Epic Bicycle Journey to Canada: Pt. 1
Some of you may be wondering, what’s up with Alex? It has been a while since I updated you all on my adventures. And for a very good reason: a serious LACK of adventure in my life.
Maybe you can relate:
Fridays would turn into Fridays and Mondays would turn into Mondays—with little in between. I felt like I was sleep-walking through my life. In a word my life had become comfortable (read: boring).
And what makes better sense in a life that has become too comfortable than to make it uncomfortable!
So, that’s exactly what I did.
I called up a buddy who loves to go bicycle touring and created an adventure: we’d meet in Bellevue, WA and begin a bicycle journey that would take us to Vancouver Island in British Columbia for an unspecified amount of time.
Now, we’re talk’n!
Side-note: I’m a firm believer that if you don’t give yourself a crisis from time to time—i.e., take the time to get uncomfortable for the sake of growth and adventure—life will provide you with one. Albeit, one that is way LESS comfortable than you might like.
Anyway, I did it! I flew out to Seattle and my friend Greg and I embarked on a lovely and epic journey on bicycle, carrying our snacks and homes on our backs—err, bikes—for the duration of our trip. (Ok, to be fair, he carried my sleeping bag for the first few days while I got acquainted with journeying on a packed bicycle.)
Washingtonians will probably be upset at me for telling you this, but I’ll tell you, anyway: Washington State, in particular West of Seattle, is freaking gorgeous!
Our daily routine was getting up somewhat early, slowly packing up camp, and finding the closest coffee shop. There, we’d recharge our electronic devices and brains and get ready for the day’s ride to the next town. Once there, we would find a pub and have some well-deserved craft beers and eat—a ton.
There is something incredibly freeing about traveling by bicycle; getting up whenever you feel like it; and riding as far as you want. And, then, when you’re ready to hunker down, finding a cozy spot to pitch a tent (and sometimes a hammock) and reading yourself to sleep.
I even got quite used to not showering for days! In fact, I got used to everything until the day arrived when I actually wasn’t just tolerating my lack of luxury—but I was beginning to really enjoy it! Even the physical grind became something I began to cherish, as I developed muscles in my legs for the first time in my life!
There were two incredibly difficult days of climbing:
The first was a very mountainous climb on a 30 mile day in which I had biked so hard for hill after hill after hill that I finally reached my edge—and quit. I texted Greg a gif, “leave me, I’m dying.”
I ended up with a cool epiphany from this ride: it wasn’t so much the hills that killed me, but a two-fold factor of a) not eating enough for breakfast that morning (one granola bar) or eating enough during the ride; and also a psychological barrier, as going up the mountain, up and up and up, I began to be quite sure that surely after the next curve there would be a downhill! And one of those times, after many uphills without a downhill, my body indeed quit—but because my brain had quit first! I sat next to this hill and looked at it thinking “no way” not because the hill was so daunting but because I became convinced that just beyond my view was another uphill—forever!
So, I learned a valuable lesson that day, once I got up that hill and there was a long downhill right after. That the brain is a powerful thing! And we can use it to move us forward or to stop us in our tracks and prevent us from moving ahead (and with a very rational justification, no less)!
Moving on, the next tough day was on Salt Spring Island off of Vancouver Island. It was 30km of all hills (switching to the metric system since we’re planted in Canada at this point), and the whole trip leading up to it, everyone kept telling me that Salt Spring Island’s ride was something to be feared because of tight turns and the never-ending hills.
But I’m here to inform you that I survived! And not only that, I thrived! I guess by that point my “road legs” had developed, and I was flying through those hills on my little foldable bike.
Yes, you heard me—I took a foldable bicycle on this transcontinental journey. It seriously looks like a child’s bicycle (but then again, I sorta look like a child, so…).
Following that ride was a freak incident on a softball field. We were dead tired. We road across the ferry late that evening (right after stuffing ourselves with breaded seafood and loads of beer) and were craving a soft spot to lay our heads and crash for the night. My buddy talked to a few skaters at a skate park in Crofton right off the ferry who told us of a nice secluded spot. It was all uphill, though, and I was done with hills for the day. So, we found a softball field on our left and pulled in. We set up our tents next to a dugout that blocked us from any suspecting eyes from the surrounding neighborhood.
The plan was marvelous. Five minutes later, my tent was set-up, my bicycle was locked, and we were both fast asleep in our respective tents.
Until… crash! WATER started pouring into my tent! It’s such a strange sensation to go from incredible relaxation to being drenched and yelling WTF in a single moment. I thought to myself, “is this a flash thunderstorm?” I remembered the sky was clear before going to sleep, and so didn’t put on a rain fly for the night.
We both got out of our tents to discover the source of our agony:
industrial sprinklers!
Huge sprinklers had come on and just filled our tents with water. My sleeping bag and much of my belongings were soaked! Without shame I admit that I googled nearby hotels and called a couple to get some quotes, but in the end of the day I decided to just stick it out until morning.
Google was our friend on this trip. And luckily at 6am a café was opening. So, I basically counted the seconds, minutes and hours from 10pm that night until 5:40am when I packed up and headed for some hot coffee and warmth!
Side-note 2: It wasn’t always peachy with my road companion. We’re both introverts (he greater than me), and often, not unexpectedly, we’d get on each other’s nerves. After the softball field debacle, we ended up in Nanaimo, which was further north on the island. We had a beautiful camping area on a lake during a busy labor day weekend. I found a nice couple to talk to who owned an ecological reserve in Mexico, Holly and Dan. After speaking with them, I realized that I was comfortable ending my journey there and heading to “civilization.” I didn’t need to do a return trip on the bicycle to prove anything to myself or anyone else—after 10 days of bicycling and camping, I had proven to myself that I could do it. The trip had been amazing, and I just felt done with bicycle touring. So, I told Greg that I was through; we snapped a dorky selfie of the two of us and before either of us became unhinged and things got testy, and we parted as we began: as friends.
I road to the ferry in Nanaimo and headed to Vancouver on a beautiful trip between the island and the mainland.
That ended part 1 of my journey, and I’m currently on part 2.
To be continued.
(Spoiler alert: it’s amazing.)
😊
(Just off the boat in Vancouver. And ready for a new adventure!)
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