Today was the real start date, Saturday June24, 2006. The game plan was 84 kms from downtown Vancouver to Mission, BC. We had a light breakfast on campus and then left for mission. It was a relatively easy ride, with only minor hills and very little wind into the Coast Mountains. However, despite the ease of the ride, it was not uneventful. We had 5 people go down, myself included within the first 20 kms. To start, at the first banks beach, Gary had trouble unclipping and hit the pavement. This gave him a nasty gash on his knee that is still bleeding as I write this. Five kilometers later, Darren had trouble with her gearing and fell going up a hill. Emily was following close behind and both of the girls ended up with cuts and bruises. One of the few mechanical skills that I honed in my basement was the indexing of gears. I fixed Darren's bike enough to get her into camp and the four of us left the city.
It was at the outskirts of Port Moody, BC that I hit the pavement for the first time this year. I was climbing a hill when I mad the stupid mistake of shifting both my chainring and my cassette at the same time. This cause the chain to fall off and I managed to unclip the right foot, but fell on the left side. Luckily no cars were on the road. I didn't hit too hard but I ended up with a 4 inch cut and a bloody leg. Not too bad, and I'll be laughing if that's the worst of my crashes this summer.
We continued through the Coast foothills and most of the group ended up separating. I ended up cycling most of the day with Iona from Calgary. She's a triathete and has a cycling ability similar to mine. We were pretty quick from Vancouver to Mission but again, managed to get lost 10 kms from the campsite. This is a pretty rural area and the streets were not marked all that well. After talking with some locals however, we made it to our beautiful camp at 2:30pm.
As I write this, it is 10:00pm and the sun is just going down over the horizon of our camp. We are staying at a local fishout farm and the weather has been perfect! I definitely drank too many beers in the hot sun this afternoon and may end up paying for it on the ride to hope in the morning but it was well worth it. We had fresh trout, salad, and veggies for supper and it was very good. Then we spent and few hours around the lake and chilled out. Well, the weather is suppose to be good again tomorrow and we have another easy day to Hope, BC so I should get to bed. We are hitting up a natural hot springs tomorrow!
