Twin Tour Blog

Dear Friends,

We are done now and had a spectacular, life-changing trip. Our daily entries tell only small parts of the bigger story of Canadian generosity and beauty and we hope to fill in the blanks and expand the pages over the next little while. In time we will have our story more fleshed out, less typo-filled and ready to distribute to all of our supporters.  Please send comments/email if there is something you want to hear more about or if you have stories or photos that could be included (thanks Ben!).

We update every day but the updates are a little hard to find. Smart people we really admire have had trouble so maybe you do too . Look under The Ride, then open the Schedule/distances page. From there, just click on the date you are interested in. Not the hotel, although you can check those links too. If you click on a date, you will go to a page that describes the ride physically, indicates if we are dedicating it to anyone, and has map/elevation information. If we have already completed the ride, the page will have a description of our day and some photos. We are on schedule and likely to stay that way but it is sometimes difficult to update on the day of the ride because we don’t always have an Internet connection. Usually we do though.

with province three nearly behind us we are still on schedule.  please visit our daily updates in the “schedule” part of “the ride”.

We logged just over 500 kilometers three days of rain and three flat tires in five days. Today is a badly needed rest day and the weather is beautiful in Kelowna. Lori had her bike in the shop to get a damaged rim and tire repaired after the blow-out on the downward slope of the Summerland hill. They also repaired her brakes, which weren’t working at all. That was why she was so nervous on the descent – she couldn’t use the back brake. They still aren’t perfect but should be much better now.
We were at Kelowna’s Boston Pizza where we had been invited for lunch. They are very keen Vancouver Canucks fans here and desperately want the “boys in blue” to beat Boston, as the photo shows. I had the chance to see Dave Winter, a man that I had the pleasure of working for almost 30 years ago. He is as funny and clever and handsome as I remembered, and just a little older.
We are packing up now to get an early start in the morning. It looks like we might need the rain gear again. All week in fact. But they also called for rain today so maybe they will continue to be wrong.

We have written our update on the Day 1 page. We will continue to update every day so please take a look at our daily reports.

We had our bike wash today and collected $160 for the cause though we didn’t actually wash 8 bikes since Krusty’s donated some cash as well as the material we used. The guys there are extremely nice and professional, and good teachers. Jordan gave us some valuable maintenance tips which we were pleased to be able to pass on. We also met some very pleasant people, including the creator of the world’s first steam clock. He is riding a sparkling clean bike while his charming wife is riding a brand new bike fresh off Krusty’s shelf. She recently bought a Flyer, a nice looking Trek cruiser bike that seems to be the model that all the nice women in Richmond are riding. We haven’t mastered uploading photos yet, despite carrying every modern portable computing device on the market. We will find a way though so stay tuned.  Actually we kinda figure it out as you can see from the photo of Nancy washing a bike. The placement etc will need more studying but at least we can post vis

We made it to Richmond and as Matthias pointed out on facebook the longest single leg is now behind us. The Abercorn  Inn is lovely, the beds are soft, the breakfast was fine and the people are friendly.  We took our bikes to Krusty’s and had them tuned up by the experts there. The guys there have posters up for our bikes wash tomorrow and it seems to us that Krusty”s is a great store for people in this area.  We have confidence that our bike are road worthy.  Anyone who has ever had a bike shop where confidence wasn’t always included will know just how crucial it is on the start of a long trip.   So if any bike riders from Vancouver area are reading this, come to Krusty’s tomorrow to help us out and to meet the staff.

we are nearly packed now and Courtesy bikes will pack my bike tomorrow. this is our first attempt at posting from the playbook. hopefully this gets easier or our posts from the road will be brief.

We will be holding a bike wash on Sunday, June 5 between 1 and 5 pm at Krusty’s Bicycles, 135 – 8460 Alexandra Road in Richmond. Krusty’s has kindly offered us all of the supplies we’ll need to clean your bikes and make sure the tires are pumped, the chain is oiled and you are ready to ride. This service will cost you just $20, all of which will go directly to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. Please come see us with your bikes – a clean bike is much nicer to ride than a dirty bike, and your donation goes to a great cause.