WHAT A FANTASTIC DAY!!

WOW!! Our first day of good weather! We covered 206 Km in just 6&1/2 hours! We started off in Fernie with skies that were cloudy but showed promise. Everything worked really well today - the clouds lifted and we were able to see the magic of the mountains that surrounded us as we approached the Alberta border. We had a good strong tail wind as well that pushed us along through the last of the rockies and into the beautiful rolling hills and endless blue skies. Looking back at the rockies was pretty awesome,, knowing what we had gone through to get where we were.
Cowley, Alberta was roughly at our 100K mark so we stopped for lunch and then rode pretty much non stop to Lethbridge. The roads were smooth and flat and with that tail wind we finished our day tired but in great form.

We've never been colder.

Well.. we started our trip from Big White and ended up in Grand Forks our first night. We then biked to Castlegar, and then from there to Creston - from Creston to Yahk, and from Yahk to Fernie, and the whole way Its been either raining or snowing! lol.. So at each of our stops we've been lucky enough to find accomodation with nice warm showers and beds.
We stayed at the cozy quilt motel in Yahk, it was a nice cozy little place,, just like the name. lol. We started our in the morning on day 4 with a nice tail wind on our way our to Fernie.. but that tail wind turned into a headwind, and we were met with the coldest bitter rain. so we were very happy to see the hotel.
Tomorrow we wre going to Lethbridge.. its about 200K's away. we're excited to pass our first hurdle and cross the alberta border..
Time is tight fdor us... especially crossing from east to west like this because opf the changiong time zones and because of things we have to do daily... like clean our bikes,, and make sure we get enough food and rest.. so i can't update my site like i had planned. We have been blessed by a fantastic group of guys that have come along with us to keep us fed and protected by traffic!! We couldn't thank them enough for all the ways they've helped us. One of the support crew has a blog that talks about our trip, and has video and tonnes of pics.. check out that site by CLICKING HERE

From the send off to day two

We packed up early tuesday morning and were met by a whole group of the fire crew that we worked with all year. A whole crowd of our close friends from Big White came to see us off. Lots of hand shakes and hugs were goin around as we finally finished loading up the support vehicle that would follow us as we started our trip to Toronto. It was a beautiful morning!! LOL.. It was snowing in Big White! The first day of our trip went well... we made great time and rode 197 Kilometers to Grand forks where we set up camp. The camp had hot showers and we had a great dinner. The next morning we began the hard part of the ride - a lot of hills, not really steep, just grinding and neverending. The weather held up untill about 20 K's from Castlegar. We were blinded by rain we we began our decent to our Destination - we arived at an intersection near a hotel and all decided that it would be a good idea to stay here for the evening. Shivering and soaking wet we stood in the lobby waiting for our rooms. Some of us were distracted by a hot tub and soaked for a while till we got our feeling back in our extremities. We are all looking forward to crossing the hardest part of our trip tomorrow. Thank God for hotels. lol. For an even better blog than this one with more video and pictures frmo the trip check out
THIS SITE

Apr, 29th - the rest of the day

Four of the cyclists are graduates of the Big White Fire department Work Experience Program, its a 10 month contract with the fire department. The program runs from July to April every year and employs 6 firefighters to live in the hall and serve the community. The community up here is full of fantastic people and most of our fire department is made up of volunteers that live and work in the community year round. They have been throwing little goodbye parties and dinners for us all week - wishing us good luck on our searches for careers in the fire service and good luck on our ride. After a big breakfast with some of the members of our department this morning, we all packed our gear together and turned our uniforms and turnout gear back into the supply room. Its been a pretty crazy 10 months - good job experience was gained and some very strong friendships were formed. Time has flown by... all of us are gonna miss this place.

April, 29th

Just two days away from our departure from Big White. We are all very excited and cant wait to get going on our trip. This will be the place where we will post pictures and talk about the cool stuff we've seen along the way. This site may contain excessive spandex and dirty, sweaty guys,,, viewer discretion is advised.