Greetings from Vancouver

Stanley Park Totem Poles
One of our heros, Rob (The Bike Guy) from Home Hardware in Kincardine.
You met Patty and Doug on a previous posting.
You can almost understand the reluctance of the airlines to take
all of this on the plane. The fellow in this shot is our friend Bill
from Tiverton. As of tonight, Tuesday, he is likely wishing there were some
men to bike with.
We are at the London airport. The other lady in this photo is Juanita
from London. She saw Bill with Tour du Canada papers in his hand
and immediately qualified to be in our photo. She rode with us around
Vancouver today.

I am giving the thumbs up for Mike's benefit as he watches from the window.
It was my way of saying "it is on the plane!"


Terri can hardly hold her excitement.


This was one of two vans that brought us from the airport. Terri and I in this.
Bill and Juanita shared the other.

Having our morning brew before we headed out on our ride around the city
Tuesday morning.
Where my and Mike's recumbents were built.
The athletes village for the 2010 games.


Terri and I can hardly believe we are here but as the riders arrive a few at a time it is really sinking in what a task we have set out for ourselves. At least we now know what other crazy people look like. The truck that will be with us for the summer has arrived. When we meet a new rider, it doesn't take long to feel like we have known them longer than just a few minutes. Sharing training stories, strategies, nutrition tips and finding out who has the hairdryer are major topics of discussions. I feel like a kid on an exciting new adventure.

Our day yesterday, getting here that is, was long and somewhat stressful. It was a bit more expensive to bring the bikes than our agent lead us to believe and who knew they would want to open the bike boxes we had so carefully packed and taped (and taped, and taped) to see what dangerous materials we were transporting with us. Little did they know how restricted we were. Why would we waste space on explosives when all we wanted was a couple extra changes of underwear???

As you saw from the pictures we had quite the cargo with us. It was questionable as to whether they would even ship my bike. After multiple reassurances that we had contacted West Jet, it was confirmed when I was going through the gate that it did get on. Our taxi driver in Vancouver was very gracious and it did not stress him one bit that he had to fit "all that in there".

By mid evening we had our bikes roadworthy and were all quite thrilled and relieved as to how well the day had gone. There were tears at the airport in London for sure and Terri and I will miss Mike and Don a lot but we also know this will be a great summer.

Today(Tuesday) we headed out to what turned out to be a glorious day of riding along the busy Vancouver streets and through Stanley Park. Vancouver is a very bike friendly city and we found a great stretch of bike/outdoor stores. I even got to visit Cambie Cycles, the store that built my and Mike's recumbents. While we only did 54km today we saw a great deal we would not have seen in a vehicle. The housing is dens (and later forget)e all along the water(but tasteful) and lots of rooftop gardens. The city is clean, people are friendly and the food is great.

We will be assembling in a couple of days to head to Vancouver Island. This is a little side trip offered by Tour du Canada. We head over on Thursday, stay overnight in a hostel, dip our bikes in the Pacific and then come back on Friday. Saturday is a full orientation day where we find out all we need to know (only to later forget) about our life on the road this summer.

We want to say thank you for all your support and well wishes for this trip. A special thank you to Mike and Don for supporting "the summer the women went" and for Rob, Patty and Doug for getting our bikes ready for the road.

Holly