When I finished typing my last post in St John's, I said I'd add some final reflections in a few days. 

Well a few days has turned into to almost a year, and this year's wave of cross-country riders has already long past through Canmore.

I guess it's time.

On the bright side, the twelve month interval hasn't dulled our thoughts or impressions. Rather, like a fine wine (or a settling pond?) it has allowed our thoughts to refine and mature. Seriously though, over this period there has hardly been a day go by where we haven't thought about, and had a discussion, or a laugh, about some part of our trip.

The country we saw was varied and beautiful. The people we met were engaging, genuine and .... nice. How Canadian.

What also struck us was that the regions of the country were quite culturally distinctive (BC coast, Prairies, northern Ontario, urban southern Ontario, Quebec, Acadian New Brunswick, Nova Scotia / Cape Breton, and of course .... Newfoundland) but there was still a very strong thread of Canadian identity that strung it all together. I can't put it into words, but it's real and its there.

As we expected with a country this big, the scale and variety of the landscape was truly impressive. What struck us through was that even though we had cycled through every province and over 8700 km's, we came to the realization that we had in reality only touched a small part of the country. After passing through each region / province, Kirsten and and I would say to each other "We've got to come back here and do a month or more tour to really see this place" (Sorry Manitoba - you were the exception! Pretty flat and you need to work on your roads. 'Nuff said)

Will we do it again. Sure, but probably only after a few more extended tours in other parts of the world.

Will we do it the same way. For sure. This trip proved to be almost stress and hassle free. We were incredibly lucky with weather (we only had about 5 days where we road in the rain for most of the day) but I like to think that our outcome would have been the same even if conditions weren't quite as good.

For both Kirsten and me, it was great to have a travelling companion to share the trip with. I'm not sure about other couples or groups who set out on long distance tours, but for us, we both had longstanding, and independent, dreams and ambitions to do this trip. As a result our outlook and expectations for the trip were very similar (i.e. we both looked at it as 'travelling by bike' not as 'a bike trip'). Neither one of us were being dragged along. We were doing it for ourselves, and each other as partners, in equal measures.

What worked out well for us.... pretty much everything.

Route

We planned our route to take us through places we had not seen and to connect with people we wanted to see, and it worked out great. We had the luxury of being able to take our time and as it turned out, we were visiting people at about the same times that our bodies were in need of a few days of R&R.

Our 'route plan' was no more than a framework of points where we wanted to see people and we had the flexibility to fill in the route details to connect these points as we went along. This allowed us for the most part to stay off highways with lots of traffic and in particular, truck traffic. By the time we boarded the ferry to Newfoundland, having traveled almost 8,000 km, we had ridden less than 450 km on the Trans Canada Highway.

Although our route and road choices took longer and were sometimes a bit rough, the pleasure we got from the mostly stress free cycling was priceless.

I'll post our actual route, with a filtered GPX track, on a later page. It turns out we stayed pretty close to our original 'planned' route. This winter we came across a single piece of paper in a pile in the kitchen. It was a scrawled list of 11 places across Canada, with a 'Google Bike Map' distance estimate between them, and an estimated date of arrival at each place.

That was our "plan", and it worked. Brilliantly. We made it to all the places with a few meanders in between, and were within one or two days of our time estimate.

Pace

We 'planned' on averaging 100 km a day (very doable based on our previous tours). This would have us 'on the road' for just over 100 days, biking 6 days a week with one rest day each week (on average).

We were pretty confident that we would average more than this, and that would create more 'rest days' to visit with people and do off-bike stuff. Thats what happened. We ended up averaging 115 km per day fairly easily and finished in 94 days total, with 76 days of pedalling and 18 days 'off-bike' (another Parado rule 80% pedalling days, 20% rest days)

For us this worked great. At both the front and back end of the trip we would cycle for about 10 days at a time and then take a rest day. This allowed us to take a 'mid term break' mid July and early August when we were in Ontario. We went sea kayaking with Brent in Georgian bay for a few days, took several days off to visit Millie in Gravenhurst and my brother in Burlington and several more days off in Prince Edward County and Bellville to hang out with Anne Marie and Rick and Clair and Marie.

With this pace, we never got close to the point of burn out or fatigue. Most nights we were tired for sure, but neither one of us took an aspirin or ibuprofen the entire trip. We slept great and woke up each morning ready and able to ride, even if it was a non-bike day.

The Journal

Some days / nights, writing this journal seemed like a full time job. Sitting in a tent, hiding from mosquitos , headlamp on, cursing the iPhone keypad and thick fingers!

However, the discipline of writing this up everyday caused us to really think about the here and now, and allowed us to capture it. I'm so glad we did this. We can now go back and vividly bring back the days and special moments.

The journal, and the CGOAB community, also allowed us to stay connected with lots of family and friends as we crawled our way across the country. This was a real bonus and something that neither one of us anticipated when we started.

It was always great to get messages on the guestbook or through email from folks who were 'travelling' along with us. Sometimes it was words of encouragement, sometimes our day would spark a memory of someone else's experience that they would share with us, and it was all good.

Song of the Day

We both really liked having the Boom with us to listen to music while we rode, and picking the song-of-the-day, very much like writing the journal, caused us to think about each day and how it could be captured in a song.

A friend and colleague put it together as a playlist and presented it to us when we got back home and it's become a staple in our listening.

Now when we hear one of our songs-of-the-day on the radio, in a restaurant, at home, at a friends place, Kirsten and I almost immediately look at each other and say ... 'Clearwater to Blue River, or "Dauphin to The Narrows". They are very strong cues, indelibly burnt into our heads, and they bring back really good memories of each of those days.

Bikes

Although our trip sounded complicated with using a combination of single's and a tandem for different portions of the trip, it worked out great and it was a pretty painless process.

We were fortunate that we lived in Canmore / Calgary, where the Prairies start, and that we had a friend in Sudbury, where the northern Ontario 'bush' ends. This allowed us to ride our single bikes from Victoria to our home, swap over to the tandem, box up the single bikes and send them to Sudbury via Greyhound bus. Once we got to Sudbury we just reversed the process.

The Tandem (a.k.a. The Prairie Slayer) was the perfect tool for the wide open spaces of the prairies and Great Lakes, and the single bikes were ideal for the mountains and more populated areas in the east. And Greyhound .... quite cheap (less than $300 for all the shipping) and very reliable. From the condition of the boxes (and the bikes) they were treated much better on the bus than any airline we used.

As for the bikes themselves. Virtually flawless. Our singles were brand new. Toute Terrain Silk Roads built up by Peter White Cycles. We would expect these bikes to be flawless and they were. Basically maintenance free (sealed bearings all round and Rohloff hubs with Gates Carbon belt drives). The belts would squeak when they got dust on them. A squirt or two of water and the squeaks were gone. One pinch flat each (day 5 for Kirsten, day 93 for me). Tires were Schwalbe Marathon Supremes (26 x 1.6), quiet, quick and very reliable. These bikes were rock solid and very comfortable. First time touring with flat bars but very comfortable with the Ergon GP-3 grips

Our tandem (Bilenky custom) was great too. A little TLC before we started (new chain, brake pads, cleaned and lubed) and no problems aside from a split front rim as we were approaching Duluth (Velocity Aeroheat rim --- looks like it could have been a manufacturing defect). Luckily this happened where it did as we got it replaced within an hour in Duluth on a planned rest day.

We ended up biking 5400 km on our singles and 3300 km on the Prairie Slayer (62/38 % split)

Gear and Clothing

For us, what we had with us was just about perfect (see our gear section near the beginning). The only things we had with us but did not use were our bike repair stuff and our first aid kit. That's a good thing. Everything else we used, and needed.

Now I realize our 'needs' will be different from others, but for us, we never were in a situation where we wished we had something, or that we were carrying around a lot of dead weight (although I did drop off some camera gear and electronics in Calgary when we went through).

We were fully prepared to wild camp, although we never needed to, and our camping gear kept us dry, fed and very comfortable. In retrospect, given the cost of provincial campsites in Ontario we should have wild camped .... more later!

Bike clothing worked really well. Three sets of bike shorts and merino wool tops and socks, in a daily rotation (wear, wash, dry, repeat till the end). Over that, a good insulating layer (gore bike wear soft shell), Arc Teryx goretex jacket and ....... goretex socks. This last item is brilliant to have stashed in your pannier!

Off bike clothing, shorts and tee shirt, a pair of pants and shirt (or light knit dress for Kirsten) so we could go to any restaurant and not look out of place. It was the same outfit each time for us, but not for the new people we saw every day!

Nutrition

Oh the joys of bike touring ..... you can eat whatever you want ... if you can get it!

We figured we were on about 4 to 5 thousand calories per day. About 80% of our food was bought in restaurants (loosely defined) along the way with the remaining 20% from grocery stores / markets and cooked by us.

We didn't have any problem getting the calories, or the fluids (water) we needed, but the quality of the calories really varied! The prairies and the lake Superior area were the most difficult for food quality. Lot's of gas station diner fare (burgers and chips) but you could always get chocolate milk and eggs, and we did. In more populated area's fresh veggies, fruit and ice cream were the order of the day!

We found it really important to have a really good breakfast, usually eggs or oatmeal and this would power us through to lunch. When we could, we'd pick up tortilla wraps, hummus (red pepper if we could get it) cucumber and avocados to make an easy, tasty, and high calorie lunch. Dinner was whatever we could find (more gas station diner fare) or a pretty nice restaurant when we were in more built up areas. And there was almost always the end of the day beer. A few times it was a Bud or Canadian, but more often than not something tasty and locally brewed (Beau's Lug Tread Lager jumps to mind).

Lodging

We planned on a combination of camping (when desired or necessary), hotels / motels and friends and family. It worked out that our 94 days on the road were almost equally split between each of these (34 camp, 31 hotel/motel, 29 friends & family)

The first half of the trip (to Sudbury) was more heavily dominated by camping. Once past Sudbury we were into a big run of friends and family, and once we hit New Brunswick (with daytime temps approaching 40 deg C, black flies and mosquitos) and met up with Mark Kraitberg, hotels and motels became the order of the day!

Staying with family and friends was definitely the best. Camping was usually really good, except for the extortionate fees charged at Ontario Provincial Parks (over $40 for a bike and a tent ..... get real) and the hotels / motels were good for a recharge (and laundry night).

Overall we were really happy how this all worked out. Although we were prepared to wild camp, it was never necessary for us and on the entire trip, there were only two nights we didn't have a shower - day 4 in Manning park BC - washed in a stream - refreshing after a blistering day, and in Drumheller, where as a point of principle (or pique?) we wouldn't pay extra for showers at a campground where we were paying close to $40 for a camp site. It wasn't just Ontario that rips off campers!

Speaking of showers, we signed up for Warm Showers just before we started the trip. Given our route, we didn't have too many opportunities to use the community, however we did try on five occasions to stay with Warm Showers hosts. None of these turned out, folks were either away or had other things going on that prevented them from hosting us. Only one of our enquiries was not responded too.

However, once we were back in Canmore, we hung out the 'vacancy sign' on the Warm Showers network in Ma 2016, at the start of 'the season'. Wow, we know we are right on both the Cross Canada and Great Divide mainline routes. Twenty-one cyclists hosted from mid-May through end of June. Some doing cross Canada, some doing the Great Divide, some touring around the Rockies. All great people and a real joy to host. So although we didn't do a big tour this year, we like to think we had a hand in helping a lot of other folks on theirs.

A big tour is likely in the cards for us next year, so hopefully we can use the other side of the Warm Showers ledger.

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So, all in, a great experience. Echoing the famous sentiment of Mark Twain, we hope to have more that rhyme with this one.