Well this is different. We’re flying for the first time in a COVID-19 world, and the usually beautiful Vancouver is shrouded in wildfire smoke from the US, presenting the worst air quality in the world.
It will be our longest leg on the trail so far – seven hundred kilometres in seven days’ cycling, up to 136km on one day. With no mountains, few rivers and not much else to entertain us, this will be a mental endurance test of mostly straight gravel trail or road stretching ahead forever. According to Gill’s planning and mapping, we are in for up to 50km stretches without so much as a tilt of the handlebars. Welcome to the Prairies, the flat heartland of Canada.
We’ve also left it a little late in the year – managing deadlines and meetings, keeping an eye on the slight rebound of COVID-19 before deciding to go for it. These parts of Canada are early to feel the chill of winter’s coming, so we are in for some cold morning starts.
Leaving Vancouver, it took several minutes and some 6,700 feet to climb above the smoke. Neither of us has flown for seven months, but before the pandemic put a halt to travel, one of our favourite pastimes on flights was to follow the thousands of kilometres of trail we have ridden through now-familiar landmarks below. On this flight to Edmonton only the tallest of BC’s mountain peaks were faintly visible.
People often ask us about the logistics of these rides. Given we do this in bits and pieces between work commitments, and given we don’t camp, the logistics are convoluted to say the least. Gill plots every hour, down to “butt breaks” and – when we are lucky – coffee or lunch stops. We don’t hurry, stopping often to take photos or just take in the scenery. But the days ahead are long, mostly flat and likely to be dull.
We’ve come too far to drive to our start points now and flying brings all sorts of challenges apart from viruses. There’s dismantling the bikes and panniers and carefully packing them, squashing all our gear and provisions into two pannier bags each, finding places to stay, and shipping the empty bike bags to Saskatoon.
Then there’s the actual riding. The farther we go from home the longer the sections must be to make it worthwhile. These will be tired bodies that ride into Saskatoon next week.
On a particularly nasty day of big mountains last year, Gill spluttered “Bring on the f-ing Prairies!” They are here, and we’re wary of what we wished for.
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Trans Canada Epic 
Hi, Enjoyed reading your narrative and the pics. Many thanks x
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