May 21, 2016
A day in Cochrane: This guy was an inspiration
It was another cold, cold night, and a cold, slightly wet morning too. Miserable weather, and the kind of weather that gave Vivian an extraordinary zeal and focus. Nothing motivated her to cycle more than the thought of getting somewhere warm and indoors. So we got up early again and set our sights firmly on the town of Cochrane. We only stopped once en route, at an old church (I use the term ‘old’ in the Canadian sense, of course) where information boards told us of the pioneering good that priests did here, in bashing the savageness out of the savage first nations with their bibles. We didn’t go in, because like everything else in Canada in May, it was closed for the season, but we sat on a wall outside next to a pyramid of rocks and ate breakfast. Vivian spotted another wolf/coyote wandering across the fields, and Cochrane became an even more attractive prospect.
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We arrived in Cochrane at 9:30 am and set about looking for my favourite refuge; the library. We didn’t know where it was, however, and in what was a very unusual turn of events, there was a person walking on the street. He was admittedly only walking between his car and a building, but I got to him just in time to ask where the library was. He was a man of around 50, and he was nice, and named Hume, and after telling us how to get to the library he asked us about our trips in a friendly manner. This was nice, although it was still good to have Vivian with me, as she enjoyed answering these questions much more than I did. The problem with such friendly encounters of course, is simply the fact that after so many years it becomes somewhat tedious to be asked the same questions over and over. Hearing the words “How far do you cycle in a day?” was by now enough to make me cringe. I think if I ever cycle around the world again I’ll have a T-shirt made up with writing on the front saying “It depends where I am, but usually around 80-100 kilometres,” because if I hear those words coming out of my mouth one more time I think I’m going to scream.
Just as we were talking with Hume a group of three joggers walked along the street and stopped to see what we were up to. The friendliest was a man of about 60 and he was evidently no good at telepathy because whilst I was thinking ‘If you ask me how much I cycle in a day I’m going to punch you in the face,’ he remained smiling, and invited us for coffee. What with it still being very cold, the library probably being closed, and the people being so nice, it was an offer we could not very well refuse.
The coffee shop was just around the corner and it was really rather pleasant to step in out of the cold to a real authentic, cosy, small-town place. It was much better than Tim Hortons, and was clearly a popular local haunt, as it was buzzing with people and a long line was waiting to be served. Hot chocolate was generously bought for Vivian and I, hot chocolate with cream on top. This was a luxury that my frugal lifestyle rarely got to enjoy, and it was a shame, because in this little coffee shop was real Canadian life. The people here all knew each other, smiles and laughter were shared. It was homely and warm and all the things the cold road was not.
But the real pleasure of this unexpected stop came with the opportunity for me to sit and chat with Martin, the friendly, untelepathic man who had invited us. Martin, you must understand, is an extraordinary man. He is quite possibly one of the most extraordinary men that I have ever met.
I’d overheard him mention to someone outside that he was running a marathon soon in Calgary, and I brought this up, and then he told me something almost unbelievable. He had run his first marathon just a few years ago, but he enjoyed running so much, that soon after that, whilst in his mid-fifties, he ran 250 marathons in a single year. I was flabbergasted. I’d run a few marathons in my time. Three or four, I mean. And I can tell you that running a marathon is way harder than riding a bike all day. Way harder. What this guy had achieved was nothing short of incredible.
But there was more. Every time Martin spoke about himself he revealed something else extraordinary. He’d done ultra-marathons, and broken five world records. All of this was in a so-called ‘Quest for kids,’ ten challenges he had set himself to complete over a five year period to raise money to help kids around the world. “Oh and I climbed Kilimanjaro” he said, which didn’t seem all that remarkable until he added, “in 21 hours.” And the result of all this astonishing effort? $1.3 million raised. This guy was an inspiration.
I really enjoyed chatting with Martin, so very much, and so I was annoyed when a young journalist showed up and asked if there was someone here cycling around the world. News travels fast in Cochrane it seemed. As I was introduced to him Martin took his leave and it was a sudden goodbye and before I knew it I was now sitting opposite the journalist as he opened up his notebook and asked if it was alright to ask me some questions. I agreed, though with a little apprehension. The guy did not seem to be genuinely interested in my trip, just in coldly going through the motions of getting a story. He asked me where I had been, and I told him, but he insisted on writing, slowly, the names of all the countries down in his notebook, which is why I didn’t give him the names of all the countries. It was bad enough being constantly asked the same questions by people that actually cared, but facing them again in a forced and very slow interview process was almost too much to bear.
“And how much do you cycle in a day?”
“Right, I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I’ll get my friend Vivian, she’s got a much better story.”
And so Vivian was interviewed instead, and that was much better, because she wanted the publicity and she was at least doing her ride for a good cause that she wanted to publicise. In fact, while I’d been chatting with Martin she had been going around the coffee shop talking to anyone and everyone about what she was doing, riding across Canada to raise awareness of dementia and to send her grandparents to Hong Kong. At some point she’d spoken to Hume again, and he had invited her to stay at his house in Cochrane for a day or two, leaving her a key and telling us we were welcome to go over and take a shower and make ourselves at home.
So we went to Hume’s house, and he wasn’t home, but we went inside. It felt odd to be in a stranger’s home like that, even more so perhaps because I was just in it for the free shower. I wasn’t going to be staying the night. Vivian was. This was where our unlikely journey together was to come to an end, or at least be out on hold for a while. Although we were through the mountains it had always been my intention to head directly south from here in order to dip back into them and visit the small and less-well-known, but apparently very beautiful, Waterton National Park. In the original plans I had with Dea we would have been crossing from there into the United States and continuing south. Obviously that wasn’t going to be happening anymore, but Waterton still sounded so fantastic, and so much nicer than the alternative of Calgary, that I would still go there before turning east. It was only a slight detour, that would add a mere 200 kilometres onto the trip. Out of 6,000+ kilometers that seemed like no big deal to me, but to Vivian 200 kilometre detours were out of the question. She would continue east to Calgary and then off across the prairies. But this was not necessarily our goodbye, there was every chance, and I certainly felt it inevitable, that we would meet again.
After saying farewell to Vivian I went to the library and wrote for quite a while, then to the supermarket. We had arrived in Cochrane at 9:30 am, but it was after five in the evening when I finally left the town behind. I was pedalling south now on the 22 highway, but it was hilly, and busy, and it was spitting with rain. These things only got worse as I went on, and with fences and empty fields everywhere I wasn’t about to pass up on a chance to camp when I did see one. A section of absent fence invited me to push through a small forest next to a fast-flowing gritty river. This little valley was almost ideal, although I did see quite a number of animal tracks in the sandy ground near to where I pitched my tent. There were some hoof marks, probably from deer, and some paw prints. Coyotes or wolves most likely. No obvious bear tracks at least. Vivian would have loved it.
Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 49,796 km (30,923 miles)
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