The weather around here is amazing! Sunny skies, not terribly windy, plenty warm but not hot enough to worry about heatstroke. It is a good week to be making final preparations for the bike trip, a couple trips out to Cochrane to test out the legs and lungs on the big hill… etc etc.

Unfortunately I’ve been parked and my bike has been racked for the whole extent of the beautiful weather thus far due to a little wound on my foot

I was out go-karting with friends at Dave’s bachelor party on the weekend and had a little run-in with a big fat pile of tyres. A little love-tap from behind sent me sideways into the edge of the track and when the go-kart stopped I didn’t and my foot from the gas pedal swung over and connected with a protruding bolt on the steering column. It’s not terribly deep and really it’s mostly just skin that’s missing, but I am once again learning patience because I can’t have the wound re-splitting open by getting on a bike too quickly.

Those wheels are supposed to arrive before the end of the day so I doubt I’ll be able to stay inside tomorrow, they’ll need a little trial run for sure!

In two weeks I’ll be heading off to bed in Seattle Washington knowing that the very next morning I’m going to get on a bike for the first day of the cross continental adventure. I was out at a campfire celebrating the final week of the bachelorhood of my friend Dave late on Friday night (early Saturday morning really) and the bike ride was a topic of conversation for a bit, as it always seems to be. That’s when it really dawned on me that this whole deal is coming up really really quick. I had been busy working at Pioneer Ranch Camp teaching outdoor ed and not paying a whole lot of attention to the calendar for the past two weeks. What was very recently a whole month away is now close enough to start counting sleeps.

The question I think I’ve answered more times than any other is “how’s the training going?”. The answer I’ve been giving comes in two parts. First: I have no idea I’ve never done this before, and secondly: I think I’ve been ready since the May-Long weekend. I am quite sure that I’m ready to tackle the summer but I’m also grateful that the first weeks are a bit tamer in terms of daily mileage than the average for the summer, I anticipate easing into it rather than jumping right in.

The $10000 goal is also getting nearer on almost a daily basis. I surpassed the $8000 mark today, and the final stretch even though it is a serious portion seems hopeful. Thank you so much to all of you who have helped to get this far. If you’re planning on making a donation but haven’t yet this week would be a fantastic time to do so!

I heard today that I’ll be riding on demo Bontrager wheels over the course of the summer. The guys at Trek have identified the SeatoSea bike tour as a unique opportunity to get a bunch of people to conduct performance reviews while doing relatively high mileage in a relatively short period of time.

I have no idea what kind of wheels I’ve agreed to ride on but they have been touted as “lighter and faster” wheels that will “climb fast and roll easy” so I anticipate that they’re something along the lines of my Cosmic-Elite rims. A very high performance training wheel or an entry-level racing wheel.

I don’t get to keep them indefinitely but I will be putting on probably 7000 kms over the course of their use. I’ll post pictures when I get them next week.

Highway 40 is the highest paved piece of asphalt in the Canadian Rockies and is closed over the winter due to large amounts of snow, it remains closed through the spring season to encourage natural migration of wildlife in the valley until the middle of June each year. The gate at the south end is approximately 37 kilometers from the summit of the pass and is a popular road to get in some cycling prior to opening to vehicular traffic each spring. You can even get away with parking jobs that look like this:

Each year since 2005 there have been a group of cyclists loosely associated with the Sea-to-Sea trip of 2005 that have made an annual event out of the ride. This year 15 cyclists showed up at the gate around 9:45 am and were ready to set off up the road. Amongst them were 4 cyclists from Alberta participating in the Sea-to-Sea bike ride set for the summer of 2008 which would begin in exactly 1 month!

• Joshua Krabbe
• Kathryn Matzigkeit
• Gerry Loonstra
• Fred Folkerts

After setting off it was a group of 5 people whom I ended up riding with for the majority of the ride up the pass. And when I say up I really do mean up, there wasn’t a whole ton of freewheeling and the breeze even though it was gentle and inconsequential that day was certainly not to our benefit. The sun was out and everyone was in a good mood and conversation topics for the day varied from triathlon to cleaning up after messy teenage girls to some cycling related topics unmentioned in the interest of good taste. Even though our group of 5 never really saw anyone else from our group of 15 until we parked for lunch I can only assume the whole entourage must have been enjoying a similarly spectacular day with great weather and good company.

Following a lunch break just at the bottom of the final ascent we rolled out as a group of eleven and made our way up the last and steepest portion of the highway. Rounding a bend within 2 kilometers of the top our path was blocked by the remaining snow from the winter. So much for actually getting to the top of the pass this year, discussing with some other cyclists on the road (and there were many, this road is not a well kept secret) the snow averaged knee deep for a whole mile and in places was going to be hip-deep. No-one had the motivation to get wet just to take their picture by the sign which should have looked like this (the 2007 edition). So we gathered for another snack (only 5 kms further up the road, but don’t tell anyone) and a couple group photos.

The benefit of riding uphill for a good portion of the morning into a minor headwind is that there is no reason whatsoever to break a sweat on the way back to the vehicle. Of course I retained the right to voluntarily break a sweat because I had a score to settle with my personal land-speed-record. My season’s best thus far had been 74 kilometers per hour and change. I had also dealt with a little bit of speed wobble occurring starting around 72 kph when clocking that speed into a rather moderate headwind. Off we went down the hill, and it was fast. After 4 kilometers of being totally spun out in my top gear (125 rpms in a 53×12 gear can’t get me past about 68 kph) or tucking in with my chin resting on the handlebar stem I looked down at my bike computer. My average speed was in the high fifties and rapidly falling as I coasted up a hill. I decided I needed a photo of that average speed, it wasn’t about to happen again soon. By the time I had my camera out and could snap a photo my average speed had fallen all the way down to fifty. We regrouped after the next pitch which wasn’t quite as steep and then compared top-speeds. If I recall correctly there were 6 of us who had cracked the 70 kph mark and I had indeed broken my personal best with a 75.3 kph recording.

The rest of the ride out was fast and 4 of us swapped pulls at the front. I managed 5 more times to get over 70 kph down various pitches. That’s amazing for something that is typically a rather rare occurrence for myself. I think I had only done so 13 times before in my entire life (last season I rode without a cycling computer so it is inexact). I’m going to quit counting now, a better question obviously is “can I get to 80 kph?”

More photos from the day are in this year’s Training Gallery

The map of the route including elevation profile can be seen here which indicates the elevation from the start to the turnaround was 630 meters.

Here’s a cool story, it’s a bit of a nightmare to keep track of names I’ll admit, but consider yourself lucky I’ve got 140 names to learn when I arrive in Seattle in 5 weeks.

Neil, Ellen and I went for a short bike ride on Saturday morning and upon the return of Ellen and I to the Yellow-House Jenna had left a message for me with Amy. Amy was
dutifully relaying the message when Jenna called again, obviously so excited by the message she had for me that she couldn’t even wait for Amy to pass it along.

Jenna was in Edmonton for a part of the weekend looking for a house for her and Betty, and I was up for a conference and a bunch of meetings regarding the research group I’ll
be joining in September. I also happened to find time to go biking a bit and visit all kinds of cool people but I was specifically not in the business of looking for a house for myself and the three other people I’ll be living with. A 5 bedroom house came up in the listings a few days prior and Jenna was able to track down someone to show it to her, she got a hold of me after really liking it and I saw the place as well. We managed to get a hold of all of the other people who would be living in that place via telephone and kinda got the go-ahead to keep pursuing it. The connection with the landlord was made around 7:30 pm and we set up plans to met her at Tim Hortons 15 minutes later. A previous pioneer-ranch-camp volunteer, very caring lady and sister in Christ showed up with a huge smile on her face and by about 8:30 there was a signature on the lease!

Now, the process of renting a house doesn’t make for such a great story all by itself but here are a few kickers. Jenna and I had a discussion somewhere in the blur of the afternoon about needing to learn a thing or two about resignation to His plans. A pretty
much continuous stream of prayers were answered to allow the process to move along smoothly (I needed to get to Calgary for Church the next morning), does 7 hour start-to-finish define quintessential smoothness or what? We were even able to get a hold of all parties on the phone. The matter of fitting 6 people into a 5 bedroom home was tidily resolved and really affirmed by a few comments by the landlord! Michelle has somewhere to go when her current lease expires. The only real request for a home made by me was answered in spades! I requested that wherever I live has got to have a proper kitchen and this one rocks: gas range, ceiling height cabinets, excessive counter space, natural light, dishwasher and adjacent dining room.

If this is how God responds to our request for housing that has only begun in earnest recently I can only imagine how great his plans are for the things that have been consistently in daily prayers since January and last summer. I have a crew of friends heading over to Africa for the month of July to work with Christian students in Zambia. The opportunity of that group to foster leadership growth in those students is so unique and has amazing potential. My involvement with the mother-of-all-bike-rides this summer continues to require prayer. Here are a few specific requests:

• For the right route. Give thanks to God for enabling Ed Witvoet, our operations & logistics manager, to finish charting the exact route across the continent.
• For support crew members. The tour still needs a few volunteers to travel with the tour to ensure a smooth and safe journey. Please pray for people to consider this opportunity and apply.
• For increased awareness. Ask God to bless the efforts to communicate and promote the tour and its goals to churches and individuals so far, and to give creativity to organizers to spread the word further.
• For tour sponsors. Pray that those being contacted as possible corporate sponsors will catch the vision and come on board to help underwrite tour expenses.
• For celebration rally planning. Local committees are busy planning the many Sunday celebration rallies along the route. Pray that all the details will come together so these rallies glorify God, unify His church and motivate all to serve the poor.
• For cyclists. Riding across North America is a major challenge and commitment that needs the support of family, friends and co-workers, and the Spirit’s clear discernment. Pray for safety as riders train for the tour.
• For the steering committee. Organizers have a lot to plan with not a lot of time. Pray for wisdom in decision-making and unity within the committee.
• For those living in poverty around the world. May compassion be evident in God’s people and may justice prevail in the hearts of those who govern.

I wish I had a camera when I rolled back into town last night after 120 kilometers of riding in the rain. I was caked in sand and mud from the bottom of my rib cage to the ground. There were little stream-like channels cutting through the dust layer where the water running down my body had preferentially eroded the layer of sediment. It was worthy of Paris-Roubaix.

I was attending a research conference/retreat 60 kms north of Edmonton and opted to send along some dry clothes with a friend and ride out there on my bike. I guess I was just giving myself an opportunity to test out the rain gear. On the ride out I got wet from above but then proceeded to ride the next 50 kms without a ton of furthur precipitation on roads that weren’t terribly mucky. The result was a relatively wet-but-clean individual arriving 10 minutes late for breakfast due to the wind.

The same can not be said for the return trip. I changed out of my comfortable dry clothes and pulled on wet bike shorts and knee warmers, put on shoes that were still slightly damp, put a damp beanie on my head and sinched up all of the drawstrings on a wet rain-jacket. I rolled out onto the road and was greeted by some of the hardest rain I’ve ever ridden in and a headwind to work against all the way back into town. I got pretty cold right off the bat and decided that I would warm up if I worked harder. Working harder when there’s a headwind is tricky, I’m still learning to gauge it. Within 10 minutes I had gauged incorrectly, I wasn’t going to make it home at that pace. The sand began to cake on my legs and the water streams made their way into my booties and my feet were then fully soaked. I reverted to old habits of spending alot of mental energy on calculating all sorts of stuff. I calculated garbage statistics on the ride almost continuously for the first 45 minutes as I worked my way through “percentages complete” and “average speeds” and “arrival times” until I turned south following a little west-directed jaunt and was blasted again by the headwind. I considered trying to recruit one of the many pick-up trucks to give me a lift back to the city-limits. I considered taking a break from the rain in some unattended machine shed. After a really rather brutal 15 minutes crawling along at less than 25 kph into the wind I stopped at the side of the road to help water the grass even though the rain was doing a sufficent job of soaking everything anyhow. I decided to take a drink from my water bottle even though I wasn’t thirsty knowing that I had been working pretty hard and was still going to get dehydrated in that weather. I got a mouth-full of grit even after doing my best to wipe off the sand. Rather frustrated by my inability to spit out a spoonful of sand from my mouth I decided to just get going again I pushed off and started pedalling. I soon realized that some bits and pieces of sand had, in the process of stopping and restarting, worked their way under the leg grippers of my bike shorts and were going to chafe and rub for the next 32 kilometers on the way home.

I opted to try and quit calculating at this point because I know it’s a bad habit. I crouched over and put my chin on my handlebars as I tried to gain every ounce of speed that I could rolling down a big hill and barely managed to get up to 40 kph with the headwind, argh! (it’s at least a 60 kph coasting hill with no wind) While I had already rhetorically asked myself plenty of times why in the world I was doing this, it was at about this point (now at the bottom of a hill of course!) that I decided I was going to try and answer the question.

I realized I could sit on the gritty bike seat and answer the question philosophically, or I could try and do it honestly. I figured the honest route was probably harder and since I still had about 70 minutes of riding left I’d tackle that one first (I never can quit calculating that stuff). Besides, the philosophical route is the easy one, I just figured I was out there because it was good practice for the summer. I’d need to ride some wet days and giving the rain-gear at least one full fledged trial run was a good idea.

Honestly though, I had stuff to prove. I had offers to get a ride back into town with people at the retreat that I refused. I wanted to maintain a certain image: the guy who is crazy enough to wake up an extra hour and a half early just so he can bike to the retreat, and will even do it in the rain. The image that I experienced no discomfort from the weather (as the sand worked it’s way further up my thighs), that I was so well-adjusted that I appreciated the beauty of a rainstorm even when taking it head-on. (I had suggested to some people that watching the sun come up through the rain was great that morning – which it was). I wanted all of the people in cars driving past me to have respect for the determination for the cyclist at the side of the road. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to build fitness. I wanted to be able to tell the story of the time I rode 120 kms in pouring rain and cold and mud even though I didn’t have to.

So, the honest version isn’t particularily glamourous, it’s more than a bit selfish and to be honest it takes a bit of courage to write it here for the whole world to read. Luckily I suppose, I wasn’t nearly home yet. I was at 206^th avenue and needed to ride to 79^th. Another opportunity presented itself, calculate my pace-per-block on the way back in and then reverse calculate the average block length. I resisted the temptation (completely this time) and figured I had better listen to what the Big Guy was suggesting. I had a lot of terrible reasons to be out on the road in the rain.

I was going back to a house that would allow me to hose off the mud in the back yard. I had a change of clothes inside that were dry. There was a shower that was going to be warm. I could probably manage to get my hands on a big fat pot of tea within the hour. I wasn’t going to have to go back outside that day unless I wanted to. I’d be able to get the grit out of my teeth with water that was certain to have no grit in it. I had everything working to my advantage and it was pretty obvious once I figured that out.

My discomfort was pretty insignificant once I considered it. Sure, I was the wettest person within Edmonton’s city limits (even people in the shower weren’t wetter than me) but I had a massive list of reasons why I’d be warm and dry within the hour. The list of people who couldn’t get warm and dry that evening kinda sickened me.

I suppose that’s where I’m going to quit the story though, my conclusions aren’t completely formed yet anyhow. So much for thinking the philosophical answer was “testing out the rain gear”.

While my 201 km ride on friday was on the long end and it was quite hot (somewhere between 28 and 30) the ride two days later on Sunday took the cake with regards to reminding me what it’s like to ride in warm weather. It was easily 30 degrees by 10am and the thermometer on some handlebars recorded 34 at one point which is probably a bit high. A few long dry stretches had relatively low winds so the feeling of getting baked was definately there.

John (Left), Gerald (not pictured, SeatoSea 2005) and Art (Right, SeatoSea 2005), and myself (center in the retro-Tri club jersey) headed south on highway 93 from Elko BC to the American border and back. The road surface was absolutely fantastic and the route is mostly flat with a few stellar hills in the mix. I figured it was downhill both ways which seems to suggest that it really was pretty close to flat and I did plenty of drafting.

I hope to have a few more opportunities to get out and ride when it’s smoking hot before starting out, a bit more acclimatization to summer will help out in that regard since I’ve been doing loads of riding at significantly! lower temperatures than the hot days we’ll experience this summer. I anticipate that when the forecast is close to 100^oF that we’ll be getting on the bikes early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day but nonetheless they’ll still be a challenge for a northern dwelling warm-blooded individual such as myself.

The plan for Friday the 16th of May was to depart Calgary early in the morning and ride as far as I could get form Calgary. The plan was foiled in some sense by a pretty stiff breeze from the south that cropped up after about 80 kms of riding. It got stronger the further south I got and eventually got to the point where I only managed 20 kms per hour for my last hour. While that is a fine pace and is more than respectable it’s not an hour that is going in any of my record books.

The grand total for the day was 201 kilometers and I followed this route south from Calgary until I arrived at the Burmis Tree which is a local landmark in southern Alberta. The tree is long dead and is severely disfigured in it’s growth due to the heavy winds it experienced over it’s lifetime. I had hoped to make it quite a bit further if the wind agreed but it wasn’t going to be the case last Friday and I surrendered to the parents’ van knowing I’d be able to get in a lot more riding if I didn’t push the envelope too far that day. I’ll post some photos when I get my hands on them as well as videos when I download them to the computer.

OK, here are the photos: first is the arrival at the little rest area on Highway 3. Two and Three are rather self explanatory… me my bike and some random tree that looks kinda cool:

This was my second ride in excess of 200 kilometers, the first one I did and documented back in August 2007 when I rode 215 kilometers and it only took me 7 more minutes including my stops! (I timed that with a watch, not an automated bike computer). A couple observations about the ride were that my cadence seemed to speed up as the day went on for about the first 100 miles and then began to tail off towards the end. The cause of that is probably partly due to the headwind but it seems to me that it’s probably a decent indication that my fitness is on par for about 160 kms of riding at what I’ve learned to call a “steady plus” pace (Ask Gordo Byrn about that if you want).

In other Sea-to-Sea related news I have been very encouraged recently by a large number of people making responses regarding the fundraising aspect of my life at the moment. Things are moving along at the moment as numbers add up bit by bit. That $10 000 that has seemed a rather distant goal at some points during the last year might not be as ludicrous at it seems.

A huge thanks to all of the people who recently made donations! I’ll get a new tally of things sometime in the next week or so for an update.

Video Log #6

Followed approximately 3.5 hours later by Video Log #7

I also wrote about this bike trip in another blog entry that can be found here.

Video Log #5