Let's begin...

May 27 – Vancouver to Rolley Lake Provincial Park (75.71 km)

Well my first three days have been good if froth with delays – especially day 1.

Day 1 was plagued with equipment adjustments. The day before, I had put my bike together and all seemed well, but apparently I am overconfident of my mechanical abilities. I started my ride at about 7AM. I wanted to do the cliché thing and dunk my wheel in the Pacific Ocean and then take off. I did the next best thing. When I arrived at the beach, moving my bike through the sand was like, well running it through sand (as you can see my ability to create clever similes have not improved). Since I was next to a dock I rolled my bike to a pilar and there it was written “repentez vous”. Well, I first found it odd to find a something written in French and that it was written that one should “repent” seemed appropriate considering I was going on this quixotic journey. So I layed my bike there, took the picture and started on my journey.

I planned to do as much mileage as possible and stop for breakfast in the outskirts of Vancouver. However, I found that my rear derailer was not working well. I stopped, made an adjustment and even though it sounded better, I thought it wise to have a pro look at it. However, the bike shop only opened at 10. So my breakfast in the outskirts turned out to be breakfast downtown. When the bike shop opened, I brought it in and Larry the mechanic told me that the rear derailer was fine, but my front derailer needed an adjustment. He suggested I take it out for a spin and it did sound a lot better and I went off. After a while the ticking sound in my rear derailer returned. Oh well, it will do for now, but on my next day off I'll go to a bike shop and see what's going on.

So the bike ride started around 10:30 and at about 11:30, I was going down a hill in Port Moody when I noticed that one of my saddle bags was hanging on only one hanger. I stopped without any problems, but this was a bit worrying, because if a bag falls when riding, it can throw off your balance and cause problems. Anyways, I took about an hour to figure out a fix for it. Essentially, I'm tying my bag to my rack with a zip lock. Not very elegant and a bit McGiver-ish, but it's doing the job. If anyone has faced this problem before and has any suggestions, please pass them on.

So what was supposed to be a short easy day, ended up going from 7AM to I think around 4PM.

May 28 – Rolley Lake to Harrison (69.21 km)
Short anecdote. This morning I was attacked by squirrels. It was crazy, at one point there were 5 of them taunting me and lunging for my food. Whoever thinks those little rodents are cute is sadly mistaken. One of those demon spawns actually chewed through a dry bag in which I was keeping my food.

Other than that, today, was more or less uneventful except that it was a beautiful day and the wind was thankfully at my back:) I did have to extend my ride however as my first campground choice (a provincial campground) was a dump. I had seen one along the way that seemed inviting and backtracked after being disappointed with my initial choice.

May 29 – Harrison Mills to Hope (54.14 km)
Last night was absolutely beautiful. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping – it was totally Norman Rockwell worthy. Well things turned overnight and the skies opened up and it rained hard for a while. Thankfully, my tent proved to be up to the task and I was dry. A bit of humidity on the sleeping bag, but nothing bad. however, my tent was wet and some of my gear was as well. My tent is super tiny you see (I'll take a picture one of these days) and my panniers could never fit inside. So I left them under cover and it worked out pretty well, but the system isn't perfect.

Anyways, unless the weather turned, I knew that I'd want to stay in a motel for the evening in order to let my stuff dry properly. Since Harrison Mills doesn't have much to offer, I decided to bike a little ways to find a motel. Well it was cold, it was raining and it was windy (thankfully, most of the wind was at my back). So after a couple of hours, my rain gear was drenched and I was cold. I peddled faster to keep my body temperture up. I felt it a bit on the side of my leg where I assume my IT-band is. So I'll have to mindful of that in the days to come. I've never had problems with my IT-band, but I've been told it is a trip stopper if it does act up.

Like I said the wind was generally in my back so I made pretty good time and reached Hope at around 12:00. I didn't go any further because I was cold and according to my map, the next town that could guarantee having motels was about 100km away – wasn't going to happen today. So I'm now in the Royal Lodge Motel waiting for my laundry to get done (yep, I'm living the life of luxury:)

I think I figured out how to load my pictures. Check these out to see if it works: My first few days