As usual, this journal of our trip is behind. It will be a test of memory writing this entry; being lazy, I neglected to update my written daily notes. Perhaps Geoff will fill in any missing holes. One immediate hole I can point out is the map below, the route into the city of Vancouver is not at all accurate when you zoom in. Perhaps I will post t . . .

Day 46: Rest! Yesterday was a rest day from our bicycles (excluding the gruesome climb to the base of Whistler's Mountain shouldering the backpacking bag), but the mountain hike tired us out just the same. Today we took a real rest day, which involved a morning and afternoon of computer lab time: actually a long time just on couchsurfing.org. In t . . .

Welcome back to the wonderful world of Cyclocross. This is a bit frustrating for me; I wrote up a couple of days of events, to post onto this website, in Jasper, but the file was lost, so now I have to start over. Oh well. [photo 56]The fortieth day began at the very late time of 11:23am. Only Geoff and I were around at that point. I made myself . . .

[photo 48]Day 35: We woke up early enough to see both Kip and Karen off to work, managing to snap some photos before they left. I read a couple of Sartre's short stories from a book on their bookshelf, while Geoff went to check out another bike store. Sartre reaches very deep, into the dark of the mind, and I always find him interesting, although I . . .

[photo 44]Day 32: I woke plenty early today, at 6:45. I think this has to do with the fact that we just gained an hour by crossing a time zone. When we got packed and back to the highway, we found another tailwind softly caressing our backs. I think this is marvelous and not at all like the days and days of headwinds that I had expected. Every day . . .

[photo 35 right]Day 30: We woke up in the same park we went to sleep in, and after packing up, headed over to the big box-mall to get some groceries. We ate our cereal in the warm, warm lobby of the Safeway. Geoff also bought a USB stick from the Future Shop so that we can start carrying two copies of all of our photos, just in case. By this tim . . .

Day 27: Another delicious breakfast with so many homemade jams! I've never known the joys of having multiple jam options. It has been wonderful staying with Peter and Anna; I loved hearing their family stories and some of the history of the Mennonites in Manitoba. This morning we ride beyond Winnipeg, but we will bring something of our experience w . . .

[photo 33]On day 24 we woke up in our Kenora camp-out fairly early. And it wasn't the first awakening of the night. We had chosen a spot fairly close to a creaky railway bridge. About four trains went by in the night, each one sounding its horn loudly as it passed, and also, each slowed down to cross the bridge thusly producing an eerie and dr . . .

[photo 24 right]Day 19: In my mind I imagined the rode to Kenora to be 500km of highway cutting through dense monotonous forest on either side, and nothing else. Happily, I was wrong. The ride out from Thunder Bay showed us towns, and farms, and various kinds of natural beauty. 30km into our day we came to Kakabeka Falls: a stunning gorge, the slat . . .

Thunder Bay is a wonderful city. On our way in, we rode 20km along Lakeshore Drive, passing well kept homes that look across Lake Superior to the Sleeping Giant. We met three cyclists riding in our direction, and we got talking happily. They happened to know Frank, our Warm Showers host in Thunder Bay, and in fact one of them would do a Round-Lake- . . .

The observant reader will notice we have been behind in our story-telling for quite some time. This is largely due to the lack of computer time available. We've both been taking daily written notes, but transcribing them online is a hassle. At the time of writing this, we are in Kenora's public library. So that we don't get too behind, we will be w . . .

[photo 15]Yesterday's forecast for today was clear skies and warm temperatures, so I had expected a good clear night too. Not so. Once safely tucked away in our sleeping bags last night, ice pellets began to strike the tent. Exactly what my 3 season tent was built for! When my tent seemed to be holding up well, the weather changed to thundershowers . . .

We woke up and it was very cold. The was a bit of snow on the ground. On such days it can take a very long time for the urgent need to pee to surpass the desire not to get out of one's sleeping bag. We stayed in the tent for a while reading, putting off the inevitable. We had trouble taking down the tent and packing up our things because our hands . . .

[photo 14 right]Once on the road, away from the cold Lake Superior morning, we found a good tailwind that took us quickly to Montreal River, but not before having the pleasure of our first flat! I suppose the pleasure was mostly Ian's, though, as I got to wander about and stretch while he fixed his back tube. Once at Montreal River, we scrounged fo . . .

We slept in a bit at Doug's house, having stayed up late looking at maps and talking with Doug. We sure were fed well. We were made scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. He cut up a tomato for Geoff, while I got a couple of thick slices of ham. I was also given the left-over bacon from yesterday. [photo 9]Our shoes were dry by now from the hik . . .

[photo 8 right]I've become completely happy sleeping inside my tent on my Therm-a-Rest sleeping pad, and I feel I could do it indefinitely. So to sleep in a bed is now to me a soft, precious luxury. I woke to the smell of blueberry pancakes from downstairs. Wild blueberries that our WarmShowers host, Doug, had picked himself, no less! After breakfa . . .

[photo 3 right]We woke up this morning in the local campground run by the town of Bruce Mines. It was a nice place to stay, although the washrooms and showers weren't open for the season yet. As we were packing up man drove up to us to ask how our night had been and reminded us about the honour system fee. We hadn't had change last night, so he in . . .

[photo 5 right]The worst day of the trip happened today. The group has split. Martin rode out alone this morning, to continue the trip at his own pace. There was tension in the previous few days about the pace we were making, and for some reason it burst today. There is much more to be said about the split, but I won't discuss it here. So Ian an . . .

We woke up this morning in Chutes Provincial Park. I will emphasize again that it is a strange and great feeling to camp in a deserted provincial park. It seems that a few of the locals have caught on to this. We saw a couple go by for a stroll in the morning. We had our first hot outdoor breakfast: instant oatmeal. I had four packages, and it stil . . .

Three beautiful days in a row. We cycled through the clear air and sun from our campground at Green Acres, across the bridge to the mainland, and following highway 6 up into Espanola, from where we took highway 17 to Massey. [photo 4 right]Today we saw up close what we had seen on the horizon back at 10 Mile Point on Manitoulin Island: huge hill . . .

We camped last night just at the entrance to a hiking route in Bruce National Park. The ground was soft and flat, but the night was cold. The weather we checked in Owen sound for Tobermory said that it would drop to around freezing. Geoff and I were a bit chilly in our +5 and +7 sleeping bags, while Martin complained of being sweaty in his -7. [ . . .

[Editor's note: Martin didn't have time to finish his rough draft, so it's being posted as is] -15km. 7:00am. Alarm goes off. We wake up, get our stuff together. The room is messy, but we manage to clean it decently. I run down the road to get coffee. Our gear is mostly dry. The bike chains have some rust on them, but nothing serious. We s . . .

[photo 1 right]Today began with such high hopes. We had stopped early the day before, made a good dinner (I still say not tasty, but nutritious and big!), and made feasible plans to get up early and cycle the Bruce Peninsula. More, the thundershowers hit at night, while we were all tucked away safely in our tents and sleeping bags. I was up at 6:30 . . .

This has been day two. We woke up around nine and had breakfast with Tim. He knows the Bruce Peninsula pretty well, so he helped us plan our trip. The timber framing setup was pretty rustic. They had cleared out lots of space in the woods just in the past few weeks. There was a lean-to, a giant tee-pee, a solar shower, a rocket stove, and an outhou . . .

[photo 6 right]First a brief introduction: welcome to the first entry of Cyclocross, which, for those of you who are concerned, is an entity resting somewhere between a nerd-blog and an online journal. Today was, and will be for the next hour or so, the first day of our bicycle trip. We, being Geoff Stanley, Martin Kess, and Ian Hincks, began this . . .