Pictures!

Hey all

The knee is almost ready- I have/had a meniscal tear in my right knee. After resting it for a while, and after going through 2 physio sessions, I should be good to go for Monday when I meet the boys in Montreal. It hasn't been fun being home- but some things are just out of your control.

We are gonna have a fundraiser pub night on Friday June 1st in the Market - I'll keep you all posted on the details as soon as I get them.

Cheers Guys, enjoy the pictures!

Mikey

Adrian after doing his business.

Rainer is always cute. always.

The tent life.

My dip in the ocean. Like the sweet rain gear!?


The team's dip in the ocean

On top of the MacDonald Brige in Halifax

The set-up outside the Halifax Airport

My Trip on Hold

so- bad news.
After biking from Halifax Nova Scotia to Moncton New Brunswick, I have flown home to Waterloo to nurse and injured right knee.

I will be back with the boys in 5 days...but for now I'm healing at home, and I'm not very happy about it.

One thing is for sure though. Whatever distance I miss- I will bike once we are done in Vancouver. Instead of flying home after our trip, I will be flying back to Moncton to finish my own trip.

Our travels so far have been incredible- we have met some amazing people, we have come together as a great cycling team, and we are really enjoying our experiences.

My knee was bugging me for the past few days- and on Saturday, it all went bad. I woke up knowing that I would need to be checked out once we reached Montcon- my knee was sore, tight, and swollen. But I had no idea how bad I would need it.

After we stopped for lunch on Saturday at a Pizza Delight (we treated ourselves), my knee was intensely painful and tight. After lunch I led the group to Moncton (about 25 km) in the most intense pain I have ever experienced, propelling the bike with my left leg mainly.

I biked all the way to the front door of the emergency room, where I was x-rayed and told that I have pretty impressive ligament damage, that I should not put any weight on my knee for at least 4 days, and that I couldn't cycle for 7.

So the boys are biking in New Brunswick now- I will meet up with them in Quebec, and eventually we will ride into Ottawa together on the 1st or 2nd of June.

Despite the knee thing- the trip has been amazing. Together, we can really fly...we can get up to 35km/hour easily if we are on flat terrain. Unfortunately, we are a bit behind schedule because of HORRIBLE weather in the east coast. It has rained on us each day. The worst day we biked through a 3 degree temperature which featured a downpour at the end of the day.

But we have all fallen in love with bike touring, and I can't wait to get back with the boys.

We Are So Good At Halifax.

Wow. so much to write.
I will keep this one brief though, because we are on library computers which specify "no e-mail, chat or games please".
But this is a blog, so I think I'm in the clear.

I last left off at the Halifax airport.

We left the airport with our spirits high- ready to take on the 30 km bike ride to downtown Halifax. After accidently biking the wrong way down some small one way airport streets, we were on the road.

Everything was going great until 5 minutes in when I realized that Adrian and I were missing Brad and Rainer. We waited for a while, to see if they would catch up...but that didn't work.

So, we biked back about 2 minutes down the road, only to find Rainer with his first flat tire. That's right- 5 minutes into our journey we already had a flat. But Adrian and Rainer fixed it quick, and we were back on the road.

After that, the mirror fell off my bike (i left it behind), Brad's saddlebag fell off of his bike (Adrian swiftly avoided it, as he was drafting behind), and Adrian's arrow handle bars broke (not the main important handle bars). So, our ride in was quite interesting- but we handeled it all quickly and properly...looks good for the rest of the trek.

Riding into Halifax was amazing- we rode over the MacDonald Bridge into Halifax, and stopped for a photo at the top. I love this city a lot.

Rainer's friend Nick has given us a place to sleep for the 2 nights we are here, and everything is going well. We have caught up on the sleep we missed, as we napped all of yesterday evening (4pm-9:30pm), and we slept from 11:30-9:30am today.

We toured around Halifax for a bit today- and got our first media coverage! Some local station stopped me on the street to ask us questions for some magazine show. Would you believe the questions were "is there a certain event you are looking forward to this summer", and "do you plan on taking a vacation" (or something like that)?! So, we of course took the chance to speak about the cause, and our trip. Please don't forget to visit the speakwithspokes.org site when you can, and make a donation if possible.

Now we are doing some more tourist-y stuff, and soon we will

HALIFAX!

So, we arrived in Halifax this morning at 8:30am local time.
We were at the Ottawa airport at 4:15am...our flight took off at 6am (I slept all the way).

Upon arrival in Halifax, we got our boxed bikes and saddlebags right away, and went to try to piece together our rides.

We found a patch of grass in the airport's parking lot- took out our tools and put our bikes together. Now, it must be said that Rainer, Brad and myself have little-to-no knowledge of how bikes work, or how they are assembeled. So Adrian helped us through the process. Now we know more about bikes.


3 hours later- we were all done. haha. After the assembly- I fell off my bike while trying to hop off of it (don't worry mom, no scratches or anything). It was moderately embarssasing- but I'm sure its something we will all get used to.

That brings us to now- we are still at the airport; we just finished a nice soup and sandwich lunch and soon we will be biking to downtown Halifax...about 30kms away.

Today we realized a few things.

1) Our bikes weigh a whole lot when they are all packed up with our saddlebags.
2) Biking into the wind for 2 months will make our experience much more 'interesting'
3) Our trip's theme song will definately be a wicked-bad rap song called "this is why i'm hot" by mims.

We are pumped.

Last Normal Day

Welcome to the Blog.

Just sitting here- enjoying my last normal day in Ottawa. We are flying out to Halifax tomorrow morning (6am to be exact) to begin our bike across Canada.

This will be an amazing experience for us. We are raising funds for CANFAR, through an organization we are a part of called Speak with Spokes. It's going to be a challenge- but I know that Rainer, Adrian, Brad and I are up for it. This blog will chronicle all of our adventures, and I will get some pictures up of us and the scenery as well. So please keep checking up on our tomfoolery.

We partied pretty hard last night- one last chance to abuse our bodies before the trip starts. The nights highlights included fruit hockey in an abandoned 476 Cumberland, and my good friend Jonny Mexico giving me his necklace for good luck. That really meant a lot.

Today I'll be putting the finishing touches on everything. I'll be packing my saddlebags, going to buy a few last things...and then I'll be good as gold.

It's really starting to sink in now. We are going to bike across Canada. haha.


(Maybe this will be the spark I need to start my extremely successful Tony Robbins-esque Motiviational Speaking empire.)