Saturday, May 19, 2007
Double ouch.
Today was the shortest day of riding so far. We started out riding today in freezing temperatures, with a mix of rain and hail. We had head winds and cross winds that slowed us to a crawl and nearly blew a few of us off our bikes. We rode about 14 K's and with ice on our bikes and gear - we decided to stop where a motel graciously gave us free rooms for the night. It was getting so cold with the wind chill, that the temperature would make you dizzy.. Our original goal was actually a place called White river, and if the bad weather persisted we decided that we would make it to Marathon and call it quits for the day. In this weather however, making it to Marathon would be next to impossible. Thank God for good people.
Friday, May 18, 2007
OUCH.
Today was one of the hardest days of our trip so far. We started off with nice weather that lasted us about 100 kilometers,, then it clouded over and the winds kicked in. The second half of the trip had hills that were very much like the rockies.. endless, steep inclines. We are all completely wasted and cant wait to sleep. The trip in total was 210 kilometers, which makes it among our longest days except that we also had some of the biggest hills today too. I cant believe we're actually finished.
Tomorrow is going to start off with those same hills, but the weather forcast calls for "ice pellets" durring the day with a high temperature of 3 degrees. We may shoot for marathon which is 100K's away. Its gonna be very cold and very wet.
Tomorrow is going to start off with those same hills, but the weather forcast calls for "ice pellets" durring the day with a high temperature of 3 degrees. We may shoot for marathon which is 100K's away. Its gonna be very cold and very wet.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Another few days have flown by.
The last few days have been good.. We went from Kenora to Dryden, and from Dryden to Upsala and from there to Thunder Bay. We've had that pesky cloud following us dumping rain on us and giving us a vicious head wind. For the ride from Upsala to Thunder Bay we had great weather though! We were very surprised in Dryden, when we were satisfying a junk-food craving at McDonald's and the woman behind the counter asked if we were the firefighters that were riding from B.C. Apparently she heard about it on the radio, and she figured we were the ones.
Upsala is very pretty.. we were able to find a nice campground right on a lake there and stayed the night. In the morning we all had a hearty breakfast at the restaurant/gas station and started on our ride just after 8am.
We cruised through the rolling hills of northern Ontario at a great pace on our way to Thunder bay. A few of us had some problems with our bikes, so we drove into the Cyclepath at Thunder Bay to get them fixed.. it was all minor stuff like getting our wheels trued, and getting our gears all tuned up. They were really fantastic about taking our bikes in and fixing them on a moments notice. They charged us for parts and threw the labor in for free.. a great bunch of guys there.
We just picked up our newly tuned up bikes and are ready to go for tomorrow. It's exciting to see how far we have come on our trip.. even more exciting to think that we have less than 10 days of riding left. We are all pretty sore, and most of us haven't been home in a pretty long time.. (almost a year) So even though we are all havin' a great time and enjoying the ride, its safe to say that we are all itching to get home.
Thank you for the support and all the messages we've been getting on our guest book and our blogs.. Randy keeps us updated every time we get a message and cant check it for ourselves. It's always good to hear from friends and family and its awesome to see how many people believe in us and are cheering for us!
Upsala is very pretty.. we were able to find a nice campground right on a lake there and stayed the night. In the morning we all had a hearty breakfast at the restaurant/gas station and started on our ride just after 8am.
We cruised through the rolling hills of northern Ontario at a great pace on our way to Thunder bay. A few of us had some problems with our bikes, so we drove into the Cyclepath at Thunder Bay to get them fixed.. it was all minor stuff like getting our wheels trued, and getting our gears all tuned up. They were really fantastic about taking our bikes in and fixing them on a moments notice. They charged us for parts and threw the labor in for free.. a great bunch of guys there.
We just picked up our newly tuned up bikes and are ready to go for tomorrow. It's exciting to see how far we have come on our trip.. even more exciting to think that we have less than 10 days of riding left. We are all pretty sore, and most of us haven't been home in a pretty long time.. (almost a year) So even though we are all havin' a great time and enjoying the ride, its safe to say that we are all itching to get home.
Thank you for the support and all the messages we've been getting on our guest book and our blogs.. Randy keeps us updated every time we get a message and cant check it for ourselves. It's always good to hear from friends and family and its awesome to see how many people believe in us and are cheering for us!
Monday, May 14, 2007
OUR PRESURE IS RISING!!!
Our pressure gauge on our pump panel is coming even closer to our goal! Updates show that we have now raised over 16 thousand! Thank you for your generous support!! We have had over 1000 hits on our website since we started on our trip - the support and interest shown is very encouraging.
Winnipeg was a real treat, thanks to our new friends!
We have some pretty cool friends in the Winnipeg Police and Fire/Paramedic Department!
We were surprised and happy to see our Police escort pull in front of us as we rode into Winnipeg. With lights flashing and the occasional siren burst in the intersections, we rode into Winnipeg where we met up with 2 other Officers on Bikes who rode with us through the city. They took us around through the city center showing us sights like the parliament buildings, the train station, the parks and cool old buildings. They ended up taking us to a pizza place for lunch where they contacted the Fire Department and had a bunch of the gentlemen from hall#9 come down in a pumper and meet with us.
After lunch, the officers along with the firefighters in the pumper went with us as far as they could go, wishing us a safe and fun trip. George, the driver of the patrol car that led the escort, drove ahead to the Richer Motor Inn and arranged accommodation for the night!
Just as spirits were beginning to sag due to the bad weather, injury and sickness; the kindness shown to us by these people has helped us carry on through our half way mark and on towards the finish line with smiles on our faces.
We were surprised and happy to see our Police escort pull in front of us as we rode into Winnipeg. With lights flashing and the occasional siren burst in the intersections, we rode into Winnipeg where we met up with 2 other Officers on Bikes who rode with us through the city. They took us around through the city center showing us sights like the parliament buildings, the train station, the parks and cool old buildings. They ended up taking us to a pizza place for lunch where they contacted the Fire Department and had a bunch of the gentlemen from hall#9 come down in a pumper and meet with us.
After lunch, the officers along with the firefighters in the pumper went with us as far as they could go, wishing us a safe and fun trip. George, the driver of the patrol car that led the escort, drove ahead to the Richer Motor Inn and arranged accommodation for the night!
Just as spirits were beginning to sag due to the bad weather, injury and sickness; the kindness shown to us by these people has helped us carry on through our half way mark and on towards the finish line with smiles on our faces.
It's been a while!
Wow.. these last few days have been pretty crazy!
It's been a while since we have had access to the internet so there are lots of stories to tell!
We originally planned on doing a lot more camping - cause camping is fun, and frankly,,, hotels cost a lotta money. However, after being pelted with freezing, driving, horizontal rain for hours on end, a place to thaw out seems much more appealing. lol. So we stayed the night in Virden in a lovely warm hotel.
(Along the way we have had the pleasure of meeting some fantastic people, some of these people have been very good and have helped us out by providing us with special rates and deals on accommodation.)
Here's a little update on what happened during the last few days.
Day #12
On the 12th, we started our from Virden bright and early and headed out with our sights fixed on Portage la Prairie. The weather was MUCH better, although those pesky winds were still against us for the majority of the way. It was a long day but we did very well! Despite the winds, we managed to bike to MacGreggor - 170Kms from Virden. MacGreggor is a really great little town! It's sorta tucked away, completely hidden from the highway by trees. We were able to find a camping ground there and stayed the night. We decided that we should get an early start on the day given our luck with wind direction so we set 7:30 am as our departure time for Winnipeg. (I believe we actually left around 8:10, hehe)
Day #13
This day deserves an entirely separate special entry.. cause it was fantastic. Thanks to some special new friends!
Day#14
After our huge boost in morale, thanks to the Winnipeg Police and Fire Departments, we woke up in the Richer Motor Inn refreshed and ready to go. We figured there might be rain and some of those headwinds again, but it started out much better than we had anticipated. It caught up with us though! hahaha.. We kept up a great pace on our course to Kenora Ontario! Happily crossing the Ontario border, we stopped for lunch and to fix another flat tire. We ended up blasting right on into Kenora through the rain that followed us from Richer. We were looking for a place to stay for the night in Kenora and decided to give the Super 8 Motel a try.. They shocked the heck out of us by providing us with free rooms, and arranging for us to have a free snack at the restaurant next door to the hotel!!! Special thanks to Tracy at the Super 8 Motel for being so kind and accommodating!!! They had free cookies! And hot soup! lol.. And as I type this, I'm sipping on a nice hot coffee! Our last few days have flown by thanks to the kindness shown to us by these great people.
It's been a while since we have had access to the internet so there are lots of stories to tell!
We originally planned on doing a lot more camping - cause camping is fun, and frankly,,, hotels cost a lotta money. However, after being pelted with freezing, driving, horizontal rain for hours on end, a place to thaw out seems much more appealing. lol. So we stayed the night in Virden in a lovely warm hotel.
(Along the way we have had the pleasure of meeting some fantastic people, some of these people have been very good and have helped us out by providing us with special rates and deals on accommodation.)
Here's a little update on what happened during the last few days.
Day #12
On the 12th, we started our from Virden bright and early and headed out with our sights fixed on Portage la Prairie. The weather was MUCH better, although those pesky winds were still against us for the majority of the way. It was a long day but we did very well! Despite the winds, we managed to bike to MacGreggor - 170Kms from Virden. MacGreggor is a really great little town! It's sorta tucked away, completely hidden from the highway by trees. We were able to find a camping ground there and stayed the night. We decided that we should get an early start on the day given our luck with wind direction so we set 7:30 am as our departure time for Winnipeg. (I believe we actually left around 8:10, hehe)
Day #13
This day deserves an entirely separate special entry.. cause it was fantastic. Thanks to some special new friends!
Day#14
After our huge boost in morale, thanks to the Winnipeg Police and Fire Departments, we woke up in the Richer Motor Inn refreshed and ready to go. We figured there might be rain and some of those headwinds again, but it started out much better than we had anticipated. It caught up with us though! hahaha.. We kept up a great pace on our course to Kenora Ontario! Happily crossing the Ontario border, we stopped for lunch and to fix another flat tire. We ended up blasting right on into Kenora through the rain that followed us from Richer. We were looking for a place to stay for the night in Kenora and decided to give the Super 8 Motel a try.. They shocked the heck out of us by providing us with free rooms, and arranging for us to have a free snack at the restaurant next door to the hotel!!! Special thanks to Tracy at the Super 8 Motel for being so kind and accommodating!!! They had free cookies! And hot soup! lol.. And as I type this, I'm sipping on a nice hot coffee! Our last few days have flown by thanks to the kindness shown to us by these great people.
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