Toronto!

It took a while to get here, but we made it to Toronto.

Quick recap.

Calgary, was not that great for biking. Drivers were crazy and there was very little bike infrastructure. But I did get to hold one of the Vancouver Olympics Silver Medals in Olympic Plaza. So AWESOME.

Getting from Calgary to Saskatoon was difficult. The wind was almost never blowing the direction we wanted it to and often in the wrong direction making things slow and difficult. We did get to stay at some nice campsites and met some very interesting people in tiny towns along the way.

Saskatoon was pretty nice, our hosts there were awesome and it was just nice to be done with our long touring leg. Biking hurts your butt, just as an FYI, and resting your butt feels great.

We then got on the train from Saskatoon to Toronto and made a new friend, but also had the worst luck ever. All in all we were 16 hours delayed so instead of getting in to Toronto at like 9:30 AM, we got in at 1:30 AM the next morning. We were very tired, but thankfully got free coffee, tea, cookies, and dinner, plus a ticket worth 100% of what we paid for this ticket. We'll see how useful that is since we probably aren't going to be traveling on Canadian rail in the next year.

So we're here in Toronto, it's pretty humid since we're right on the lake and it's kind of a nice change. Our hosts have a very fun cat and dog and all is good. Shannon's friend will also be joining us for the next leg to Ottawa and Montreal which is pretty exciting.

On another note, there are a lot of Filipino's in Canada and the people are really friendly. We've also been eating a lot more than usual with lots of rice and beans, some pasta, lots of sandwiches with either PB and J or hummus and cheese and spinach. Oh, and we eat a lot of Tim Horton's for breakfast. Shan and my sibling are kind of obsessed with it.

Here's our crazy km's since the last update.

August 11 Airdrie to Calgary 46.53

August 12 exploring Calgary ~3

August 13 research in Calgary ~33

August 14 Calgary to Beiseker 70.14

August 15 Beiseker to Drumheller via the 575 77.32

August 16 Drumheller to Hanna 83.49

August 17 Hanna to Oyen 119.74

August 18 Oyen to Kindersly 99.73

August 19 Kindersly to Rosetown 92.34

August 20 Rosetown to Saskatoon 129.49

August 21 research in Saskatoon 25.10

August 22 to train station in Saskatoon 17.85

August 23 on train

August 24 on train

I've never been more sore in my life.

This will be quick since we have to get out of the hotel in like 30 min.

Today we are getting in to Calgary. The ride has been long and tiring, but good. I can definitely tell that I'm getting stronger every day. I must say though that literally every part of my legs hurts, including muscles I didn't really know existed. Not to mention the insane amount of mosquito bites we got 2 nights ago in camp, which make biking slightly unbearable cause there are a lot on my feet that rub while I pedal.

Anyway, it's been hard, but I'm enjoying it. We've survived a mechanical failure, swarms of mosquitos and a campground that wouldn't accept tenters and managed to not get rained on so far when we thought we would like everyday. We've been eating well, lots of protein in quinoa, hummus, cheese, beans and lots of carbs too with bread, oatmeal, candy while biking. So anyway, here's on Km totals.

August 6 - bike to train station 3.43
August 7 - bike from train station 9.34
August 8 - Edmonton to just south of Ponoka 127.32
August 9 - Ponoka to Innisfail 74.49
August 10 - Innisfail to Airdrie 102.12

Yay, Calgary.

Biking, Biking, and More Biking

Our time in Vancouver has almost come to an end and the more intense parts of our biking adventure will start soon. We've recently decided to start a kilometer diary of how much we bike daily. Hopefully every time I'm able to update the blog I'll include our kilometers for all the previous days.

We went to Victoria (on Vancouver island) on Sunday and came back on Tuesday. It was an intense 3 days of biking and research, the other component of this trip. It was the first time we had biked a lot of kilometers with all of our stuff and really camped with our stuff too. Everything was amazingly beautiful though. The bike trails in Victoria wound beside the sea, through farms with pigs and chickens and deer, through mini forests, and on a hill leaving the view of the sea and the other islands behind the houses. We got to stay with a friend of a friend the first night who gave us a great bike map and told us what to check out the next day, but that wasn't necessary because we got a first hand look at downtown through a contact my sibing had with a city councellor. He led us around Victoria, showed us new bike improvements and other highlights of the city. We then worked our way to our campground, also nestled in a mini forest, where we proceeded to burn our cous cous and failed to wake up on time to our alarm.

We did research on our way out, biking certain segments of the city and evaluating it before getting lunch and heading out. Another great part about the trip is the ferry ride between Victoria and Vancouver. Victoria is on an island, nestled behind some other islands and so the ferry ride from Vancouver goes by numerous islands that are super green and through an ocean with seals, just a beautiful sight.

Back in Vancouver we've been doing the research we need to get done here and frantically trying to plan as much as we can for the rest of the trip while we still have free internet access and multiple laptops to work on. We leave on a train to Edmonton tomorrow night for a 24 hour journey through the Canadian Rockies. As beautiful as they are, I'm glad we aren't biking them, because my legs are already in a permanent state of sore and are greatly going to appreciate the little rest they'll get on the train.

Hopefully I'll get to update from Calgary.

In kilometers (since I've installed the odometer)
July 30 trip around Stanley Park - 24 km
July 31 trip to UBC and back - 27 km with a big hill
August 1 trip to Victoria - 44 km
August 2 trip around Victoria - 36 km
August 3 trip back from Victoria - 67 km
August 4 research in Vancouver - 24 km
August 5 research in Vancouver - 58 km