carving a chunk of flesh the size of a late night drunken kebab out of my ankle. I will admit, not my finest idea, but I like it to mix things up while cycling to keep it fresh. It felt like we needed some more excitement and our luck had got better since the start of the trip so I didn’t want us getting too cocky.

My ankle looked pretty nasty as I had carved it up on the front gear cogs forcing a kilo or so of black greasy shite and grit into the wound so we stopped on the side of the road to rub my dirty gash clean(ish) with some alcohol wipes…not a fun time for me to be honest. In hindsight, I most definitely needed stiches as this occurred roughly three weeks ago now and it still keeps opening up to let the inside of my ankle say hello to the world and give my blood a chance to explore Canada, but we were nowhere near a doctor or hospital and were also in a bit of a race to get to Calgary in time for the stampede so didn’t want to have to take a break off the bikes. Yeah I’m an idiot.

[ctt template=”8″ link=”f8f93″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Yeah I’m an idiot.[/ctt]

So we had made it!!!

After a shaky start and some ups and downs we were finally entering the Rockies! We had made it from Vancouver to the Rockies! We had started to feel better about the cycle trip and our chances of survival (despite my little tumble) and were slowly getting back into the swing of things after nearly two years since the last trip and felt ready to invade the Canadian Rockies like Genghis Khan on a pushbike! So we made it Vancouver to the Rockies.

Interested to know what countries we’ve rode through on the bikes? Check out our Country Tracker to find out, and create your own country tracker to see how many countries you’ve been to.