Welcome

Welcome message from Hélène

It has been my idea since 2009 to cross Canada by bike in 2015, the year I will turn 50.  I was not an avid cyclist until 2008 when I quit smoking and joined the local cycling club.  Via the cycling club I met Daniel and one thing led to another and we are now a happy couple.  We have already had the chance to travel quite a bit together and this trip will also be done together.  Yehhh for me!!!!!   This is our biggest undertaking as far as trips go for either one of us.

This trip will consist of cycling from Vancouver back home to Ottawa, the rest of Canada will be done another time.  We are flying to Vancouver on May 23rd and I must report back to work on August 3rd 2015.

The vast majority of the blog will be written by Daniel, I'm more the technical and quality assurance person with it comes to the blog.

About us

As stated above Hélène and I met via our local cycling club.  My cycling interests led me to be involved with Vélo Québec as an "Encadreur" which means a bike support person for cycling trips.  Hélène also became an "Encadreur" one year later.  We are avid cyclists who also dabble in cross country skiing and hiking in order to take full advantage of all seasons.

Daniel is smiling inside :)

Planning and Training

Serious planning started about 9 months before the start of the trip.  The blog was setup ahead of time, the routes were planned.  The equipment carefully selected and adjusted after our last cyclo-touring trip in the Gaspésie.

In September 2014 we started to follow a more structured training.  On Tuesday evenings we would do a spinning class followed by 30 laps in the pool.  On Thursday evenings we would do another spinning class followed by one hour of yoga.  On the week-ends we would do some kind of exercise outing on most Saturdays and Sundays.  As the seasons changed we would change the activities.  Therefore our week-ends were filled with the various activities such as road cycling, cyclo-touring, mountain biking, hiking, swimming laps, x-country skiing and back to cycling with our loaded touring bikes in the spring.

Our other blogs

         2014 - Tour de la Gaspesie
         2016 - The in Between Blog
         2017 - Eastward to "The Rock"