We were actually an hour ahead of schedule for the arrival so we hung around in a park before the last kilometer. The welcoming party was out in full force waiting for me on the side of the road with signs in hand. I had been thinking about that moment for at least a month now at it could not have been better.  Well.. except for the traffic lights that forced us to stop at the intersection that was only 150 metres from the finish line. Green light! Cameras in hand, we rolled in to meet the welcoming party. I was a nervous wreck, shaking and hugging my family. Out comes the champagne, fantastic!

He’s pretty confident that he’ll be arriving in Orleans by 5pm on the 31st, so be prepared! He can’t wait to see everyone.

ETA for Ottawa (Orleans where I left from) is still the 31st of July around 5pm. Less than 400km to go!

Their plan is to try and make it to North Bay by tomorrow, about 110 kilometers away.

I have mixed emotions about being in the home stretch of the journey. I have met great people along the way and seen wonderful places but home is home and I can’t wait to see everyone back in Ottawa. Ottawa or bust! Thank you to the Leblanc family for letting us stay at their place. I slept like a baby last night even though there were thunder storms out there. We should be able to make it past Sudbury today if everything goes well.

They had a nice dinner tonight and were thankful for that. They plan to make it to Espanola, ON by tomorrow – about 574 kilometers from Orleans.

They stayed in a motel in Sault Ste. Marie last night after visiting a bike shop in town. Next stop is somewhere near Iron Bridge, ON and Dean Lake, ON where I think the plan is to spend some time visiting with Denyse’s family (I might be misremembering some of this, I didn’t write it down when Alex told me over the phone).

They’ve mostly been camping along the sides of the highway 17. The roads are in good condition with wide shoulders. There are more stretches of road without civilization in this part of the country, which makes planning for food and water a bit more important. The highway still has signs for upcoming restaurants that have since gone out of business, which can make things a bit trickier! Luckily Theo and Caro have a water filter which helps a lot.

The heat and humidity have been a bit unpleasant lately, but he says that the mosquitoes and flies are the worst part – his legs are full of bug bites.

He says that the new bike wheel he got in Calgary is working great. He broke his chain once and got a few flat tires, but otherwise the bike’s holding up fine.

He’s about 200 kilometers from Sault Ste Marie now, and about 1000 kilometers away from Orleans, so he’s definitely on the home stretch!

On Thursday he biked from Rennie to Rushing River provincial park with Theo and Caro, two of the seven other cyclists he met in Rennie. They stopped in Kenora, ON to look around and watch seaplanes in the harbour. Alex also briefly met up with Dave again, but they split up again and Alex thinks he’s probably further ahead now. Alex, Theo and Caro camped in the provincial park that night.

On Friday they biked from the provincial park to Nestor Falls, ON. They stayed overnight in a motel and were glad to be dry, since there were thunderstorms all day. Supposedly that night a tornado touched down about 40 kilometers from where he is now in Fort Frances, so Alex is keeping an eye out and being vigilant. He wants to thank Brian for picking them up and giving them a ride for the last 5 kilometers into Nestor Falls, because it was raining like crazy.

Right now Alex is at an internet cafe in Fort Frances, ON with Theo and Caro. They’re taking the southern route to Thunderbay via Fort Frances, avoiding the main Trans-Canada route (Highway 17) in favor of Highway 71 and Highway 11. There’s less traffic that way, though Alex says he did see lots of big American trucks pulling boats. That area is a popular fishing destination, I guess Tonight they’re probably going to camp somewhere around Fort Frances. Alex is estimating that it will take him about 20 days to make it back to Ottawa.

Alex also uploaded a video of him and the other 7 cyclists riding together shortly after leaving Rennie. Here it is:

Alex eventually made it to a campground near Rennie, Manitoba tonight, where he met up with 7 other cyclists, including Meagan and Lisa, the girls he’d biked with for a while in B.C. They’d taken the train and hitchhiked for part or their trip so it’s kind of a coincidence that they all met up again – that campground must be a hot spot for cyclists! I guess there isn’t much else 125 kilometers east of Winnipeg . They’re having fun watching a movie and ordered in some pizza.

Ontario is definitely within reach for tomorrow – he’s only about 40 kilometers away from the border.

Last night Paul invited me to a pot luck that was going on at his coworkers’ house. Let me tell you that I really got my full! I got news from Dave, he made it to Winnipeg but he also had a hard time making it because of the roads and the traffic. Today Paul and I rode around the city and visited the exchange district (plenty of turn-of-the-century buildings that give the city a Chicago-esque atmosphere), the forks (a series of parks where the Assiniboine River and the Red River meet) , St-Boniface (the french quarter of Winnipeg), the site of the upper Fort Garry (a fur trading post for HBC), the burial site of Louis Riel (need I say more?), the legislature building and Fort Gibraltar (a fur trading post for the Northwest Company). Winnipeg is quite larger than I expected and the streets are pretty lively.

Tonight my hosts treated me to a wonderful supper at a small french restaurant. My stay in Winnipeg was great, I will surely come back some time. Thank you to the Girard family for everything it was nice meeting all of you!

He’s noticing that the landscape is starting to include more trees and lakes as he gets closer to Ontario -  Winnipeg tomorrow!

They’ll be in Manitoba tomorrow. Alex says he’s considering biking around Manitoulin Island for a while once he gets to that part of Ontario. His revised estimate for getting back to Ottawa is in about a month from now.

We often have to break after riding just 30km because our water runs out. We both got fed up of drinking water after the first truly hot day.

We both didn’t get much sleep in Moose Jaw. A huge electrical storm hit the area and kept us awake for most of the night. The storm sparked fires that released tonnes of smoke in the air. It smelled like charcoal and the sky was hazy for most of yesterday’s ride.

Once we finally made it to Regina, we stopped at a Sobey’s to eat and rest a bit. We are now staying at the Hostel International on McIntyre Street. Last night we went down to the provincial legislature to watch the fireworks. The mosquitoes were definitely having a feast that night! Dave and I joked about how the fireworks were probably visible in Moose Jaw, haha.

Tomorrow they plan on making it to Regina for Canada day celebrations, and Alex says he’ll have a chance to post some pictures from there.

He’s staying at a municipal campground in Morse, located right near a big grain elevator. I think he’s a bit tired of the Saskatchewan scenery – he says there’s nothing to see but open fields and grain elevators

He’s now in Gull Lake, Saskatchewan at a small campsite, about 116km from where he started out this morning. There’s a public pool there so Alex and Dave had a swim and are just relaxing. Someone gave them a free pie, but Dave’s eating it all according to Alex

Tomorrow they plan on getting up early to avoid the heat, and stocking up on water and Gatorade to make sure they don’t run out.

He’s right at the Saskatchewan/Alberta border, camping out near a visitor center. He saw some strong sidewinds again as he was ending his day. He says he met up with a riding partner named Dave, and that they plan to ride to Regina together for Canada day (Regina is about 420 kilometers away, so they’ll probably get there just in time to take part in some of the celebrations).

The bike is in good shape, just needs a chain cleaning which he’ll do tonight once he’s all set up. He watched the Transformers movie at the motel yesterday night and enjoyed it quite a bit. Tomorrow he’ll be crossing into Saskatchewan, and will likely make it to time zone border into central time (only one hour off from Ottawa time!).

As he was getting close to Brooks it started getting extremely windy, and he heard from the locals that there was a storm warning in effect, so he decided to seek out a motel rather than try camping for tonight. He’s staying at the Plains Motel, about 160km from the Saskatchewan border. Tomorrow he’ll likely stay on the Trans-Canada and head towards Medicine Hat and Saskatchewan.

For those who panicked last night because there was no update, let me explain… I got a tattoo! It took about 2.5 hours to finish but it is definitely the best souvenir I could get of the trip. Yesterday I visited Banff with German tourists that I met at the hostel. We all had a great time checking out the hot springs, cowboy shops and the Banff springs hotel (their version of the Chateau Laurier) . I also picked up a bit of German, well sort of. Meeting them has made me want to bike across Europe and possibly add to my tattoo one day… Thanks for the memories guys!

and now the photos!

Alex is staying at the Whispering Spruce campground just outside of Golden tonight.

He replaced one of the spokes on his wheel that’s been giving him some trouble with a tougher one that will hopefully hold up. He has a problem with his derailleur cable, so he’s planning on taking a rest day and visiting a bike shop tomorrow.

He’s staying at the Brookside Motel in Golden, thanks to the owner/manager Rheal, who gave the group a good deal on a three bedroom rustic cabin with a nice view of the rockies.

He’s now staying at a hotel, presumably near Roger’s Pass (he didn’t say). Perhaps the Glacier Park Lodge.* I think he turned his phone off after sending the update, so we’ll have to wait to find out

He wanted to thank Rainie for giving him a pin. (I hope I deciphered this part of the message correctly!)

* UPDATE: I confirmed with Alex that he did stay at the Glacier park lodge

Yesterday he camped in Craigellachie, BC, behind the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway museum. He says there were a lot of mosquitoes and the passing trains and trucks were bothersome.

Tonight he’s staying at a hostel in Revelstoke, BC and loading up on food. He has a nice view of the mountains that’s he’s going to have to climb tomorrow. He’s going to take on Roger’s Pass, an 850m climb from Revelstoke, which means he’ll probably end up camping somewhere near the summit, in Glacier National Park.

I am adding a video to this post. I managed to attach the camera to my GPS mount on the handlebars. It makes for some interesting shots.

View the video.

He’s staying at Raj and Sabi’s house tonight, he met them at the fruit market. He’s drinking tea and listening to some music with Tammy, one of Raj’s tenants.

Alex “wild” Seguin

He asked for the coordinates of the western entrance to E.C. Manning provincial park, where he was planning on camping out tonight. I gave him the latitude and longitude of Coldspring campground, one of the campgrounds in the park that’s open during the summer, about 64km from Hope. I’ve only now realized, after looking at cell phone coverage maps, that he’s going to be outside of cell phone range while he’s there, which explains why I didn’t get a text message update tonight. He’s not too far out of it, though, so he’ll probably be back in range tomorrow as long as the weather gives him a chance to keep biking.

He’s camping at Coquihalla Campground thanks to a German couple who let him stay on their lot for free. He also wanted to thank Anita in Hope for the directions to the camground and for watching Carmen while Alex went grocery shopping.

Tomorrow he’s going to take on his first mountain pass, Allison Pass. It’s a 4265 foot (1300 m) climb over about 60 kilometers from Hope to Allison Pass, so it certainly won’t be easy. He’s going to be passing by Hope Slide, the site of one of the largest landslides ever recorded in Canada (be sure to check out the picture and map link in the Wikipedia article).

I’ve had a very interesting stay in the Vancouver area. Wow, this city is fabulous! When I arrived at Dan and Isabelle’s house I was invited to go hike up Burnaby Mountain. Molly, Isabelle and I ended up hiking for about 2 hours in a rain forest ! The woods are full of trails for mountain bikers and hikers and are very well maintained. Isabelle acted as our very knowledgeable eco tour guide, she knows plenty of interesting facts about the flora and fauna.

Last night Elena, Molly, Isabelle and I visited the Richmond night asian market. We shared lots of laughs checking out the different stands and the strange merchandise. I’ll always remember the big bag of popcorn that we devoured in no time even though the kernels can be a health hazard… not that we choked on them… Isa got the great idea to do a secret santa gift exchange at the market. I was lucky enough to receive 2 more pins (I collect pins along the way) and some killer ninja swords! Today we took the skytrain downtown and ate some sushi in a boat (check out the pics to understand what I mean by that) But first, we passed through China town and toured the Chinese gardens. After that, we walked to english bay to watch the triathlon world championships. We were all extremely impressed by these runners, swimmers and riders. I’ve never seen a race of that caliber in person. The speeds they reach are incredible. The pictures of me and Elena crossing the race course during the race are hilarious. I’m just acting but it seems like Elena was seriously scared, hahaha! Just nervous according to her:)

Walking back to the train station, we grabbed some ice cream. Yes! More Carbs! Now we are all watching a movie and relaxing at the condo. Tomorrow I should make it to Hope, BC. Rain in the forecast, yes Dan more rain! How are you enjoying the weather in Orlando bud?

I wanted to thank everyone that we met in Vancouver: Molly, Elena, Jodi (Alex’s second-cousin), Jodi’s friend Kate, and especially Dan, Isabelle and Alex’s aunt Kate (I hope I got all of those names spelled correctly!). Alex and I had a great time and really enjoyed the company.

I also wanted to give a quick shout-out to that cyclist from Ottawa that we met at the ferry terminal on Friday now that I’ve managed to track him down. His name is Mike Shives and you can read about his trip on Facebook (you need to have a Facebook account, sorry!).

On Friday morning Tom drove us to the Victoria ferry terminal to catch a ferry to Vancouver. We had a great time at Tom and Laura’s place and really appreciate them letting us stay over for a few days – they were excellent hosts!

The ferry ride was quite enjoyable – not too long, and we got to see some nice scenery. When we arrived at Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal Alex had to repair a flat tire on his trailer, but that didn’t take too long, and we ended up meeting two other cyclists from Ottawa who were also cycling across Canada (they were on their way to Victoria to tour around there for a while). We took the bus to Vancouver from the ferry terminal, and a nice bus driver named Andy gave us a free ride (we were the only people on the bus).

Once in Vancouver we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and met up with Alex’s cousin Dan and some of his friends and family at Saltlik in downtown Vancouver. We had a few beers and some food there, then stopped by Dan’s office to play Rockband for a bit, then ended up visiting Chill Winston’s and the Library Square Public House.

This morning we stopped by the Apple store in Vancouver so that Alex could pick up a new iPod nano – his old MP3 player broke. He’s got it loaded up with his music, pictures, and even a TV show, so he should enjoy that while on the road. After that I had to leave to catch my flight back to Toronto – I just got back a couple of hours ago. Alex was biking from the hotel in downtown Vancouver to Dan’s place in Burnaby to stay the night – I haven’t heard from him yet but I’m guessing he made it without too much trouble (it wasn’t very far away).

The flight was early, so we had to wake up at 4AM Halifax time to get to the airport. Add in the 4 hour time difference and 6pm Victoria time feels like 10pm, so we’re both pretty tired. The flights went smoothly. We had a ~2 hour stopover in Edmonton, but it wasn’t too bad. We had lunch (breakfast?) at the Tim Horton’s. I dozed a little bit on both flights – first was 5 hours and the second was an hour and a half.

Alex put his bike and trailer back together first thing, and luckily the packing/handling/unpacking process didn’t cause any problems. We tried visiting a bike shop for a tuneup but they were too busy to take it in, so Alex cleaned it up and did a tuneup of his own.

I think we’re probably going to go to bed pretty early tonight given the long day. Tomorrow we plan on visiting as much of Victoria as we can, and perhaps do the wheel dipping ceremony along the way. The alternate wheel dipping location is Vancouver – we’re heading there on Friday to meet Alex’s second cousin Daniel, who lives in nearby Burnaby.

Watch the Atlantic wheel dipping video

The walk took us through some beautiful neighborhoods and through the Dalhousie campus. Point Pleasant Park also offers some WWII ruins and a few defense structures from the 1800s. We noticed that a lot of trees in the park are dead – turns out the area took quite a hit during Hurricane Juan. After the walk through Point Pleasant Park, we had lunch at the hotel restaurant and then took a walk down to try and get a closer look at the Halifax Naval Dockyard. We weren’t able to get very close since the area was closed off to the public (which is to be expected for a millitary base, I guess). After that, we reluctantly decided to go on a harbour tour on an amphibious boat named the “Harbour Hopper“. I enjoyed it but I wish I had brought my jacket, it does get quite windy on the water. It was easy on the legs and it also gave us a better view of the naval ships. All together we ended up walking approximately 13km around Halifax – you can see our exact trajectory thanks to Gmaps Pedometer.

Gavin and I will be taking a flight to Victoria, BC tomorrow morning, and meeting up with his father’s cousin Tom. Flight leaves at 7:20AM so we need to get up early.

It was great sleeping in this morning! Unfortunately, I missed the complimentary breakfast  but we made up for it buy having a big lunch at the hotel.  For supper we ate at the Cable Wharf right by the water. Best fish and chips I’ve had in a while. Now we are relaxing at the hotel and watching the hockey game. Go PENS!

Alex barely slept last night, it was really windy and rainy, and the sound of the tent flapping kept him awake. He got an early start and managed to bike 124km to the airport in time to meet me as my flight landed. It took him 10 hours of biking to do it, so he’s pretty wiped.

We’re just relaxing a bit after having gone out to get some pizza, building up a list of places we’ll visit tomorrow. We’re pretty interested in checking out the navy ships in the harbor, and we’ll have to do the Ocean bike-wheel-dipping ceremony.

Tonight he’s camping out in front of an Irving Gas Station with permission from the staff, Steven and Barb. He’s not looking forward to sleeping in the rain tonight. My flight to Halifax leaves tomorrow, so he’ll be heading towards the Halifax airport to meet me. There’s rain on the forecast, and he has 120km to go, so he expects it to be tough. Coincidentally, our friend Matt’s going to be stopping over in Halifax on his way to CFB Greenwood, hopefully we’ll be able to meet with him at the airport.

Bye for now!

He said it was pretty windy today, strong gusts gave him a bit of trouble. He stopped by a Canadian Tire to replace his multi-tool – employees Justin, Marc and Bill helped him find the hostel. He says the people in PEI have been awesome, honking to encourage him, and he heard something about having been mentioned on local radio (I don’t think he has any details).

He’s staying at the Sun-N-Shade campground (pictures) in PEI, where he managed to get his own “modern cedar cabin” – he wanted to thank a biker named Carl that he met at a gas station along the way that suggested this place, and the owners Herald and Marnie who offered him a stay in the cabin for free. I hope he gets a chance to tour around PEI a bit tomorrow before heading back on the route to Halifax.

First off, let me start by saying that last night was definitely the worst night ever! I didn’t freeze (my three layers of clothing took care of that). In fact, it was the wind creating havoc to the tarp (that I cover the bike with) and the fly of the tent. The sound of everything flying around made for a bad nights sleep but helped me get out of bed early. About 10km into the day I pulled over at a Irving gas station/restaurant for breakfast (these things are everywhere in New Brunswick). Turns out Mr Irving is one of the richest men in Canada. Anyhow, inside the restaurant I met a lovely couple from Chilliwack, BC who are traveling the country in an RV. The offered to pay for my breakfast! This trip makes me even more proud of being Canadian, the generosity I’ve received always surprises me Like the title of the post says, I am now in Moncton spending the night at my good friend Vero’s aunt’s place. Broke my first spoke today but it didn’t slow me down. Put another 110km on Carmen today. Tomorrow I’ll head out to see the Atlantic ocean for the first time!

And Gavin, I toured Fredericton with Melissa. Fred was short for Fredericton hahaha

He wanted to thank the Keehn’s for welcoming him into their beautiful house. He ate lots of chili for supper there last night, and had great fun touring around Fredericton and the UNB campus with Fred and* Melissa. He wishes Melissa all the best on her trip to Ethiopia for humanitarian work.

* Correction: Fred doesn’t actually exist – I misread Alex’s text message. It was short for “Fredericton”

Enjoy the Pictures, I know I sure do!

He’s camping for free right near the base of the bridge, relaxing in his tent and reading after having chatted with some locals at a restaurant for an hour, telling them about the site (Hi Hartlanders!).

I am now in Perth-Andover, NB just off the Trans-Canada. I’ll try to make my way to Hartland by tonight. Unfortunately it started raining again! I found a great Ultramar that has a trucker’s lounge with the internet! Yes truckers use MSN and the like Easy riding today, it seems like I’m mostly doing downhill. I had a wonderful time at Marie Pierre grandmother’s place. Extremely generous people who filled me up with lots of carbs and protein. Received 1 more good luck charm also. I’m getting quite used to being invited by people, it’s strange how I feel like a part of the family in such little time. I will miss the whole gang in Drummond. Maybe next year I’ll bike back there with some friends… I can’t upload pics again, the little computer is locked in a cabinet. Oh well. More and more people are tooting me to encourage me (not to tell me to get out of the way since they are waving to say hi) The french accents are changing also and people address you in both languages. Bilingualism at it’s best! I love this province, even though the weather has been quite rainy it has so much to offer. The power went out yesterday and it actually started hailing! I slept extremely well too, it’s great to stay indoors when the weather goes bad

He’s in Drummond, NB now, staying at Marie-Pierre’s grandmother’s house after having visited the Grand Falls. He’s also in a new time zone, but didn’t realize it until he arrived and was told his watch was set to the wrong time. He had a big supper and did some laundry. I’m sure he’ll appreciate having a warm place to sleep tonight

Today was his toughest day so far. He biked 80km of long hills, and had to eat two breakfasts to keep his energy up. He says that the landscape was beautiful, and that it reminded him of Alaska – a bit too cold for his tastes. His average speed today was 15km/h, his normal pace is closer to 21km/h.

He’s now 30km from New Brunswick, camping by the water of Lake Temiscouata outside of Notre-Dame-Du-Lac, QC. One of his camping neighbors offered him supper, and they’re talking about his trip.

I can’t believe I pulled off so much biking yesterday, the winds were ideal though. Today, I didn’t put that many miles the weather was truly shifty. I slowed down to let the storm pass by me. This area is famous for strange weather patterns, sunny one minute rain the other. I had the full rain gear on for most of the day, it made for not a extremely pleasant ride. Later in the day the skies cleared up and I rode into town finding the nearest bike shop, La Zone just to tune up Carmen before I enter New Brunswick. Boy am I glad I found that place. I met two great Mechanics, Jacques and Maxime who worked on the whole bike. Jacques invited me to his place for supper and let me stay for the night.  He’s a great mechanic and has a great wealth of knowledge on biking and on the routes to get to Edmunston. I also was offered a shower! The supper was great with mucho calories added with icecream and chocolate, kuddos to Lucie and Jacques for their hospitality. Same goes for André, Frédérick and Christiane in Lévis. Thanks for the pancakes, I am sure they gave me the extra kick I need for the day! Unfortunately, my batteries are dead in my camera so I’ll have to wait till my next post to upload the latest pictures

I should be crossing the provincial border into New Brunswick probably by tomorrow. Rivière du loup is a quiet town that is going through a housing boom. Same goes for a lot of places I’ve visited on the rive nord. Loads of houses are being built all around me. When I am not in urban areas I’m either next to the St-Lawrence or riding next to fields, singing to the cows!

He’s done for the day now, camping at a municipal camping ground in Rivière-Ouelle, QC. He says he’s talking with some locals about the murder and about politics around the campfire. New Brunswick tomorrow!

To get out of Quebec city I took the Ferry to Levis, it saved me a lot a hassle at the bridge. By chance I found a B&B called Le Manoir l’Heritage that’s right off the river again! I have a view of the Montmorency falls and l’Ile d’Orleans and best off all free Internet to speak to the world. The owner, Andre, is fantastic. He let me stay at the place for free I also met a Brazilian student at the B&B and we both went to a pizzeria. All in all, it made for a pretty interesting night with good company. Here are some picks from my sightseeing tour in Quebec City.

Everything is going smoothly, I am now In Quebec city following the Japanese tour guides and doing some sightseeing of my own. I was lucky to find a bike shop to park the bike thanks to Gavin (my eye in the sky). The roads in Quebec are the best I’ve ever seen, the shoulders are wide and traffic is low. For the last 3 days I’ve been following the Route Verte circuit which is a series of posted roads for cyclists. It’s really an awesome sight seeing the large ships pass by on the St-Lawrence, they creep along and make almost no sound.

Diet wise, I’ve been eating a lot for breakfast. I really load up on sugar before I start riding. I’ve also been taking advantage of all the ice cream parlors that Quebec has to offer, not to mention all of the Subways (one sandwich artist was shocked when I asked for a 18in sub!) Last night I made good use of the lighting in the motel room to Install a new bike computer. Louis (my old bike computer) is no longer with us, I accidentally snapped the cord when resting my bike against a wall.  I’m having difficulty uploading pictures, so I will have to wait. Thank you to everyone for the messages, unfortunately I don’t have the luxury of responding to them all. I only have a few minutes left on the internet

Alex

Bibliotheque Gabriel Roy (Quebec City)

He says he’s going to spend tomorrow visiting Quebec City, and probably find a place to stay just across the St Lawrence.

Twitter still doesn’t seem to be working, so he’s just going to start sending updates to me directly, and have me post them here rather than updating the “Daily updates from the road” page himself.

Current position: N46.42840 W72.36816 (Champlain, QC, northeast of Trois-Rivieres, right on edge of the St-Lawrence river).

Had a slow start this morning because of rain, but he got a free breakfast (he doesn’t say from where). He cycled another 100km today to end up where he is – heading for Quebec City tomorrow.

Hi Guys,

I am now in Boisbriand, Quebec just past Montreal. Guylaine and Sylvain, my warmshowers.org contacts, are very welcoming. My first day of riding was particularly rough. I was riding by the seat of my pants with strong headwinds. The winds forced me to reconsider my setup. I ditched the front bags for rear trailer. It really helps to deal with the winds and I have better handling now. I spent an extra day in Hawkesbury with my grandparents waiting for the trailer. Thankfully the local bike shop (Intersport) was able to deliver the trailer within a day, that’s something you wouldn’t even see in larger towns.

Anyhow, I had a great time with my grandparents and I must have gained 5 pounds since leaving their house.

The cell phone messages to the website (a.k.a. twitter) are now working.

Alex just sent me a text message wanting to make sure that the “Daily updates from the road” page was still working fine. I expect he’s going to start sending messages directly to that page using his cell phone, so be sure to check there for the most recent status updates. I’ll try to post more detailed information and pictures here on the main page if I get them, and I’m sure Alex himself will occasionally post here himself when he has access to a computer along the way.

In slightly-older news, my father posted some pictures from the mini-Launch-Party on his blog, so check those out if you’re interested in seeing what the bike looked like when it was finally fully-loaded: Alex Bike Trip Launch.