Gary Liu's cycling trip across Canada
Hi Buddy, you are great! Where are you going to start from? From SFU campus to have a downhill start or from Victoria somewhere called Canada trail Zero Point? Are you going to carry a Coca Cola banner or something else? It is going to be really fun all through the trip. Waiting for your pictures from the trip!
Greetings to you all
I'm writing this from the Library of the Thompson Rivers University of Kamloops. It's 1:25pm and the weather is sunny and very hot at 25C outside. Today is our rest day in Kamloops, we burnt a CD of ~100 photos to send home. My bike is in the shop for a new freewheel body because the old one is screwed and made noises in past 2 days.
In short, past 4 days of riding summary:
Day
1
Vancouver to Hope, 160km in 9 hours. We took #7 then switch to the Maple Ridge ferry to Fort Langly and went on Hwy #1. Started picking up headwind after Chilliwack, a bit hilly near Hope area. Roger's parents got us a motel for the night for sent-away gift (Thanks).
_river_meets____Fraiser_(brown)_river_in_Lytton.JPG)
Day
2
Hope to Lytton on Hwy #1. 110km in 9.5 hours. Very hilly after the town of Yale. We met two other touring cyclist: Ben and Gordon from Toronto. Four of us split a motel room for the night (~$10 a person). It's the toughest day so far because of the ~80km of hills. Both me and Roger had a flat each. My rear 'bullet-proof' Conti tires got punctured by a scrap metal lying on the road.
Day
3
Lytton to Cache Creek. 90km in 7.5 hours. There are less hills and scene changed was nice as well. camping
Day
4
Cache Creek to Kamloops. 88km in 7 hours. 2 big hills after the town of Sovona, where we ate lunch. hostel in DT Kamloops.
Out of past few days, Day 2 was an eye-opener for me in terms of hills. There were 7% grade hills that runs for a few km's at times ("into the heavens as I would call them"). We were either paddling up or coasting down for hours.
It's a bit frightening to know that the hills we've seen are nothing compare to what's about to come: In a few days we'll be riding from Revelstoke to Golden, which stretches 160km with Roger's Pass (1320m) awaits us in between. But the weather is good so far. Also, from the forecast we see that there are clouds and drizzles on its way next week, which is more than we can ask for while slowly climbing up a long hill. We're better conditions as the day goes by and kept on lightening our loads by sending stuffs home.
Most of people we met on the road are nice. Small town folks would come and ask about our ride and wish us luck. Most of the truckers are really nice and would go extra length to make sure there's extra space for us when they passed by. We did, however, had an 18-wheeler that got within one foot when it passed us by at 60km/hr on a passing lane in Day 2. Maybe the driver was curious about our destination and wanted to ask us a question?
Scene changes. First two days we saw very thick vegetations, awesome cliffs and deep valley. Starting on the 3rd day all we saw are gentle hills, loosely packed trees and more 'interior BC' look. We also passed by a few sections that's burnt from the 2003 forest fire. Most of the burnt trees have started grown green again, which is a relief for me.
I am not sure if there's good internet access in next few days when we really tackle the Rookies. But I will send a short 'check-in' message whenever I can. I am very grateful for all of you who replied my E-mail and am trying to write back as much as possible.
Gary Liu (Fri, 13 May 2005)
Checking in from Revelstoke
Hi all
we're checking in from Revelstoke's SameSun hostel E-mail room. The computer screen shuts off after 10 minutes unless I put another 4 quarters. So this has to be short.
We're fine (safe and a bit tired), washed and fed. The infamous 160km Revelstoke-Golden stretch awaits us tomorrow with the giant Roger's Pass looking down on us (and mocking us).
The forecast for tomorrow is showers. Well, at least better than 30C+ sun.
Tomorrow will be a very interesting day. Even I am very excited to see how will it turn out. In any case, we are ready for its challenge.
Short recap of last few days. We rode out from Kamloops to Squilax, the hostel is amazing. We lived in one of the three Caboose (train cars) and went to see the two resident lamas. The next day we rode to Sicamus and stayed at Marco's place (thanks a lot Marco), which is also like a little paradise "at the end of the world" as Rudi put it. Today we got here in Revelstoke and wondering what tomorrow has for us in store.
I thank all of you for responding. I cannot reply your E-mail at this time (it's almost 10 and we have a big day tomorrow). When we got into Calgary or Edmonton I'll write back to all of you.
Thanks for keep track of us. Have a safe and fun summer
Gary liu (Mon, 16 May 2005)
Reporting in from Golden
We made it!! in one day!!
We got into Golden BC last night around 9:45 local time (8:45 pacific time, which I'm still on) after about 11 hours of riding. But we made it!! (details follows). So today is our resting day.
Summary for last few days of riding:
Day
6 (Saturday 14th): Kamloops to Squilax, 67km in 5 hours, cloudy very flat all
the way until near the town of Chase, then a bit of up and downs right after
Chase. Squilax hostel is right beside the highway and is an amazing place with
Lama farm, small dock and canoe with a beaver den nearby. The sleeping quarters
are Caboose (train cars). It was awesome.
Day
7 (Sunday 15th): Squilax to Sicamous, 76km in 5 hours, cloudy fairly flat until
right before Sicamuse. A fairly size hill right before Sicamous. Marco's dad
took us in for the night and brought us up to the farm he has, with sheep
(guarded by a lama), chicken farms and an awesome trail walk in the forest.
Roger turn 26th today (Happy B-Day Rog).
Day
8 (Monday 16th): Sicamous to Revelstoke, 91km in 6 hours. cloudy showers Rolling
hills, not too big, enough to keep us alert on the road. Revelstoke's got a
cool hostel.
Day
9 (Tuesday 17th): Revelstoke to Golden, 160km in 11 hours. mtn weather Started
9:30am and kept on gaining elevation all the way through. Started going up
Rogers Pass at noon, summit by 3pm. Hotel on the summit cost too much so we
decided to 'drop the hammer' and push for Golden. Thought it would be all
downhill but still have to climb out of Beaver Valley. Pulled into Golden by
8:45pm on our watch, but actually 9:45pm local time. Motel and pizza, we
deserve it.
Day 6, 7, 8 have been very easy riding with awesome accommodation at the end of the day. In the Squilax hostel, I was like a 5-year-old, running around and taking pictures everywhere with the dock, lama farm, Caboose rooms and the awesome view. The next day we were treated with another paradise. Rudi runs a guesthouse for family friends and we're very lucky to have Marco (a physics grad student in SFU) introduces us. The place is about 10km out of town with amazing view and has a lama doing the lawn/guard duty for the sheep farm, a chicken farm, 2 dogs and 4 cats. Rudi took us around the back to see the reservoir and a walk in the forest. The Revelstoke hostel wasn't bad either, we got to see the Revelstoke dam up close and took many pictures (shiiii, don't tell anybody)
The combination of day 6, 7 and 8 gave us an 'on vacation' feeling, for a few moments I thought about I didn't really deserve all these treatment because I haven't done much riding yet (haven't even cross the province). Then Day 9 hits hard, very hard. The Rogers pass almost broke us. We were seriously considering staying at the Best Western hotel for the night. But the price was out of our league ($125 per double room, the hotel can only do business in summer time so everything is so expensive.), so we decided to 'drop the hammer' and push for Golden at ~4pm. It turned out to be a big gamble that I probably won't repeat again (of course I will... :-)...). The sun came out right after we came down of the pass and gave us extra energy (it has been cloudy, rainy and miserable for the whole summit). By 6pm (pacific time) we were about 35km from Golden and were in pretty bad shape with all the built up fatigue..But amazing things happened: All the inbound trucks on the opposite lane gave us 'honking salute', some even stick their thumbs out. They must have been driven the Revelstoke-Golden stretch for n-times and knows that if they see riders on this side of the pass in the late afternoon, the riders must started in Revelstoke in the morning and pushed over the summit for Golden.
The encouragements were amazing, we found new energy to push on. We felt like heros. But in fact we're just too cheap to spend the night in the hotel on the pass.With this note, I will leave you along and with some of the selected pictures from previous days.
I thank you for all of your replies and will try to write back as much as I can. I am flying back from Edmonton back home for my convocation on June 1st and flying back to Edmonton on June 4th. I wish to see many of you during the time I'm back in Vancouver.
Thank you for your patients
Gary Liu (Wed, 18 May 2005)
Reporting in From Calgary
Greetings to you all from Calgary, the City of cowboy hats, sun and cars (Please check your mail box space. I've started getting 'mail demon' from overflow mailboxes.)
Today is the 15th day on the road, also marks the first day we step into the prairie and ended the first quarter of our journey (the Rockies).i.e.: there are still so much riding ahead...
Past few days of riding summarized as follows:
Day
11 (Thursday 19th) Golden to Lake Louise, 90km in 8 hours, freezing rain.
Second (and last) stretch of the infamous Rockies. The big climb out of Golden
was tough and dangerous. Then entering Yoho national park we were 'rewarded'
with an hour of freezing downpour. After a nice lunch in the village of Field
BC we started going up Kickinghorse pass (1622m above sea level), the highest
point of our journey. But the road turned nice and flat once we got over the
pass and crossed the BC-AB boarder. A long day
Day
12 (Friday 20th) Lake Louise to Canmore, 88km in 6 hours, overcastting Very flat
road into the town of Banff. The scenery changed as well. We're now in
the very 'touristy' part of Rockies where every view is 'picture perfect'. We
took a break in Banff so I got to be a 'bloody tourist' for two hours, taking
picture at everything and going to museums.
Day
13 (Saturday 21st) rest day in Canmore. A long-waited rest day (again), my left
knee hasn't been doing good since Rogers Pass and the Kickinghorse Pass really
add a number to it. Roger is nursing a flu from the hypothermia on day 11 as
well.
Day
14 (Sunday 22nd) Canmore to Banff, 110km in 5 hours, sunny Very good ride into
Calgary, we said goodbye to the Rockies and the east-bound wind pushed us into
Calgary. It's our first experience with the prairie wind on this trip and its a
good one. The tail wind kept us zipping on the highway at ~40km/hr for most of
the day.
Day
15 (Monday 23rd) rest day in Calgary. The mountain terrain did a number on our
bikes, we use these 2 days in Calgary to patch up the bikes a bit. But today is
Victoria day, even MEC is not open so we did what we could. We will stay in
Calgary for one more day.
The scenery changed again in last few days. From the edgy cliffs and impossible climbs to flat highways and the endless mountains with snowy tips in the distance like a painting from somewhere. Banff region is truly beautiful in a 'picture perfect' way, no wonder it's the tourist capital of Canada. Then on Day 14 we enter the prairie 'the land of endless skys'. The wind pushes us from Banff all the way to Calgary in merely a few hours. I hope the wind will be this helpful in the future (hey, I can always daydream...).
We heard about the results from the BC provincial election and the crucial budget vote in Ottawa and we're keeping a close track on the situation. We also heard that the Queen Elizabeth II is in Alberta right now and will be in Calgary on Wednesday, the day we head northeast to Drumheller. Perhaps we'll rub shoulders with the royal visit?
We've seen many wildlife in the Louise-Banff region, include a few bears (even with cubs in one incidence), elks and mountain goats. Following are selected pictures from past few days.
It's good to know that (maybe) the most difficult part of the journey (the Rockies) is behind us for now. But I'm sure there will be other unforeseen dangers awaits us. The Alberta wind, the black fly in Ontario, the language barrier in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces that we have no first-hand info regarding the road conditions and so on...
But we're ready for the challenges and a bit excited for what's ahead of us. I will keep you all updated the best I can and I'm also eager to hear from you about what's going on back home.
PS: please check your mailbox size, each of my 'reporting in' e-mail is
about 1MB and I've already gotten 'overflow mail demon' from some of you.
Have a safe and happy summer
Gary Liu (Mon, 23 May 2005)
Greetings from... well, home in Vancouver
Hi all
{I’m
actually writing this from the computing lab of SFU Burnaby campus.} “What the
h—l are you doing in Burnaby?” you ask.
It’s actually quite important for me to be here today, because I officially graduate from my n-year program (don't ask) this afternoon, and my classmates, teachers and parents can finally have their closure of getting rid of me…
After me and Roger made it up to Edmonton from Calgary via Drumheller, I flew in from Edmonton Wednesday afternoon and will fly out tomorrow morning. The cycling trip continues on Sunday.
The memories from past few days have all blend into riding against the wind, dinosaurs, West Edmonton Mall and the chocolate bars on the flight… It’s a long story, so I’ll just give you the highlights:
Wind:
In the last mail I said something about ‘…the toughest part is
over…’. WRONG!! We found out, the hard way, that taking the prairie wind head-on is actually tougher than paddling up the Rockies. On the day we ride from Calgary to Drumheller we were taking 25kmh (with ~40kmh gush) wind head-on most of the time. A simple 135km on flat land took us nearly 10 hours. I thought the term ‘constantly uphill’ used by other tour cyclist to describe the headwind was merely a ‘bragging right’ until that day. In a way, taking headwind was worse than going uphill because the wind never stops, which weights down heavily on morale. Honestly, I think the day of Calgary-Drumheller is at least (if not more) as difficult as the day of Revelstoke-Golden with its Rogers Pass summit.
Dinosaurs:
Dinosaurs! Dinosaurs! And more Dinosaurs! Drumheller is one of the most famous
fossil sites in the world. Most of the fossils are exhibited in the Royal
Tyrrell Museum. I was a 5-year-old again, running around in the museum and take
pictures everywhere. The town itself is very…‘dinosaur-y’ with mock-up
truck-size dino models at all the city corners.
West
Edmonton Mall: after spending an extra day in Drumheller, we finally arrived at
Edmonton. Mike Craig, a friend of ours, let us stay at his place for the week.
I got a really good chance to see Edmonton, the city of sun, flat (yet cracky)
roads, and giant box stores. I also got to spend a whole day in the largest
modern man-made ‘cathedral’ of our time: the West Edmonton Mall. It’s the size
of 4~5 times that of Metrotown-Eaton Center mall and has an ice-ring, playland,
mini-golf, waterpark, 200-men wavepool all built in. It’s a tourist heaven, and
I’m such a tourist…
The mentality changed as the scenery changed in pass few days. Because we’ve been taking a few rest days ever since Canmore, I’ve slow down on my homework and documentation process (ie. Writing journals and E-mails). It’s a very dangerous mind-set because homework piles up really easily, now I owe about 4 days of homework that I really don’t feel like doing.
Hopefully I’ll get back onto ‘the edge’ once cycling starts again on Sunday.
In a very old-school stereotypical sense, this ‘side-trip’ home for my convocation marks the end of a chapter in my life, while the ‘next chapter’ starts with the remaining parts of the cycling trip. The trip is only ~20% done and there’s so much more to ride, other than the physical difficulties awaits us ahead (like the wind, the black flies…etc.), a new entry on the ‘enemy’ list is my own laziness that I have to be aware of from now on. So, until next time…
PS: This E-mail is about 1.5MB, please make sure your mailbox has enough space left and so on.
Gary Liu (Fri, 03 Jun 2005)
Reporting in from lloydminster AB/SK
Well...
Sitting
here in the tech room of Mercury Wireless in DT Lloydminster. The owner here is
kind enough to let me use their setup for an hour to send this to you.
Lloydminster locates right on the boarder of AB and SK, the road that runs down
the center of the town is the actual boarder. It's a wonderful little town that
I spent 8 months in back in 2003.
Past few days are quite interesting and I have some interesting news about team OVERLORD... well, let me start from the beginning:
Friday-Saturday (in Vancouver)
The convocation went well, a lot of important people (like the chancellor, the president of the school and the senate) that I never met before gave a lot of sensational speeches speeches. We had a very cute valedictorian Ms. Venessa French. And there's a lot of photo-taking and so on. The flight back to Edmonton got delayed for 3 hours because of mechanical troubles, which is more eventful then I'll ever look for in a flight.
Sunday:
Edmonton to Vegaville, 110km in 7 hours, sunny 17C, wind E 10km A pretty good
day, team OVERLORD is joined by Angus C., a friend of Roger's and a retired
physics instructor from NAIT. The headwind wasn't all that pleasent but we kept
at 15kmh. For me this is somehow familiar road. Running into the UofA
triathlon team was exciting, as well as the giant sausage/egg in Mundare /
Vegaville. We also got treated for an awesome prairie sunset.
Monday:
Vegaville to Vermillion, 95km in 7 hours, cloudy 13C, wind E 20km Headwind!
Headwind and more Headwind! At 20km headwind our speed slowed down to 13kmh and
we slowly advanced in the prairies. Lunch at Innisfree truck stop (no jokes
about the name please), the Hwy-16 burger was amazing:
2 slices of beef burgers with cheese, chedder, mushroom, bacon...etc. my heart just about stop after I finished. Camping at the Vermillion Provincial Park with some cold drizzles, it was a good night of sleep.
Tuesday: Vermillion to Lloydminster, 35km, sunny breaks 10C, wind E 30km. The brutal headwind continues. Three of us crawed in the wind at 10kmh. About half way trough, right after the Isly intersection Roger complained the massive pain at his knee and we had to stop, call a cap from Lloyd that takes us into the town.
So
here is the interesting news from team OVERLORD: Roger is fine, the soft tissue
in his knee has to rest for a week before he get going again. So he is going to
bus to Saskatoon and I will ride with Angus and meet him there.
Honestly,
going against the prairie wind is tougher than paddling up the Rockies. Our
muscles are well-conditioned for the Rockies and still feel the burn and cramp
in past two days because of going against the wind. But the good news came from
the Weather Channel this morning: The wind will turn from East to West by
tomorrow morning!! I am very excited!!
I thank all of you for replying and I will do my best to write back. As of now team OVERLORD is about 2 days behind schedule and we'll start cutting back rest days to make up for it. Meaning the next time I write to you will probably in 10 days or so when we're in Winnipeg MN.
I wish you all have a fun and safe summer.
Gary Liu (Wed, 08 Jun 2005)
Reporting in from Winnipeg... with interesting twists...
Greetings to you all
This is from the I-cafe on Osbourn Ave. in DT Winnipeg, the city that used to be called 'Chicago of the north' and is full of sun, history, culture and summer atmosphere.
However, I have interesting news about team OVERLORD: Both of us are at the end of recovery from our injuries. Roger went down right before Lloydminster as I told you in the last update. For me, it's a bit less interesting:
On
the morning of June 9th when me and Angus started heading down towards Saskatoon
from Lloydminster, we passed by a stretch of highway without shoulder. There
was a foot of pavement after the white line on the right side of the two-lane
separated highway, then a ~2" drop to loose gravel. It must've been the extra
coffee I drank in the morning that I steer the bike into the shoulder. What I
supposed to do was to keep on steer to the right and go into the shoulder and
slow the bike down. But instead I tried to bent the handlebar back to the
road. Without a lot of details, it turned into positive feed back of the
weak-damping handle bar that magnified the wobbling and I went down. (again,
without a lot of detail).
The present I got for the crash was a bruise on the left quad and some pain on the right knee. Eventually I had to put a golf ball into the right knee (see the picture below, it's really cool). In a way, I take it as the gift that the city of Lloydminster gave me to remember it by for... well, ever.
After
the fall, the bike was fine and I kept on riding for the rest of the day,
arrived The Battlefords, 130km from Lloyd, a beautiful twin-town by the river.
On the next day we rode another 110km to Saskatoon and met up with Roger, who's
staying with Ken, a friend of Angus'.
At that point I decided to get off the saddle and bus to Regina, then again to Winnipeg (I will talk about the reminiscent of this action shortly...)
Ken treated us with excellent meals and did everything he could to help us box our bikes and carried us around town to the depot. From there we went down to Regina, the beautiful capital of the prairie province of Saskatoon.
We
only stayed for one day in Regina, then took a 9-hour bus ride to Winnipeg.
Arrived Monday night. I checked out my knee in the Misericordia Hospital with
X-Ray on Tuesday, nothing was broken nor cracked. Then yesterday I went in for
physio-therapy that made everything much better, I even took a 30km round bike
ride to the Royal Canadian Mint in the afternoon. With everything felt normal
today, Team OVERLORD is ready to head east tomorrow.
Let
me tell you something about Winnipeg now that I spent 3 days here and combed
most of the downtown-village region:
It's a very different city on its own, compare with the cities from BC, AB and SK. Winnipeg is the only major city in Manitoba, so it has to do the job of both the capital and the economic / industrial center. It's also the last major 'outpost' to the eastern prairie/western Ontario before the Toronto metropolis area. Therefore it's one city doing 2~3 cities worth of job and it does well. Due to some interesting urban planning, the DT Winnipeg is full of 100-year-old heritage buildings stacked between post-modern sky-scrapers. The population is also a lot more diverse than all the western-prairie cities I've visited. The Red River curved and twisted its way through the city center and, due to the recent downpour, is at the verge of flooding (The River Walkway, like the Seawall of Stanley Park in Vancovuer, is submerged ~1.5 meter. It has been raining for 17 days straight in this supposedly dry month).
The
major tourist attraction includes Royal Canadian Mint, which makes all the
circulating coins in the Canadian market (the Ottawa Mint only makes collector's
coins), as well as coins for foreign countries (currently Thai, Suadi Arabia and
others) at the rate of 6 million coins a day with change (no pun intended...
hehehe...). Others includes the Royal Manitoba Museum of Men and Nature, which
focused on the history and development of the Hudson's Bay Company (ie. Canada)
and the history of Manitoba region, as well as a mock-up of the DT Winnipeg of
the 1920's, when it was known as 'The Chicago of the north'. There are also the
Forks market area and other heritage buildings enough to fill up my time when
I'm not shuffling between the hospital and the physio-therapy.
Because
the linear distance from Saskatoon to Winnipeg, through Regina, is close to
1000km and me and Roger skipped it by bussing the route, therefore at this point
I can no longer call this trip a 'bike trip', but rather a 'vacation'. Even
though we had good reason to take the bus, our odometer will be 1000km short by
the end of this trip. However, we will keep on riding and eventually reach St.
John's Nfl on 2 wheels in mid August. Past 2 weeks we've learn a lot about
ourselves and learn to respect the prairies in a new way, after all, it's the
prairie wind, not the Rockies hills, that broke us down.
In any case, we're both healed back to ~100% strength and ready for the new challenges awaits us.
I thank you all for your patients to read this long and I'm very interested to hear from you. Starting tomorrow me and Roger will head east into the rural region of northern Ontario, where Internet connect may be difficult to come by. But I will do my best to keep you interested and keep up the E-mail replies.
Have a safe and fun summer.
Gary Liu (Thu, 16 Jun 2005)
Checking in from Kenora, ON
Ontario at last!
I'm in DT Kenora, a beautiful town of 16,000 right at the side of the 'lake in the woods' in northern Ontario, it's an amazingly beautiful place.
Interesting thing about team OVERLODR: our 'membership' has grown to 9 people in last few days. Yap! NINE touring cyclists! We're still picking up more cyclists and eventually will become a big convoy that hog the entire lane of the road. Strength is number, and we're definitely getting stronger.
Other than me and Rog, there's John from UK met up with us in Winnipeg, Jennifer and her dad Rick (in his 60's!!) cycling from Van to Toronto, Adam from Halifax, Michael from China and a couple from Nanaimo cycling from Saskatoon to Thunder Bay. We also met the family that's cycling across Canada (Mom and dad in their mid 40's and kids in their early teens) that we've read about them on www.crazyguyonabike.com for so long, it's awesome that we finally met them.
The interesting thing about this part (northern Onterio) of the country is that there's only one pathway going through northern Ontario, compare to n-ways to go through the Rockies and the prairies. So cross-Canada cyclists get 'funnel' into this section of Canada around early-mid June and meet up together and trade stories. It's awesome.
I don't have much time here and won't be able to do a photo-update. But team OVERLORD is doing fine and will be on schedule heading east tomorrow. I thank everyone who had replied to my last E-mail and will try to write back.
PS-1: the first photo from last E-mail was meant to show the swollen right knee to the size of a golf ball so I can brag about riding on it for another 250km before calling it stop. Some of you are 'enjoying' the picture the wrong way and gave me some... well, saucy replies, I'm grateful about that too.
PS-2: Mom, Dad and Ted, please don't worry about me now that you seen the photo of my injury. My knees are back to normal now and are putting out 100% on the road.
Gary Liu (Sat, 18 Jun 2005)
Photo from Thunder Bay ON
Hey guys and girls
I'm
in Thunder Bay Ontaro, the game-only internet cafe owner is kind enough to let
me send out a few photos.
I'll type up a report and send out shortly.
In the 3rd photo "0622 team OVERLORD dinner.jpg", the team OVERLORD are (from left to right): John from UK; Jen from Toronto; Adam from Halifax; Roger; Rick (Jen's dad); me; Micheal from China.
I'll talk to you guys shortly
Gary (Thu, 23 Jun 2005)
Checking in from Wawa, ON
Hi everyone
Just a short check-in from small town of Wawa, Ontario. All 6 of them OVERLORD members are fine. Wawa is a beautiful small town sandwiched between Wawa Lake and the great Lake Superior. We did two one-and-half days to get here so today is a rest day.
Past two days have been tough, we were right in the middle of the NW ON heatwave. Especially yesterday, 30C with humidity up to 70% (high enough the sweat doesn't evaporate and one became hot and sticky all over), 30~40kmh headwind in mountain regions.
And there were a big stretch of 75km without water source, added up to 135km for yesterday. But it's worth for a rest day today.
It's the middle of summer right now so I can see situation like yesterday repeat itself many times ahead. I have to prepare myself mentally for that. Because yesterday could easily be one of the toughest days on the road so far. Even tougher than the day of Rogers Pass.
I will try to update images whenever I can, in the mean time, stayed tuned to channel OVERLORD.
Will be right back
Gary (Tue, 28 Jun 2005)
Happy Canada Day from Sault Ste. Marie!!
Hello Everyone!!
Happy July 1st!! It's Canada Day! Greetings from Sault Ste. Marie. Sault Ste. Marie is a beautiful little US-CAN boarder town sandwiched between the Great Lake Superior and Lake Huron. We got in last night and today is a rest day. There's firework tonight at the harbour and I'm very excited.
This is a boarder town, so, naturally, I tried to 'invade' US this morning and had a 'run-in' with the US custom officers:
I rode across the US-CAN boarder bridge in the freezing wind this morning. At the boarder booth, the guard looked at my single piece of ID (I only brought my citizenship card because my driver's license is in renewing process) and told me to 'go to the garage over there'. It's not until the guard in the garage closed the gate right after me that I noticed I'm been treated as a hostile. In short, 6 armed officers 'politely' asked me to park my bike 'at the corner' of the garage and take out my stuffs and talked to me while one officer stood silently at the opposite corner of the garage with his hand on the holster all the time. After I blah blah blah-ed about my trip, my background and my school work for about 15 minutes (because I was very very scared). The officers decided that I'm harmless and let me go. Before waving me goodbye, One of the officers told me "Well, you're ok, usually we don't stop cyclists but you took out your camera and took a few pictures, that kind of stunts raised red flags right away so we have to follow the book and bring you in to talk to you. I checked your camera, the photo you took are alright because they're just about the boarder sign and the US flag, but if you were to take photos of the facility or the officers, we have to arrest you on site..."
Hmmmmm..... can you spell 'stupid me'?
Lesson learned....
Well, that's enough rush for today, I'm now back in Canada and writing this to you from the YMCA 30-min limit PC stations. I can't upload pictures yet but I will do so whenever there's a chance.
Enjoy your Canada Day
Gary Liu (Fri, 01 Jul 2005)
Reporting in from Toronto ON
Greetings from Toronot, THE metropolis of Canada.
We arrived the Brampton region yesterday (Brampton to TO is as Coquitlam to Van) and was treated by Roger's uncle with warm home-made meals and warm beds (believe me, after 3 weeks in the wild, these are luxuries we can only dreamed of). For today and tomorrow, we're staying with Jen's parents. This is also the end of Jen's journey cycling from Vancouver to Toronto. Her work as an outdoor guide in the kayak outfitter in Wawa starts on July 24th.
Maybe we can convince her to come with us to Ottawa or Montreal or somethin'...
So now Team Overlord membership is reduced down to 3 people, me, Roger and Jon from England. Adam 'Lightspeed' Clay from Halifax took off in Sault Ste. Marie and is about a week ahead of us while Michael from China is looking forward to fly home.
In
past 3 weeks Team Overlord went from Winnipeg to Toronto across the northern
Ontario region. It was a bitter-sweet triumph because on one side, the road
condition really leave us cold sweats at night because of the single-lane
highway with no shoulder and large trucks zooming by's. Riding such terrible
roads in the middle of deadheat against the wind is really something I rather
not remember.
On the other hand, we have witnessed the most amazing scene of nature on the road, off the road and when we set up camps along the beach. The sunset along the Great Lake Superior and Lake Huron just take one's breath away.
And yeah, I would easily do it all over again for all the money in the world...(I think I used that analogy wrong... Pardon my 'Chinglish')
The attached are selected photos from past 2 weeks or so. Enjoy...
I only have dial-up connections at Jen's parent's place in TO, but I'll try to respond to all of your E-mails asap.
Gary Liu (Thu, 07 Jul 2005)
Greetings from Ottawa, the Capital of our country
(for those of you who're not from Canada, well, the capital of MY country then...)
We
arrived in Ottawa today at noon and will be staying for an extra day. Ottawa is
a bit city that's full of history, culture, awesome heritage buildings, gigantic
museums and fantastic sight-seeing's...etc, etc. etc.
I
am a 5-year-old kid again. This is so awesome. The HI hostel in Ottawa used to
be a jail, tonight we're staying in warden's room. Tomorrow we'll be in an
actual jail cell!! This is so exciting... (in a weird way...)
The interesting thing about arriving in the city early is that we clocked in a big day yesterday: On top of the ~100km normal distance, we decided to push for another 45km around 6pm so today will be a short day.
Why?
To avoid the mid-afternoon 'human grill' heat wave.
The heat wave is nothing we have seen mid-30 deep-blue sky burning sun with extreme humidity so the wind blows onto your face actually burns. This summer is the hottest summer in Ontario on record (as we learnt from the news yesterday). And 2 days ago was the hottest July 11th on record since 1949, burning in at 35C with humidex 43C.
Me and Roger clocked in 145km on that day, from Cobourg to Kingston
Nah na-na Nah Nah.... (I can't help to brag about it)
No, really, it was hot, in the mid-afternoon around 4:30~5pm, it felt like the entire body is boiling. The heat cuts our appetite as well so we have to force ourselves to eat or we'll bonk. I deal with it by soaking my jersey in cold water and wear it while riding. Luckily, this region is the origin of Canada and has well-populated small villages scattered all over so supply wasn't an issue.
The up-side is that the region is amazingly beautiful, all the little villages has its own history to tell and its unique heritage and awesome sight-seeing opportunities.
Therefore, I'm a 5-year-old kid again. Taking pictures like crazy, here are some selected ones, enjoy.
Gary Liu (Wed, 13 Jul 2005)
Bonjour and greetings to you all from Montreal.
Montreal is the 2nd largest metropolis of Canada. The 'city' of Montreal itself is actually an island. The 'greater Montreal Area' included Laval and several other nearby suburban sections. Like Bby, Cqt, NV to Vancouver.
We
clocked in 185km on Friday from Ottawa to Laval following Hwy #148, riding from
8:30am to nearly 9:30pm before calling 'plan-B'. The 'plan-B site' we stayed
was... well, interesting to say at least. I cannot reveal too much detail
because this is a PG-13 E-mail. All I can say is that there was a mirror on the
ceiling as big as the bed...
We kept the door bolt locked all night. This unique 'plan-B site' gave us a good reality-check, telling us that things are truly different at this part of the country. The culture is a lot more liberal and we have to beware of the changes. (You're welcome to ask me for more details...)
But
Montreal itself is a lovely city by all means. Things are running a lot
differently than everywhere else. For examples: You are NOT allowed to turn
right on red-light. This makes cycling a lot safer but traffic jam gets a lot
longer. The traffic lights are on the side of the street instead on the top.
The houses are also very different. We saw 3-stores buildings split into 2
units, with main floor-basement being one home, and 2nd/3rd floor being the
other. With separate entrances and stair goes up to 2nd floor. Houses like
this made up the majority of Montreal residential area.
Montreal
is also a very cultural city, the entire section at the south end of the island
are preserved as heritage-style buildings with tall French-style 3/4 floor
building and narrow streets like what you see in the European movies. There are
giant cathedral-style church buildings everywhere.
The only down side is that my limited language ability, It's like back to ESL again (but this time, it's FSL), I have to use my imagination to guess what's going on when I'm talking to people. Fortunately, English is still very common in the Montreal area, walking into a store we often hear English pop playing in the background. So no problem so far. Well, I'll let you go. However, I am interested to hear from you, how are things back home? Did the London bombing shake people up? Are people following tour-de-France? How's the weather? Are people heading outdoors and enjoying the summer?
In the mean time, stayed tuned...
Gary (Sun, 17 Jul 2005)
Bonjour from Quebec City!!!
Bonjour and greetings from Quebec City, the very heart of our French-speaking province.
BTW: Team OVERLORD made team history on Monday 18th, clocked in 215km from Montreal to Grondines (a small town along Hwy #138) in 12.5 hours...Nah na-na nah Nah (I can't help to brag about it, I am sorry...)
We arrived Quebec City around 3pm yesterday, the HI hostel locates in the middle of the vieux-Quebec, or the old Quebec. It's a 10-block-by-10-block area that used to be the old English strong-hold located on the top of a steep hill overlooks the St. Lawrence River. Now the whole area has been preserved as a giant National Historic Site (and a world-class tourist attraction), with the Citadelle, Hotel de Ville, Basilique Notre-Dame-de-Quebec and many other awesome sight-seeing places in this little area. All of the street blocks have been preserved as the old pre-1900 European street settings with the 2~3 store apartment-style buildings and narrow streets like what we saw in the movies.
In short, every street block is picture-perfect. Like a little tourist haven... Hmmm...
As our trip progresses east, it feels like we've been shown the history of Canada in reverse order: From the recently developed prairies (due to oil boom), to Winnipeg as the 'Chicago of the North', to the wild, uninhabited northern Ontario. Then the prosperous Toronto-Kingston area with its rich culture and history. Then we entered Quebec, seeing the metropolis of Montreal, which was founded by French settlers in 1642. Now Quebec City, one of the oldest cities of the continental North America: originally as an Iroquois village discovered by French explorer Jacques Catier and founded as a city in 1608, went under English rule in 1759 after the battles of Abraham Plains and became the capital of Quebec province after confederation.
We are literally in the birth place of our country, the region is well-populated and well-rooted. A lot of the time on the road we have difficulty to see where one town ends and the next one begins because it's so populated. Catholicism also has its deep roots in the region, every tiny town has at least one cathedral-type church that's well maintained and used to this date.
Right now Quebec city and its region is on the top of
my touristique-de-Canada destination list. In few years time when I am fluent
with French (did I just set a personal goal?) I'll come back for a short
vacation and really see everything AND understand them, not through bitter
look-and-guess translations embarrassment.
I do, however, want to make a point of the weather. We're in the middle of an extreme heat wave (again!!). Past few days the humidity was locked around 95~98%. With temperature sits around low/mid 30's. 'Humidex' went up to early 40's. It's literally like cycling in a sauna with sweat pouring out constantly but not evaporating.
We'll be leaving the region soon and entering Atlantic provinces in a few days. Hopefully the weather will be better, at least not as humid.
Often on the road I wonder what's going on in Vancouver, I miss home sometimes. But realize that it's the food that I'm really missing (ie, mom's cooking, and stop making eel noises! all of you!). Asian food, especially sushi and tofu are very rear out east and are treated as luxury items on menus. I miss tofu, a lot...
Enjoy the photos of Quebec city and send me a message some times!
Gary Liu (Wed, 20 Jul 2005)
Crossing boarder to NB
Hey Everyone
it's 6:30 Saturday July 23th. We're at the boarder of
QC and NB. I'm writting this from the free internet at the tourist 'welcome'
information center.
Weather has turned cool finally because we're in the Atlantic region. Things are good. We have a new member cycling with us, Andrew Ross, who also has a webpage from crazyguyonabike.com, go check it out!!
We have to go, nice to hear from all of you. I'll have a better picture update from Fredreicton in a few days.
Gary (Sat, 23 Jul 2005)
Greetings from Federicton!!
Hello and Greetings from Federicton.
Federicton
is the small yet amazing capital of the lovely province New Brunswick, probably
THE only truly bi-lingual province in Canada. Out here everything you see are
doubled-languaged. Even in grocery stores. The signs have both languages on
there. I'm so glad that I can read and understanding people again...
It's a very beautiful province for sure. Past two days we've been taking secondary highways that runs parallel to major trans-Can artery and got a real chance to see the farming and residential communities along-side the St John River. Every small community is unique and beautiful (very difficult to describe it with my Chinglish...)
Oh, we biked passed the town of Nackawic, the hometown of Casey LeBlanc, a contestant of Canadian Idol. I personally do not follow the show. But it's amazing to see the local supports for Casey, nearly every home we passed by in the country side has a sign on the front lawn 'Go Casey Go', or 'Vote for Casey'.
Needless to say, people are very friendly out here.
As we entered the Atlantic provinces, our trip is riding towards its end on August 9th. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, especially Jon (the British guy who cycled with us since Winnipeg) leaving early (when we head north in Nova Scotia to Nfl, he heads south to Halifax to catch the flight home). As well as Roger. Past months we spent nearly every moment together and became brother-like close. It saddens me to think of leaving them.
But
our departures are only temporary, in a few years I will visit the UK and go to
see the Globe Theater where the first Shakespeare plays were shown, and the
famous (or infamous) London Tower and cycle through Europe to see the birth of
western civilization. I am sure I'll meet up with Jon and catch up, having a
good Genesee in a sunny afternoon out in the yard and laugh at all the stuff
happened 'back in 2005'. On the other hand, I'm actually looking forward to the
new school year where I'll be loaded with courses, TA-works and research. Back
to the normal 'wakeup-work-eat-sleep' routine, instead of the 'wakeup-cycle like
crazy for 10 hours-find a place to sleep before dark' craziness.
If
there's only one thing I learnt so far on this trip, it's to appreciate the
simple things we took for granted like clean drink-able running water, working
toilet facilities, simple meals, a roof to sleep under and not-hot-not-cold
temperatures.
Also, authentic Chinese food is very difficult to come by out here on the Atlantic. I found one today, the chef is a Taiwanese, came over here for 30 years! It's so lucky for me to have some good home-style food 6000km from home!!
Okay I have to let you go before going onto another long and boring rant.
BTW: We got interviewed by CBC Radio today by Jennifer Sweet, a reporter of the CBC Radio Information Morning, it'll be aired in Atlantic Provinces on Monday mornings, not sure if you can hear it back home in BC. But do tune in on Monday mornings people!!
Enjoy the photos
Gary Liu (Tue, 26 Jul 2005)
Greetings from Charlottetown PEI
Greetings from Charlottetown of Prince Edward Island.
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This
is the birthplace of Canadian confederation, just imagine: During the 1864
Charlottetown conference of British North American colonies, the 'Canadians'
such as sir. John A. MacDonald and Georges Etienne Cartier 'invited themselves'
(ie, crashed the party), saying that they're only here as 'observers'. Between
the paid lobster dinners and the 70 or so boxes of champagne they brought with
them they somehow got the idea of 'one united nation' through and hence started
the confederation process.
Rest is history.
Charlottetown
is a small 'city' of 40,000 people and in every way friendly and 'touristy':
There are re-enactments of the 1864 conference by students in Victorian customs
which is held everyday free for the tourists to see and the downtown area is
full of Victorian-style houses and restored heritage buildings.
PEI
on the other hand, is an island of gentle hills, rich farmlands and friendly
people. I am really sad that I couldn't spend more time at this land, where the
legal structure of our country was born. It's also a very
environmental-friendly province because of its small land-mass. most of the
soft drinks are glass-bottled in order to be recycled. The island recycles 98%
of its glass bottles!!
On the other hand,
I have... well, somehow not-so-pleasent news:
There's no easy or funny way to say this, so... I had a small accident 2 days ago when team OVERLORD was just leaving the city of Moncton of New Brunswick. There was no damage to the bike, I, on the other hand, had some minor injury to my left knee. Without giving out too much details to freak out my parents (sorry mom and dad). Here is what's going to happen:
Me and Roger are leaving Charlottetown tomorrow morning and keep on heading east. We will be cycling, however, we will be doing short 'half-day's': about 50~70km a day (no more 180km+ double-days, my knees won't allow it). With this new strategy, we will be able to catch the Friday afternoon (Aug 5th) ferry from Sydney Nova Scotia to Newfoundland and come back to Halifax a few days later.
Well, I wish all you a safe and happy long weekend. Please do tune in on Monday morning to CBC, especially in the Atlantic provinces.
PS:
any 'get well' replys will be greatly appreciated (8-))
Gary Liu (Sat, 30 Jul 2005)
crash test dummy...
Still from Charlottetown...
Just trying to freak people out, here is a photo of me right after the 'tiny' accident...
To Mom and Dad: I am alright, everything is fine. Please don't worry about me. I'm in good hands and will phone home the first chance I got.
Gary (Sat, 30 Jul 2005)
check-in from St. Peter, Nova Scotia
Greetings from St. Peter, a small town at South side of Cape Breton of Nova Scotia.
(it's amazing to see your 'get well' messages. I am very grateful and will write back ASAP. If you haven't write me... Get to it!!)
We left Charlottetown on Sunday to avoid the traffic and made it to Trenton, Nova Scotia. Yesterday we rode to Port Hastings and decided to do a half-day (finally) to St. Peter today.
Right now my knee has passed the 'acute' stage (soft tissue has recovered and bruise formed) and is on it's way to full-recovery. But the recovery will take time because of the location of the bruise. However, it's putting out ~80% of its original power and has nearly full range of motion. So in short, as long as I don't over-drive it, it'll be okay.
We'll be in Sydney NS tomorrow and is on schedule to catch the northbound ferry to Newfoundland Friday afternoon. We'll be in St. John's in good times and stay for a day or two before bussing back to Halifax. I will need to talk to my supervisor professor Jeff Dahn and figure out the details about registration, courses, research directions and so on and Roger will be flying back Vancouver, with mid-stops at New York, Toronto, Montreal and (possibly) Edmonton to visit family/friends that we 'brush passed' on this trip.
(can't believe that the trip is at its end...)
Nova Scotia, with is ocean-side views, thick forest and hills, reminded me a lot of BC and it's every bit as beautiful (if not more) as the 'Beautiful British Columbia'. The famous 'Cobbett Trail' that stretches the contour of Cape Breton is suppose to be the most (or runner-up) beautiful scenery IN THE WORLD. I did not include the Cobbett Trail into this trip, but there's always next year....
I don't have USP access in this town so I cannot upload photos. I will try so in Sydney or St. John's.
I hope to hear from all you soon
Gary Liu (Tue, 02 Aug 2005)
Not until the fat cyclist sings....
La la-la la La..... La-la-la-la LA....
lalalalalalalala..... (ok, that's annoying enough...)
Greetings from St. John's Newfoundland!! The final destination of our trip!!
After taking the 14-hour overnight ferry from North Sydney, we arrived Argentia of Newfoundland Saturday morning 6:30am and was greeted by miserable rain and strong headwind. The weather eventually got better in the afternoon as we go through the nearly sub-alpine terrains of Newfoundland on Hwy #1. We entered the city limit of St. John's at 4pm local time and arrived in the downtown area an hour later.
St. John's is a lot more prosperous than I have imagined. The city spread out into a big area on the beautiful hills surrounding the St. John's harbour. The downtown area is ever so lively with live music (no pun intended...) everywhere (partially due to the on-going Folk festival) and full of tourists. The harbor area is also full of very short but steep hills (~15% in a few places) that we had a lot of fun with. The famous George Street at the downtown area has ~30 pubs within the two blocks of its stretch and was well packed throughout the night with patrons lined up to get 'Screech-ed in'. The Basilica St. John's overlooks the entire harbor on the hill...etc.
The
next day we biked up the hilly sections of Hwy #11 to Cape Spear, the most
eastern point of continental North America as a celebration of the end of our
trip. We spent the entire afternoon sitting at the shore and looking at the
tides smashing down at the coastal rocks and slowly reminding ourselves that
this is only the end of a small chapter of our lives and there are many things
lying ahead of us:
Our
plan is to catch the Wednesday morning bus heading west to Port de Basque on Hwy
#1, from there we will catch the ferry back to North Sydney and shuttle back to
Halifax. Our ETA Halifax is Thursday afternoon. From then on I'll be busying
getting settled down and getting ready for school while Roger will work out his
flight details to NY, TO and finally back to Vancouver.
Wow, I cycled across Canada...
I thank all of you for your reply and will try to write back to you as soon as I can. Right now I am building up my on-line travel journal on crazyguyonabike website and will release it once I am done.
Gary Liu (Mon, 08 Aug 2005)
My cross-Canada cycling on-line journal in works...
Well, it's 6:20pm on Sunday in the East Coast city of Halifax. It's been raining all day with the low clouds and 11C temperature...Just like Vancouver...
It's weather like this made me miss home. I'm sitting in my office (more like my 'cube') and trying to figure out the High-Temperature Series for the susceptibility of the spin-half Heisenberg Model on the simple cubic lattice...
Yap, time to procrastinate...
I am here to tell you that I have finally started putting together my on-line travel journal for my cross-Canada cycling tour at www.overlord2005.crazyguyonabike.com. It has a lot more photos and day-to-day details of the journey than you have received through the E-mails that I sent you during the trip in the summer. It's still a work in progress so do come back to it regularly.
Also, I promised myself to make effort to make regular contacts to my friends on the other side of the country. This doesn't really count but I am trying to do better (so don't be surprised if you received 'how are you' type E-mails from me)... give me some credit here.
So, how are you? The seasons are changing and temperatures are dropping quickly, I wish you dry and warm, no matter where ever you are.
PS: There is only one more mail that will come out of this mailing list and that is when I have completed my crazyguyonabike website. My apologies if this kind of mass mailing annoys you. Please contact me if you want to be removed from the list.
Gary Liu (Sun, 23 Oct 2005)
Interested in more cyclists' stories and pictures, please visit http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/.