Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. 26 - Biking Canada in 69 days

Episode Date: July 24, 2019

Laurie Mercier, Dustin Newman and I sit and discuss our 2006 bike trip where we traveled across Canada in 69 days. We had no training or knowledge of biking long distances and what ensued is comical.... and a story you won’t soon forget 

Welcome to the podcast. First off, I want to say a congratulations to Brian and Melissa Zawawa. I was at their wedding this past weekend. They allowed me to participate and maybe have won too many sociables. But I enjoyed myself and just wanted to say congratulations to you too. Hopefully you have a lifetime of happiness and filled with kids very soon. Next, the border battle of Alberta coming to, like, Minster Saturday, September 28th is sold out currently.

But they just announced the first two guys that are coming. So the Emmington Oilers alumni announced Louis DeBrusk. If you don't know who Louis is, he's currently a hockey analyst with Sportsnet, and he does hockey net in Canada. But he was drafted 49th overall by the New York Rangers in 1989. And I thought, you know, I'm looking through Louis, he played for a bad era. of the Oilers. They were in tough there. They lost all their talent to the rest of the league. They'd just come off winning all the Cups there in the mid-90s, well, the late 80s, early 90s,

and then he was in a trade that saw him, Bernie Nichols and Stephen Rice, traded from the New York Rangers for Mark Messier and future considerations. So that's a tough one to be remembered for. Mark Messier was one of the best players in the NHL at the time. So hopefully he, comes and has a great time. Lloyd, if you're playing on that team, he has played with some fantastic hockey players, Dougie Waite, Billy Guerin, that era of the Edmonton Oilers, and he made a name for himself as being one of the toughest guys in the league, or willing to drop him with the toughest guys in the league, and at times you can put up some points as well. The Calgary Flames alumni went a different route. They announced Jamie McCown, a defenseman.

He was undrafted, but would go on to play a thousand games over a 17-year career in the NHL. He played for Team Canada multiple times. He won a Stanley Cup with the Flames in 89 and was traded out to Toronto in the deal that saw Doug Gilmore go that way. And so they have a very talented defenseman coming to play for him. So I'm hoping the Oilers put a little more skill with Louie. That way maybe we stand a chance. because if the flames keep bringing All-Star defensemen, we might be in tough.

If you're looking to get in the game, there are two spots to play with the Calgary Flames still. $1,000 each gets you in. If that's something you're interested in, contact Lloydminster Region Health Foundation 306, 8206161, and talk to Malcolm Ragki. He can get you hooked up, and you can get playing in the game.

I want to say thanks to Harlan Lessig and the Weekly Bean. They continue to support the podcast, put me in each week, and their week of little paper they have out in Lloydminster, Moose Jaw, and Kindersley. So thanks, Harland and team. Next few shoutouts. Dean Amandrewd had to text me saying, great podcast with Amber.

He's talking Amber LaRue, first pro-chugin, woman truck wagon driver. He said, so cool to hear her story. Brad Rampel had reached out on Twitter, I said, I just wanted to say to you that I really enjoy your podcast. It keeps me entertained on my many miles of driving. So thanks, boys, for reaching out. Finally, Mike Sexmith said, keep up the great work. I've quite enjoyed listening.

So I appreciate you guys reaching out and let me know what you're listening. If you want to get a shout out on here, just tip me up via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Just look up the Sean Newman podcast. You can find us there. Now, this week, I have my brother Dustin, and Lori Mercier on the podcast with me. And we discussed biking Canada back in 2006.

So back in 2006, the three of us bought bikes and started biking from the East Coast across. Canada started in St. John's, Newfoundland, and ended in Vancouver. No, we were not amazing athletes. No, we did not bike that long before. It's quite an entertaining story. and I hope you guys enjoy.

So without further ado. Welcome to the Shaw Newman podcast. I'm joined by Lori Mersey and Dustin Newman. And we've been sitting here chatting because it has been 13 years since we biked across Canada. It took us 69 days to do roughly 6,500 kilometers, give or take. And I thought we might just go retrace our steps and talk about it. I got a whole crazy amount of questions. that people submitted.

So we'll see if we can work through some of that and work through the provinces and just kind of paint a picture of what we accomplished back in 2006. So welcome, guys. Hey, thanks. Thanks for having me again, Sean. Thanks for coming to Calgary. Absolutely. This podcast.

So first, I mean, how did it, like, I tell the story that it was a road trip and the old black Mustang I had to Emmington is where this. initial idea dawn. And me and Dust were driving and I come back from my second year of hockey and out and Dryden and we were driving along to Amitaine. Can't remember what we're doing there. And for some reason I was in the passenger seat of my car, which makes no sense. And we were, I was asking Dust about traveling the world and somehow I asked a question, like where would you go next? Like what do you want to see next? And he says, honestly, I travel. a lot of places. And the one place I haven't traveled is Canada. I was like, oh, okay, so you want to travel

Canada? Yeah, well, I was thinking about maybe biking something. It's like, oh, okay, yeah, I can handle bike and something. Okay, what are you thinking? Well, maybe the mountains. All right, yeah, that's cool. And it just kind of spiraled and spiraled until we're like, well, let's blow the map. And I had back in those days, we didn't have smartphones to look up distances and everything. So I had maps jammed in all the corners of the Mustang because they used to travel all across Canada. up, dried in all the time, and we started, like, adding up all the distances, and we worked it out, and we're like, oh, we did this many days. We could probably do it in a summer, right? And that's where it kind of like dawn. You want to buy Canada? All right, let's bite Canada. But maybe you guys

remember different things, and so I thought maybe we'd start there. I don't remember this, how it all began. You obviously remember it much better than me. I remember talking about the mountains and then deciding, well, if we're going to do the mountains, we might as well, why wouldn't you? at that point, really. And Lori remembers a lot more about how she got involved with this, because Lori and I knew each other, but Lori's older sister and I were good friends at that point. Lori and Sean had never met before we started this trip.

And I'll maybe let Lori tell how she actually got involved with this from the beginning because her coming along on this trip was kind of... Super random. Yes. Why am I here? I remember the phone call. Yeah, I got one of my friends from college sisters wants to come. Okay, sounds good.

Yes. You might as well tell that story how you got involved with this. Yeah, I don't really remember why the conversation started. Dustin was going to South America, and I was having a bit of an existential crisis towards the end of my kinesiology degree, realizing what do you do with the kinesiology degree? He traveled the world, I guess. So Dustin invited me to South America, and I sort of thought, yeah, sure, I'll do that. And then kind of thought, no, I've got one semester. I better hunker down and get this degree done.

And so I called Destin and said, no, I'm not going to come to South America. And Dustin said, well, that's fine. We're going to bike Canada next summer if you want to come. And I was like, yeah, sure, I'll do that. And that was it. And then I was biking across Canada with Sean, who I'd never met, and Dustin who I had met a handful of times. Harley asked, and he was the first person to submit a question.

He goes, what did Lori think or what did Lori's family think of going across Canada with two guys she hardly knew? or maybe, well, for one, you didn't know me. And then Dustin, you maybe met once. Like, did they ever raise a red flag? Like, this seems a little bit odd. You know, I'm the middle child, and I think they don't care quite as much about me as the other children. Actually, I'm the middle child as well,

and I'm pretty sure mom was much more concerned about Sean doing this than me. Like, if Dustin dies going across the other, no big deal, but if Sean dies, like, seriously. That's a golden child. That's true. How about when you started telling people? Do you remember what the reaction was? For the most part, people said, oh, you'll never do it.

You'll never make it. You'll fly home in no time, which I think was very helpful in getting me to keep peddling across the country. I don't remember anybody saying much to me, although I didn't talk to many people at that time. I talked to my family and they were like, yeah, whatever, you do what you got to do. and I just traveled a bunch before that, so I didn't, no one really said I couldn't do it. But I know you're different, Sean. Well, I have vivid memories of being in a friend's house at a table, having beers, talking about it. And we just decided that summer, so I was literally back from hockey and getting, like, grilled on it pretty hard.

You're going to do, like, what? Like, you're an idiot. Like, you're not going to finish that. Like, I remember that. And I remember being like so flustered and mad. I just couldn't think anymore. And when I walked out the door, I went, yeah, this is happening. And I don't care how long it takes me.

I'm never coming back until this is done. I actually remember the one time you did that and he came to me and you were just upset. And I was like, Sean, why do you care what they think? Like we can do it if we want to. And all you got to do is, I remember saying this. All you have to make sure you do is not quit. If you quit, you'll never make it. But as long as you get on your bike every day.

eventually, like there's no, we don't have a set timeline. All we got to do is get on your bike every day and eventually you'll make it. That's very true. It's a lesson that's stuck with me all my life now. Yeah. Is there's nothing that, well, impossible is nothing. Like there's nothing you can't do if you just. Just get on your damn bike every day.

It's true. This is maybe not my best story, like most inspiring story of the bike trip. However, I remember one day somewhere in Ontario having this aha moment of like, I'm not that impressive and I'm biking across the other so really anyone can do this. You know it's funny Laurie had that same opinion I was like, yeah Lori's not that impressive

but she's going to make it so like you know that's something. I can't wait until Lori leans across the table and slashes. It's like nothing's changed in 13 years. You spend 69 straight days together you become well you form a bond that's kind of different.

We should like I mean we should talk about that just a bit more Because, I mean, the idea of biking across Canada was crazy. The idea of biking across Canada and not knowing each other all that. I mean, me and Dustin Brothers, obviously, but sticking a third in that neither of us knew, like, I met you the day we left. Yeah. I remember, like, shaking your hand and being like, oh, okay, cool, right?

Like, hope she's ready for this, right? Like, this is intense. Like, I was way more ready than you were. You didn't have your bike for, like, like, until five days before we left. I at least had my bike for like two or three months. It's true. I was not the person that we needed to be concerned about here.

I fly by the seat in my pants for most days, yes. Let's talk about training because that's been asked a ton. What did you guys do for training? Nothing. Nothing. I bought my bike three months in events and then didn't get on it until we left. However, I had a bike. It's kind of like parenting, though, really?

Like, what are you going to do beforehand? Yeah. Like, really? You're going to go and bike a hundred kilometers? a day for a week before. You guys get on your... Probably would have been smart. Does anybody remember our first week?

Yeah, it was hell. It was hell. Okay, before we get into the first week, let's talk about actually making it to the airport. Okay, so I... We have this... So let's talk about getting our bites first, because Lori does bring up a good point.

I got home, we left, we found out, we were looking up old notes. June 27th, 2006 is when we leave. We fly out from Calgary. And I think I got back. back like June 15th from tree planning. And so I was in pretty decent shape. I've been tree planning and then I've been playing junior hockey.

So I was feeling pretty good. I wasn't too worried about training. But we didn't have any bikes yet. We didn't have anything. So we drove up to Eminton and walked into, we couldn't figure out, we went to Mount Equipment Co-op. Got her panniers there. Yeah, got the panniers.

Went down the street, a lot of bikes. Sattel bags. Sattel bags. Sattelbacks. The saddlebags. They strap on the side of your bike. but we didn't have bikes yet. And so I remember walking into whatever that bike store was called because we can't remember. Western cycle, I think.

It might have been Western cycle. I think it was just down the street. And walking up to the guy and saying, listen, so we're leaving in like a week to bike Canada. We need to bikes. What do you suggest? And he's like, oh, okay. And he didn't even blink an eye. He's like, this is the bike you probably want to get.

And we'll pull it down and we'll suit you up for it. And we're like, okay, well, how much that cost? Yeah, about two grand. Oh, okay, yeah, sounds good. So we bought $2,000, $2,000. our bikes not knowing what the heck we were doing i rode it literally in the parking lot we drove it home and i never got on again until we got to st john's and it was crumpled up and we had to go get it fixed so packing it up to leave for calgary yeah we buy a bike rack to load it on the back of my mom's

explorer we load both bikes on and we're good to go strap it in jump in go around the first corner the bike rack and the bikes fall off the back of the vehicle and sean's bike is behind mine So we land on top of Shahn's bike, and it's all scuffed, all that shit. Yeah, at least I didn't swear first on the... It was true. Mom remember that. Sorry, Mom. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's how, and so we named all three bikes. We should talk about names. We named all three of our bikes. My bike took an absolute shit kicking. Like, it was bad. It was marked up everywhere. So we named it after the guy from Sin City, which we thought was Goldie.

which actually his name was Marb and Goldie was the prostitute that died in the movie. Once again, sorry I'm up for that story. So Goldie was my bike. How about you, Lauren? Well, I didn't name my bike. You guys fondly have reminded me. Apply named it Eeyore. That you guys named my bike Eeyer.

Laurie was not pleasant at the beginning of the trip. I'll say that. That's not true. I'd like to say I went to the Maritimes not having trained with two strangers and still got on my bike every day. And you were sour most of the time. It was gloomy. It was gloomy.

My bike was named Lucille 2 after Arrested Development because I fell off my bike a lot. We lost count after about 10 times where my bike would tip over. And Lucille 2 from Arrested Development had vertigo and couldn't stand up. So that's where my bike got the name from. I've been asked to ask about gear. What did we pack? Do you remember?

So the theory we had was we're not going to take camping stuff. We're going to hotel it. We're going to be light. We're going to get to have a clean shower at the end or a hot shower, fresh meals. We're not going to worry about packing a whole bunch of cooking stuff, having to worry about fires, et cetera, et cetera. It's going to cost a little bit more.

But to ease on our mind, especially not training, we'll make up for it, which was a brilliant decision. And we started on the East Coast instead of the West Coast, which everybody said start on the west and go through the mountains first because of prevailing winds. And we decided to start on the east. The reason we did that was because we were worried we'd hit the first mountains in BC and go, that's enough of that. And we're just going to fly home.

Yeah, pretty much. Even after those first, even if we made it through the first mountains, I would hit Calgary and there was no way I was leaving. Actually, that was something that Sean and I discussed. It was that Laurie would shut up in Calgary. So that she doesn't quit. Yeah. It worked.

Yeah, it did work. It did work. Do you remember what, so we each had two saddlebags. Yeah. Do you remember what you packed in it? Some clothes? Well, I remember specifically I had the bike pump. Yeah.

So if any flat tires, I had the pump that pumped up. You had two spots for water bottles. Yeah. We ended up with three spots for water bottles. I ended up with three spots for water bottles. Okay. Yeah. I remember taking a pair of jeans, a pair of board shorts, a couple shirts,

a couple shirts, and then I had two writing outfits. And we were talking about it before every day at the end, you put your one you used in the sink, wash it out with some... I don't think I washed mine every day. I think I stunk most of the time, quite honestly. I've written a book that many times. Absolutely. I didn't like washing my stuff.

So yeah, I'm sure I stunk. What else did that? The only way you smelled me, though, is if I was in the lead, which I didn't do that too much. I was always shone, so... What else did you take? You took a journey. Yeah, I had a journal.

A bike lock. We each, yeah, bike lock. We each had spare tubes. Yeah. We had one toolkit to change tires, which we'd never used until we got on. We've been shown by the guy. Took us like 45 minutes to change your first first tire. Which happened about 45 minutes into trip.

That's great. Not even 45 minutes in the trip. Yes. That was Sean's bike. That was gut check time that entire. Absolutely. I got around the corner and went flat and I'm like, oh my God, what are we into? We're not even in.

I mean, you can't, you can still see the airport for Pete's sake We're in a flat tire don't never change one before everyone's going how do you change I don't know how to change it Did you do we pack anything else other than that like we used to stop at grocery stores and grab cans of to me Remember them? Yes, flavor canza tune Bread peanut butter And you use the you bend the lid yeah, so it was a spoon and yet be carefully

You didn't cut your tongue on it's sharp and you'd spoon up. We must have looked like savages. We were savages. Did we not have a spoon somewhere though? Because I remember having yogurt and granola in the mornings. I probably did. Yeah.

Sounds like something Lori would have packed. We get to Calgary and we're sitting at, I believe, your sister's house. Yes. Meeting everybody's first time. And the first thing comes up, well, how do you get bikes on a plane? So then we had to call the airport. They're like, well, you got to box them up. Oh, okay.

Like, this, this plan is going to hell real quick, right? Nobody knows what we're doing. So remember we were boxing them up in the amount of tape we used to get in like. But we didn't, we boxed them up, but we didn't like put anything around the bikes. So they're kind of loose inside the box. Yeah. And so we get to St. John's and the bikes, like, there was nothing to cushion the bluff from the bikes. And so Sean's bike was just wrecked.

Henceforth the name, Goldie. She was a unit. Somehow my bike and Lori's bike were fairly unscathed, but Sean's bike was beat up. And so we spent the first day going to a bike shop to get Sean's bike fixed. Well, and that's why Dad asked, he asked a question, why did it take us so many days to get out of St. John's? I think three. I think it took us three days because we couldn't physically leave. Yeah.

Because Sean's bike. Yeah, and like the bike store didn't open until like 2 p.m. or something. Like there was weird St. John's things. The St. John's thing? Yeah. St. John's things. Yes. That happened.

Do you remember going to George Street? Yeah, we had a good night out in George Street, going to a couple bars. I remember, the thing I remember what George Street is that you go into the bar and there would be 18 to like 80-year-olds drinking altogether, which I thought was pretty cool. And I remember like there being country bar, techno bar, strip bar, Celtic bar. And the bar we went into was that old, like, it looked like a cabin.

Yeah. And then that's when I was wearing the shirt that said, Canadians draft beers, not soldiers, and I had three American soldiers eye me up all night. Yeah. Yeah, we thought we were losing you that first night. Yeah. Would have been a more peaceful trip.

You say that. I added a little comic relief for the days that got a little long, that's for sure. Let's talk about our first day. So we do get the bike fixed. we leave St. John's, we round the first corner, hit a flat tire, everybody remember what they were thinking? We're never going to get there. Each little thing that like threw a wrench in our path, I was like, oh, maybe I get to go home. I think after the first day when we went like, I don't know, 30K or whatever it was, I was like, oh my God.

I don't think we even this isn't good. This is not good. Well, you think of all the stuff we went through in the first day, we had, so to give everybody a visual, like when you pedal on a normal pedal bike, your feet are just on the pedals, it's not a big deal. With these bikes, we had clip-in shoes, so that way you wouldn't lose any of your strength. You could pull on the upstroke. You could pull on the upstroke. But your feet are locked in, so when you come to a stop, you can't just pop your feet off. You fall over.

Yeah, you got to pop them all. I fell over numerous times. Dustin almost gets hit in the first 25 minutes by a vehicle. And we're like, I'm, he falls on the highway. What happens there is I'm actually biking along the curb on the major highway coming out of St. John's. And I got a little too close to the curb. We rubbed the curb a little bit. There was a strong wind and I fall over into traffic.

And a car almost runs me over day one. Also would have been a more peaceful trip. Yes, yes. I almost got rid of both of them. What did you think of the first day, Lauren? Yeah, I think I remember all the same thoughts of like, oh my gosh, it's going to take us a long time to get across Canada if we do 30 kilometer days. And yet, that's all I can manage. And I'm not sure I can do 30 kilometers tomorrow.

I remember being worried after the second day because the second day, I think we did 30K again. And I'm like, oh, we're supposed to be doing like 110K a day. Yeah, we worked out if we did 110 a day. We're not there at all. Yes. and then we started doing hills. So St. John's, we're starting to come across Newfoundland. We're going along the major highway.

We quickly figure out that having like double lane highway with lots of vehicles is not a great way to bike. So we started doing a south loop. But as we're going on that south loop, the hills that we have to climb are just intense. And I remember zigzagging up the hill just to climb the hill because you couldn't go straight up it. I remember Lori just about giving up on one or two of those hills. Well, I think I tipped over in the middle of. Yes. Luckily there's no traffic.

It does, how many hills did you beat me up in, uh, at least one? One? No. Maybe? No. Two?

One? You're lying to the list. 17. It's got to be something. I mean, the problem is Sean's got these huge, fricking trunk of legs. And he's built for sprints.

Those, those hills were, that was beautiful country. It was so big. I can see him on Newfoundland. That coast that we went up and down. Oh, it's fantastic. And,

Some of the bed and breakfast we stayed in like a little fishing villages. It's fantastic. Do you remember watching Robin Hood? Yeah. Disney Robin Hood? That was like the highlight of the first month for sure. Absolutely. Yeah.

That's why I knew he was going to make it. Watching Robin Hood, the cartoon. I think that was actually in St. Bright and we should talk about St. Bride. We're like five days in and Lori's like, I don't think I can go any further. And Sean's chomping at the bit and I'm like. No, I'm foaming at the mouth. I'm ready to like, yeah, pull every.

behind me. So we spend two days and do nothing in a place called same bride. We are 6,492 kilometers from where we need to be. We're supposed to be doing 110K a day and we've traveled like 72 kilometers and we need to take two days because our knees hurt. This is early on. You can imagine my mindset. This is even thinking about it right now gets me fired up. I remember Lori being just like I'm freaking dying and I was like okay we'll take a little bit of time I remember talking to Sean he's like why the hell did we bring Lori on this trail like seriously like she's holding us back we're never going to make it I'm like Sean jerks you're saying like complete asshole you were an asshole anyhow and I remember being like look Sean it's the first week once we get rolling it'll be

fine just like we need a couple days to recuperate also like this wasn't night number two like we did five days before our first rest day. I don't think so. I've got it in my journal. Your journal lies. So Sean was an asshole and Laura was probably a little bit of a wuss. I wasn't. I would not. We spent two days there and then we keep going after that and slowly make our way to whatever the placentia, assumption, something like that to take the ferry over to Sydney. Yeah. Well, and do you remember take it? So we stayed at this little, another bed and breakfast. Better breakfast, have you ever gone with Midland are unbelievable. Yes.

And the people there were unreal and they took us to that abandoned U.S. Army base. Hmm. You don't remember. Come on, people. Yeah, yeah. They took us for a day trip out to, because we had to wait until like 11 at night to bike through the dark about 10 kilometers to the ferry. They made us that fantastic meal. He was a pastry chef.

I remember that delicious dessert. It was a traditional Newfoundland meal, which there's a reason why. You don't have traditional Newfoundland meals because it wasn't the tastiest meal ever, but it was, the dessert was fantastic. The meal itself was like. It's just offending all new fees right now. Cover your ears. Cover your ears. But they took us out to the hospital and the side of the hill that was abandoned and we talked about like climbing down into it.

Yes. And it was like straight out of a horrible. What did they give us to go on the trip the rest of the trip with? They sent us off with something. I can't remember what though. great people though great people we were wondering this Lori we thought you knew did we get Christmas cards from a couple of people we stayed with

you specifically not I remember Bed and Breakfast and PII for sure Oh I don't think I got a Christmas card from him Someone did The Rainbow Bed Breakfast We'll cover the Rainbow Bed Breakfast Yeah that's right okay okay fair enough

Fair enough well do you remember Okay so that night we had to bike about 10K in the dark And the rain. And the rain. To get to a ferry. And you remember the chains coming off? We couldn't keep the stupid chains on. And so then we're sitting there with like a little tiny flashlight on the helmet.

It's a helmet flashlight trying to figure it out. This is like day seven. Just being like, what are we doing? Nothing had gone right at that point. Nothing had gone right. Your friend was hard. Yeah. And people were asking, was there ever a time you thought, like, scur this?

I am done. Let's just go home. And if I were to sit back and think about it, it was probably in that first seven to ten days. I think Lori hit her breaking point around Nova Scotia, which was right after the ferry. Yeah, I remember the first two weeks. I feel like I've got documented emails to my mom being like, hey, want to come have a vacation in the Maritimes with me and then fly me home? I remember having a conversation and I think it was Nova Scotia with you. And you said, I think I'm just going to quit.

my mom's going to come and I'm just going to hang out with her and it was a good adventure to this point but I'm done and I remember having the conversation like Lori look the first couple weeks has been tough it'll get easier as we go and you'll make it and you will regret it if you quit but you'll always remember it if you make it okay this sounds like you motivated me to keep going I'm not sure that's how that went totally how it went don't think so I'm gonna I'm gonna say I didn't do that so I'm sure I know I didn't say much I think Sean was nudging me like get Lori to quit. Oh,

shout out. That might have happened, huh? A whole bunch of people asked. Sean Priest, Deidre, man, Murray McDonnell, they all want to know

how sore a butt's got. And if you ever got accustomed to riding on the seat. And I know in the first, you wouldn't think in the first like couple days it would, or maybe you'd would, and then you'd think

over time it may be like numbs or you just get used to it. But I, I never got used to it. No, that was one thing that never got better. The swollen knees went away, the swollen ankles, that all like resolved after the first two weeks. The butt, though. Holy monkey.

Yeah, the whole way across. Whole way across. It was the same. Yeah, it was bad. I remember having, like, to give your butt a rest, you just have to stand on the pedals and just. You were sort of grateful for a hill because you had to stand to go up the hill. Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.

Or like a really good downhill because then you could like. really lean into it and get aerodynamic. You remember going down the hills in Newfoundland specifically because it was so steep and like racing them in the, when you're, they talk about it in racing all the time and you're like, oh yeah, you get him behind somebody and you can drift on them. But biking, you can totally do that. And it is unbelievable. So you can be going down a hill, tuck right in behind Dustin, let's say he's in the front and you'll go flying by him because you use his, him to break the wind.

See, getting him behind, Sean was the best because he's a little wall. wider. So he breaks the wine really well and you can just like draft right up on there. Yeah, except then you start like catching off to him because he's also a little heavier. You got to break a little bit just to stay in behind. Every bike guy group needs a leader guys and I let a lot of time. Someone asked if we had any hangovers on the trip and I may have had more than one. However, the only one that I really remember is after the ferry ride from our... Where we tried every drink on the ferry.

Yeah, and there were pink ladies that sounded like they, should be delicious. And they were awful. They were horrible. And as we were getting off the ferry, one of the workers from the ferry said, see you later, pink lady. Good luck on your trip. I had a lot of pink ladies. That was a fun night. That was like one of the, we were on a ferry, so you couldn't do anything. It was probably like the first accomplishment, first feather in our cap. We completed one province. We completed one province. And I remember celebrating that. And then we just went down the list of little drinks they had. Yeah. Which started with

the pink ladies. They were quite horrendous. Yeah, absolutely. And then sleeping on the ferry, which wasn't very good either. No. Because it was kind of rocky and, yeah. We didn't have much, I got Nova Scotia written out and although it is beautiful.

It's my favorite province to bike in. Well, then what do you remember about Nova Scotia? I remember that there was a big long, I think it was a saltwater lake, the largest in the world, and we biked alongside of it. It was just gorgeous. Yeah, it was gorgeous. No vehicles.

And so flat after coming out of Newfoundland to bike along this long, flat lake. Lots of trees and just calm. I remember just how nice it was. We stayed with one of my friends in Nova Scotia. Yeah, that's right. Cape Breton. And I think that was also really good for me to sort of have like a person. Yes.

Because Sean was attempting to get me off the trip. I thought by having this on, we could have this like nice, friendly, chat, raw, raw, no, Sean is a big jerk. Well, I had no idea this was going on. Brent Wienes asked, and I think it's right around this time, I could be wrong. He asked, how do we plan routes, stops, safety, repairs, etc. We did not plan safety. We did not plan safety.

We wore a bike helmet and we had vests that were shirt that were reflective. I don't think mine were even reflective. we were hoping you got run over on the root side it changed daily essentially uh i think for the most part i handled the route but there was more than once where we got somewhere i remember the one time the hotel was closed that we were going to stay at and so we had to bike further another time the hotel was booked solid and we had to bike further um yeah i remember going across newfoundland we were going to do the whole way across newfoundland and said we took the ferry from a sanctioner or placenture, whatever it was.

So it changed as we went for sure. You remember, we were trying to, on the ride up, Lori, we were asking, what point in time did we start biking? We learned really, I think really quick. We were starting, like, we were going to leave at 8, and kind of have like a nice day and not get up too early. And that changed because at the top of our game, when we were at the best, we were up by 4 in the morning,

out the door by 4.30 you had to battle through about half an hour of cold hands and darkness and darkness until the sun got warm enough and then you bike till about noon 2 o'clock you missed the hottest part of the day the wind wasn't up no traffic um do you remember when we started i think we started i think that was new brunswick because that was our first like 180 day and we sort of decided like i think we need to leave early for this day and then we realized like, hey, that worked. And so we just kept doing it from there. I think it was New Brunswick.

I think we wanted to stay out of the heat of the day was the big thing. Because when it gets to like 30 degrees out at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and you're dying on a bike, that was tough. And we didn't start getting hot days until then as well because Newfoundland in June is maybe not the hottest place. No, it wasn't super hot. You remember too that if it rained, I remember thinking it's raining, I don't want a bike, but it caused less friction, I think. We go faster. You go faster in the rain. And you wouldn't actually be cold because you're working so hard that you stayed warm.

Well, and in places like in northern Ontario, it's so warm when it rains, too. It was like lovely and warm and humid. I remember that. One other memory from Nova Scotia was we were biking into St. FX in Anna Ganesh. I didn't have very many tipovers, actually. I counted three and a half. You did one into a sign and a deer. We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. Yeah.

Anyways, three and a half. And the half, because Dustin, I think, pushed me on one of them. So that was not my fault. I think you deserved it. However, biking into St.FX and, like, it was like these gorgeous construction workers all standing around. And I was like, that's okay. I'm pretty fit now. We've been biking for a couple of weeks. I like good. I can handle this. And smash. Pulled up, stop, forgot to unclip her feet and fell over sideways. And all the guys turned around and looked at her. She was mortified.

No, it offered to help, I don't think. No, I think they laughed at you. That's where we stayed in the dorms, right? Yeah, that's right. We got like, they were like $10 a night or $12 million. Yeah, really good deals on university. Yeah, if you're traveling across Canada, I feel like that's the way to do it. Yeah, like you can.

In the summertime. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we did it again in Quebec City, I think, and a few other places. Just going back to Brent's question, did we plan stops? Or was it just kind of like when you're, all right, who's hungry? Yeah, I think as we went along, someone would just go, I'm hungry when we'd stop. We probably got into a rhythm of like. Yeah, I was like hour and a half, I think maybe, when we'd have to stop and eat something.

40 kilometers is a good spot to stop. Yeah. You get hungry. And our average day then, I think we worked out was 110 kilometers, yeah? There was. I thought at 120. I think I worked at 120. 120.

Yeah, somewhere in there. Yeah, like it was. And we were doing, I remember Dust had the speedometer on his bike. And it was rough. But we were doing just under 20K an hour. It was like 18. That's how I knew what we got going faster when it rained because all of a sudden we pick up to like, we gain five. No, no, no.

We gained like five kilometers an hour when it rained. It'd be like 25. As soon as it rained. Gumpin it. I think we did stops based on food, actually, if there was a rest. restaurant we stopped. Absolutely. That is true.

Truck stops. Truck stops. That's cheap food and lots of it. Oh, I ate so many pancakes on that tree. That was one at Murray Mac and I wanted to know how many calories. How many calories were burned? And I don't know. We weren't keeping track.

But basically you could eat whatever you wanted. That was amazing. You just eat. Just eat. All day. As much as you could. You want to tell the Montreal River Hill and we want to wait. We'll wait for that.

wait for that. Let's keep you on. Because that is the eating at its finest, don't worry. It's just demolishing 12 pancakes. The whole Polar Bear Express. The other thing we should talk just quickly about was we got really good at fixing tires and patching tires. We didn't like patching tires. I don't think we got good at patching tires.

We got good at fixing, like replacing because we only had to patch it tire once or twice. I think just once. And that was when we were like, okay, we need new rubbers. Yeah, yeah. More inner tubes. Yeah, more inner tubes. But some of the funny things that happen when you bike that long, every day consistently. You remember like the screws and our bikes were slowly winding up. So then we had one of our first houses we stayed at where it was with a friend. I honestly can't remember all the names, but we've got locked tight from her father and put it on all the screws. That's right. And so that way the screws wouldn't back up because they were just starting to fall out of our bike. So any big town, we've got to we'd look up a bike repair shop which surprisingly there's one pretty much in every big city or every medium-sized city and then we'd have to go in and get them to like essentially just put new bolts in everywhere because they started backing out and falling out of our bike and by the time you got to fredericton or wherever your back your bike would be bouncing because you'd be missing

two or three screws yeah anybody else remember eating peanut butter straight out of the yes like I remember just getting to somewhere and having a spoon and just eating straight. Oh, you had a spoon too. That was at a house. Stole up tomorrow. How about PEI? We go across Nova Scotia. So that was a little ferry.

That was a long day. That was our longest day to date, that one. Because we caught the ferry and then we had to push quite a ways inland on PEI. So that was our longest day we'd done up to that point. And we got into a small town in P.E. where there was two bed and breakfast. Purple bicycle. Yeah.

No rainbow bed of breakfast. I don't think it was even a town. It was like two bed and breakfast side by side. Yes. And neither were. No one is home. No one is home. And we're like, well, we could keep going, but that meant another 20K or we could just stop.

And we took a vote and decided, well, let's do this. We'll stop. And whoever shows up first to whatever bed and breakfast, that's one will stay at. Which is weird that you two voted to stop because I'm sure I wanted to keep going. So, okay, so we stop and we're waiting around it up poles, what was it like a 1935 Model T or something. Yes. With a Canada flag off the one side of the front and a rainbow flag on the other. Yes.

And I remember we had the conversation like, is this a gay bed and breakfast? No, I don't remember, I don't remember ever having that conversation. I'm pretty sure we did. And someone said, look at that sign. That says, it says like performs gay marriages or something like that. Oh, yeah, it had the same. symbols. I thought that was on the purple by uh purple motor break no no no no no that was the rainbow bed and breakfast he had a sign that talked about doing uh being the minister for gay marriage

or is he talking out of his butt right now I can't I can't quite remember all they remember is going inside and all of the like penis paraphernalia around the rainbow I remember sitting on the toilet and open up a magazine it was called the scene and I was like oh yeah this is interesting and I'm like this is totally a gay magazine and I remember eating breakfast the next morning. And Dustin was sitting across from me, and behind him was like a cabinet full of art. And over his left shoulder was this sculpture. Let me tell the story here first, because Sean's kind of given me, we're eating breakfast, great breakfast.

Fantastic. And he was great to us. The B&B was awesome. He was fantastic to us. He took us for a ride in the model team. Absolutely. For my first scallops ever, and they were delicious. They took us in so we could get something to eat, for sure.

Next morning, we're eating breakfast, and Sean's kind of giving me a funny look, and I'm kind of giving him a funny look. We start biking the next morning, and I'm like, Sean, did you see the picture of the naked dude behind you, like, in all his glory kind of just spread out, and Sean's like, no, did you see the freaking statue with a huge dong behind your head? And I'm like, no, no, I didn't. But he was a wicked dude He was unbelievable

He was a super nice guy His Model T was in main condition Yes That's the only time I've ever rode in a vehicle like that Yes Right Super kind

We bombed into a little town And got a meal He sat and chad with us Like super super friends He was a great dude It was great by breakfast Yeah I got a picture in front of it

That's probably the most iconic picture We have Yes Of the bike trip In front of his bed and breakfast Absolutely And the next day we make it to Charlottetown. Did we go through Charlottetown? We absolutely did. No, we went on the edge of it.

Oh, I see. You don't remember. Oh, I remember. I know where we're going with this. Okay, so let's set up the story a little bit. I can't remember it all. I think who's in the lead, Lori, when we went past the garage sale or was on? No, no, I think you were. Laurie was in the middle. Okay. For somewhat reason, for the first time of the entire flip of bike trip, I'm in the butt end of it. So the person in the front has to break wind, push wind, and he has the hardest time. And No one falls behind. That's correct. As much as I possibly...

Actually, I just stunk that bad. Anyhow, so we're biking through Charlottetown, and Charlotte Town is not a big city by any stretch. It's a fairly smallish city. Almost feels small town in some places. But we're biking along, and we bike past a garage sale. And there's all these vehicles parked to watch the... Go to this garage sale.

We're biking along, and Lori says something like, ooh, garage sale. And Sean goes, oh, Lori. I go, come on, Lori. What are we going to do? We got nowhere to put it. And I look over and I'm like, oh, they got Borg game. Yeah, what are you going to do with your board game?

I wonder if we got risk. And I mean, as soon as I thought risk, out of the corner of my eye, I see the park car. And I look up and I just have enough time to swerve and run my shoulder clean into the back. But I mean, like, bang. Me and Lurie had dodged around the car. And Sean went to look to see what board games they had and ran smashed into the back of that car. So Lori and I stop, circle back, and this lady comes running out of the garage sale and just loses it on Sean, like running into the back of her car and damaging her car and she's going

off on him and Sean's got the sheep, the most sheepest look on his face. One of the only times he doesn't say anything on the trip, one of a couple. Anyhow. And she's going off on him. Finally, she's like, where are you from anyhow? And Sean goes, Saskatchewan? And she goes, oh, well, I don't think you damage my car. I literally rubbed you off the mark. I mean, I didn't even do any damage. I'm gonna put down on. I did my damage to Goldie. So my count for Sean's tipovers on the trip was six plus one running with Park Car.

Yeah, stupid park car. Just jump right in front of me. I'm gonna say we're gonna get to something that's very incriminating on Lori and probably half an hour that totally redeems that story because I wait. like seven provinces for finally somebody to do something that was even better. For the record, I fell over a lot. I did not run into anything, though. That is accurate.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so that's P.I. No, no, no. The other thing we got to talk about P.I. is the one place where they wouldn't let us bike, and that was Confederation Bridge. Which Confederation Bridge, if you haven't, if you, well, hey, first off, if you want to see the park car incident. When I post this, I'm going to post the picture of.

me getting yelled at by the lady, so you can actually go and see it. We did take a picture of that. Dustin and I stood back and giggled and took a picture. A picture of me getting yelled at. And we're laughing uncontrollably behind me. Real team players. So if you go on Facebook, you can see that. I will post that picture of me and all my glory.

But then when we come around the bend, I remember coming along, I believe it was the coast. And you can see the Confederation Bridge. It is monstrous. You could see it from like 10 kilometers away. Easy. Easy. Easy.

They wouldn't let us bike on it because they said when we get out to the middle, the weather can change so quickly that they're worried about you getting blown off the bridge. Yeah, the winds are so strong. Yeah. And so we actually, that's like one of the only places, minus the ferries, where we get loaded in a van and they all just cross. Oh my gosh, we're scams. We did not bike across Canada.

Hardcore people would have said bucked the rules and carried on. Just ignored them and started biking. Lori might got blown off the bridge. So we make it to New Brunswick. New Brunswick. New Brunswick is where we do. I'm pretty sure it's our longest distance we travel. Yes.

We did that 180 kilometer day heading into Fredericton. Heading into Fredericton. Yeah. I don't remember many details of the B&B when we got into New Brunswick, and yet I remember it also being very nice. It was Germans. Yeah, yeah. The German family.

Z Germans. Yeah, they were good. They were really good. Yeah. And then we stayed at a friend's house sitting in Fredericton. I remember that. Sean's friend. Yeah.

Was it Caitlin? Yeah. Caitlin White. Yeah, it was. Actually, I remember the bridge coming into Fredericton. It was rush hour in Frederington and we crossed that one bridge and that was sketchy. Like it was wall-to-wall traffic and we're biking along a little shoulder along that bridge. Dustin led us into some sketchy situations.

Terrible situations. How else were you going to get there? Anyway, after 180 kilometers, everyone was dying. Yeah, everyone was done anyways. We're like, let's just go. Speaking of Caitlin White, and she might be, I think she's married now, but her and a friend, they tree planning with me that summer. We spent the night at their place, and I remember she walked us down after hours,

knew a guy at a bike shop who unlocked it so we could get a bunch of spare parts that night. So who'd shout out to her if she ever stumbles across us. and then the next year her and another girl that I tree planning with bike Canada. Nice. Yeah. She was very nice. I remember liking her. Yes.

Yes. The day after Fredericton was the only day where my legs just about seized. That 180 kilometer day, I remember getting on the bike and I couldn't get my legs to work. Yeah. Because they were that sore. And we woke up early that next morning to go. I remember popping back huge amounts of Advil just so my legs would work. Oh, yeah.

I forgot with the Advil. Yeah. They were going down like candy. Yeah. Because my legs were dying. My knees were dying after that day. That 180 kilometer day. Our first day of that.

Just about, yeah. Do you guys remember eating a fillet of fish somewhere? Yes. That might have been P.E.I. We stopped at McDonald's. Or was it, it might have been, it might have actually been an agonish or like, anyways, it doesn't matter. And we were all so sick. Yes, because we went to McDonald's and they had,

it wasn't a flay of fish, it was like a lobster. Yeah. Lobster? Mc Lobster? Mc Lobster? That sounds amazing. For all those people out there. Don't do that.

Go to, like, why didn't we go to, I don't know. Some place on the coast, a nice little restaurant serves fresh lobster. We're McDonald's, we all eat. Don't go to McDonald's and get the McLeodster. That's a bad idea. Bad idea. It was in a hot dog butt. It was in a hot dog butt.

I remember thinking when we got on like, it's like sketchy. It wasn't a big. It was like chopped up wasn't it little chunks of lobster yeah yeah it was fake lobster Yeah, oh we got so sick I got so sick and I'm pretty sure we were all pretty sick after that How about at nights or the afternoons? Just kind of the routine we pull our bikes into the hotel Remember we keep them in that we had bike locks but I actually don't know if we used them that much not too often Because anywhere we went we bring them up in the hotel with us

The first thing he did was shower Have a nap. Oh yeah, we'd maybe go for food and then like have a nap and then go for dinner. And then go for dinner. Lots of eating. And then go to bed early because they'll wake up at like four in the morning. You remember some of the, well, I guess we'll get to the hotels. But there's some, the bed and breakfast were unbelievable.

And they were reasonably priced. Absolutely. Like the whole maritimes were fantastic for bed and breakfast. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Deidre had asked, did we listen to any music? Do you remember?

I remember that we discovered music, or I discovered music, after, like, medicine hat. So I had made it through most of the country without music. I don't think I had any music. And I remember having music and not liking it because you couldn't hear anything. And so also, the semi would go whizzen by you. And when semis go by, they, like, they suck. They're pulling so much wind that they kind of want to drag you in. And the first time a semi goes by you, you kind of crap yourself.

And you're like, hole. You kind of shake. Okay, okay, okay, right? Got to pay attention to that. As they're coming up to you, they suck you in, and then as they go past, they push you away. And so with earphones, I remember, I couldn't hear it, and it made it like 20 times worse.

Well, and like, I actually think it's illegal. I think you're not allowed to bike with earphones in. No. I might be making that up, although for that exact reason, that you should need to be able to like... Yes. However, I did listen to Garth Brooks coming out of Medicine Hat.

I remember that and thinking, I should have done this a long time ago. I think Lori needed to pay more attention in general, so I'm not sure if that was a great idea or not. Oh, that's right. The incident happened after I discovered music, so putting it all together. Let's go to Quebec. No, wait a second. I got one other question that was asked.

Is there anyone on this trip that we stayed with that we currently stay in touch with? We stayed with a couple out in St. John's. That was some Christine's friends. Yeah, Lori's older sister. Don't keep in touch with them. And then there was Caitlin White and then Heather, they were the two girls. We actually bumped into both. Well, stayed with Caitlin and then bumped into Heather in Winnipeg.

I don't keep touch with them, but I did see they bike Canada. There was Sarah Gubb. We stayed with in Ottawa. She's another girl I treat. We stayed with your Billets and Dryden. Dryden. Okay, yeah, the lanes. Yep.

And then there's a couple guys across from Winnipeg, Brandon. Abbotsford, we stayed with our cousins. Colonna. We stayed with Bobby Mellum. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I still keep in touch with her. I went out there a couple years ago, visited with her. Okay, Quebec.

What do I remember what Quebec? Bulletproof, glass, worst hotel bar, none was in Quebec. So we pulled, we're biking through. I don't even remember what town it was in Quebec. And I should preface this before you talk about it. We were on kind of like a budget. Like we're not staying at the holiday in. We're staying at the lowest end.

And if we can find a deal, we'll take the deal, and we'll go stay in a nice bed and breakfast if it costs an extra five bucks. But we're not going to stay in these fancy hotels. We're picking the motel where the sign doesn't light up properly, and it's just a place to lay our head, get over it, right? And we pull into that one and what city was that in? I can't remember what city was in Quebec. The thing was is when you're biking, you don't know how far it is to the next hotel.

And so you pull up and you're like, while are we staying here? Like, well... And the prospect of having a place to go lay your head is... Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. You don't want to go another 20K because that's another hour.

So we pull into this one, we're like, well, let's stay there. But on the sign, I remember on the sign it said, you know, like TV, blah, blah, blah. And on the sign in the front it had triple X movies. And you're like, what hotel on their front sign on the front of the entrance has triple X movies? 34 channels. Color TV, air conditioning, triple X. movies. Yes. It was perfect. And we walk in and the guy is standing behind a bulletproof glass. And we have to slide in our card or money underneath a little slip.

Because obviously the place gets shot up. I don't know. And we go into the room. No, we walk out of the, we walk literally out of the entrance. And that's when we see the cleaning lady. Yes. She's overweight, pulling a little kid. No, no, wait. She's got a cigarette hanging out of her lips. Cigarette dangling out of her lips. Pulling a little. little kids toy wagon with cleaning supplies yeah and we're like oh boy yeah and then we get in the room and it's like got purple in it and I remember the vibrating bed the vibrating bed you pay to have a vibrato and we put some money in and just see what it did you know I've blocked this out like it was that traumatic that I blocked this out of my memory it's like my one of my fondest memories

it was so like never forget that yeah forget that yeah I've had itchy scalp ever since. I remember going to a restaurant early in Quebec and being really excited that I could order a burger in French. That was exciting. And I remember Dustin attempting to speak Spanish to all the French people that they ran into. Totally worked.

We had to go to a bike shop in T'Orivier for some reason. and like the guy didn't speak a word of English. See, I just got back from South America, so that really ruined me because I was taking Spanish less. Spanish friends are close enough. Oh, Quebec City. Well, wait, before we get there, I do remember biking through the countryside in Quebec,

and I have my worst white boat. We were going down the highway, and there was a gravelly spot, and I hit the gravel and totally packed out. And a French guy on his front porch came running out because he's worried I'd like killed myself. No, no, no, but we didn't. know he was worried because he was yelling at the top.

He's like, look, whoo, and I'm like, eh, and then he comes over and I realize he's just concerned because I totally packed it, totally packed it.

And I'd scrapped up my shin or something, but at this point, like, you know, you didn't break anything, so who cares, right? And I'm like,

no, no, no, I'm probably said something in Spanish or something, but I'm like, no, no, I'm good. And we got back on her bike and kept going.

You remember Quebec City? Mm-hmm. What do you remember about Quebec I'm not sure I seem like I should remember something else. I thought you were going to die in Quebec City. We thought you were going to die in Quebec City. That was one of the mornings you led. Oh.

We're leaving. So Quebec City has a fantastic bike trail system. The best at any scene we were in. But when you're leaving at 4.30 in the morning and it's dark, we couldn't figure out the trail system. So he took the major highway out of Quebec City, what you weren't supposed to do. I feel like Dustin led us there. Dustin was like, this is a good idea.

We're going to take this major highway that we're not supposed to bike on. You can play it on me. Anyhow, I just remember that there was, there was hardly even on the highway. And we're crossing over from one side to the middle because the highway is dividing into two, two lane highways or something like that. And Laurie was crossing over, and a vehicle came up, and I thought she was going to get smoked. No, that vehicle came up at like over 200 kilometers. Because I remember looking back and being like, oh, that vehicle's coming.

That vehicle is coming quick. Lori! The car just kind of swerved and just kept going. It was just gone like a bullet. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I remember, Quebec City. It was the only time I

raised that runner up the hill. They had that big giant... Oh, yeah, the hill. And I kind of got a little cocky. I went on my bike. We're biking across Canada, and there was this guy, he was in good shape, running up, you know, doing sprints up at hell. So I raised him, and we both weren't going that hard, and then he realized what I was kind of doing, and then he started

running hard, and then he started riding hard. I started biking hard. That might have been the first loss I had going up a hill. I couldn't keep up to him. He was so fast. Yeah, he was steep, too. Yeah, I was. Yeah. I thought I could take him. That was pretty cool.

Didn't need any language for that. It was like, we're going. I like, you know, I don't remember one of the places that I had preconceived, like, ideas of, and I think it's one of the questions right at the end is, was there any places you went across where you had something built in your head and then you got there and was, like, completely different? And two provinces for me, like, stick out like a sore thumb. And it was Quebec and Ontario. I'd heard such, like, bad things both.

Quebec, they're just rude people and stock up and whatever. And Ontario, those were the two. And some of the nicest people we met came from those two provinces. I remember people saying that people on the number one through Ontario would be really awful to you as well, that like they didn't like having bikers on the road. And we had no problems at all people would sort of like get out of the way for us. I remember there's a one semi-driver. Yeah, yeah. There was one. I don't think that was Ontario though. That was Manitoba. Yeah. Oh, he was passing someone else. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was in the lead, and I pulled off, and I was like, what? And he just flipped me double birds. Yeah. Yeah. I remember some farmers markets in Quebec alongside the road that we stopped that and grabbed the little fruit that were fantastic. Yeah. I really enjoyed Quebec.

Well, I just, and it was beautiful, and people, like, that was good. I've always heard, like, if you couldn't speak French, they were just absolutely rude to you. And maybe we looked like we were need of a little health. That's right. People had to be nice to us. But like, I mean, they were fantastic. Yeah. And then I, leave in Quebec, we leave on that barge going from.

I think it's Tua Rivier over to Ottawa, I think. Our hull? It wasn't Tuvaire. Maybe it was Hall. Oh, that's right. And we're on this like little fairy. Yeah. And we meet this older gentleman.

Yeah. He's biking. And he starts chatting us up and figures out where we're, going and we got like you know we got to get here but I mean I should preface this once again I kind of said at the start we have no smartphone there's no like we don't have like this guided map where we're going we're stopping every so often and once again if you look at the pictures on facebook there's one dustin reading the map trying to figure out where we're going and so we're looking at the city of Ottawa map as we go along we buy new maps trying to figure out where we're going and this old guy

approached us and was like where are you guys going oh yeah what are you doing I'm going to start talking to him and he guided us through rush hour track in Ottawa, fixed their bikes, fed us a couple of beer. Like, he was unbelievable. Yeah, it got us to where we needed to go. And Ottawa would have been tricky. Oh, man. A nightmare.

Remember that you were talking earlier about going across the bridge to, I think, Braderton and how busy it was? I remember going through rush hour traffic in Ottawa, and you're in the middle of traffic. The bike lane's right in the middle of the road, and you have maybe six inches on each side, and there's a vehicle there. Yeah.

Like one fall. I never felt scared there though because we had that guy leading us. Yeah. That was the nice thing. He was leading us where we were going. That was intense though. Yeah. He's the one who installed the odometer on one of our bikes.

That's right. Yeah. And he like I think he gave me a new, like a new, like their cogs is coming to mind anyway so that I could like shift into a higher. To make it easier. Yeah. To make the hills higher. He'd just like installed that on my bike for me. Yeah.

That was amazing. That was kind of one of the cool things. things about doing something like biking canas you were well you interacted with a lot of people because you're not separated from them and you're going very slowly and you're stopping all the time in all these small towns you remember i was saying a dust on the way out we forgot about it it was i think it was in nova scotia where that guy yelled at us we're going down this like little meandering trail and an old guy yelled at us and we all kind of like when then he's like hey come back here we're like oh what do we went back he was like this super nice old guy and invite us in for uh

He had an amazing garden. Amazing garden. With flowers everywhere. And he backpacked all of Europe and he sat there and told us all these old stories. That just happened time and time again on a trip like this. Yeah, he just invited us in for like tea or something. Yeah, that's right in the middle of the afternoon. We thought we're...

I think he was bored or something and tired of gardening. He had the most amazing flower garden ever. And he just invited us in for... Yeah, we're biking by and he just said, hey, come here. And we went in and he fed us, essentially. then we enter Ontario Ontario

sucked it was a beast it was I think it was 21 days yeah it was about a third of the way across Canada was just Ontario it was just Ontario

it just went and the land and when you've been going like three four days and getting out of the province you're kind of checking them off the list you feel so good you feel so good and then you hit Ontario

and man it was a grind Ontario was a grind having said that someone asked you this question about when you felt like you actually were going to complete Canada. And that was just into Ontario where you went, holy crap, we're going to make it, essentially. I remember the night you got sick just into Ontario and we spent a night at a lake

because Sean was sick. Yeah, yeah, it was on the Ottawa River. It looked like a lake. Although it was like, yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was the river. But I remember at that point thinking, man, we're actually going to make it. That's when you first. And it was a third of the way across. Yeah. It was a gorgeous spot to stop, though. I told Dustin, that's the only day I held this up. That day, I was so mad because I was trying, I wanted a bike, and I was just puking on control away. It was awful. And that, that was the day, the day before that is hard to be humble. The day before that is Tim Horns.

So the greatest story from this whole trip was this random, this random lady. We pull into a Tim Hortons because it's one of the things we do. And we're waiting in the lineup, and Lori and I are standing there, and Sean locks the talk, as you can tell from the podcast. He just, he loves to talk. And Lori and I are kind of stand there and he's talking about, who knows what, he's just talking. And Lori and I are ignoring him because. I always hear this story and it's like, I just talk about nothing. No, you just, you just, you just love to talk.

And Lori and I are ignoring you at this point because you just talk all the time. And this lady behind Sean kind of goes, uh-huh. And Sean turns around and she goes, you know, I always tell my kids that it's hard to be humble. and then that's all saying anything else and then stops talking and doesn't say another word and Sean didn't say a word for like probably like two hours I didn't know what to say

he was just steamed he was so mad like so mad I'm still mad of it she read you perfectly when enjoyed her double double probably had a caramel dip dine or something good grief yeah hard to be humble these are the things I dealt with on the trip

that movie got me By this time, I'm waiting for Calgary to hit where you put aside. We'll get to that. But I mean, by this time I'll just feed an ammo to the entire trip. I can't win. I remember passing a lot of bikers in Ontario who said, don't worry, northern Ontario is way harder than the mountains. Like, you guys have done it when you've gotten through northern Ontario. That's such a lie.

It's such a lie. Don't let anyone tell you that. No. The mountains are way harder. Yeah, absolutely. I remember the signs for Wawa in Ontario. There'd be like a thousand, you're going over the top in northern Ontario, and it's forever. And you'd see a sign 1,000 kilometers to Wawa.

And you're only doing 100 kilometers today. And then two days later it says, 800 kilometers to Wawa. And you're like, fucking Wawa. And then you get 200 kilometers in, 600 kilometers to Wawa, and you're like, ah, Wawa. And then we finally made it to Wawa. No. Maybe?

No, Chris Pronger's Drive, where I played junior. Anyhow, we finally make it to Wawa, and it's this little piss end of a town. Like, there's nothing there. But you've been watching signs for Wawa for 1,000 kilometers coming there. You go across Canada, when you bike that much, there's not too many cities. Even Montreal doesn't have a sign saying 1,000 kilometers to Montreal. But there's nothing over the top. Nothing over the top.

Lava paid somebody to do that. No, I know. Right? There's ridiculous. Some good money going there. Let's put a sign out there 1,000 kilometers up. There's a nothing town, though. It was ridiculous.

Well, you remember we were like, oh, it must be pretty good. Like, 1,000 K out? Like, what is this Wawa is all about? Then you get there, you're like, oh. That was kind of ecclimatic. Someone's from Wawa. Maybe that's why.

We got to talk about Lori almost hitting the deer. I'm sure it's in Ontario. I also don't remember this. That's because you were kind of in a daze, I think. So when Lori would lead, leading was harder. That's why they put it on me. Because, yeah, I was the top.

You know what I equate Lori on this bike trip to sometimes is that she was like, just think happy thoughts. Just think happy thoughts. That she'd go into her own little world and sometimes be oblivious. And so once every, well, I mean, we all took turns leading. I would say I led the most. And then Dustin, and then Lauren would get her opportunity two, three times a day. Probably something like that.

Yeah. And when Lori got in the lead, she didn't think she just followed the road. She just followed that white line on the outside. Just followed it. Wherever it went, that's what she did. And so me and Dost her, you know, we're picking our heads up every once while, and there's a deer standing right in the middle of the boat.

And we're like, we're both kind of like, kind of turned and look at each other. We're like, she's seen the deer? And I mean, like, we're talking like feet until she picks up, swerves into the ditch, and misses this deer because it didn't move. The deer hopped out of the way just in time, and Norris went, what was that? How do you almost run into a deer? And you don't remember that?

No. I think the other story from Ontario that probably the big fight that we had on the whole trip was I was in the lead and Lori was following me and Sean was behind her and I'm biking along and every once in a while checking make sure Lori's there but I wasn't really looking for Sean and we started all of a sudden I'd check back

and Sean's not there and I stop I'm like Lori where's Sean she's like I don't know I'm like well weren't you checking and she's like no and I'm like well where that is you can't see him As I recall, that was like one of the first big blowups where we all didn't talk for a little bit. What happened was is if you're in the lead, the middle person need to tell you if there was any issues. Kind of communicate between the two.

The person in the front, I'll defend the group. I don't remember that agreement. Yes. The person in the front, their main focus was just keep pushing. It sucks being up the front. Going east to west, you had headwind. I think the person that was getting left behind should have yelled and said something. I did.

I yelled so many times. And finally I was like, I guess I'll just sit in there And so at least I had the tire kit So at least I could fix it And I went, nah, I'll just catch back up to him Like I wasn't even worried about it So we biked back probably a kilometer and a half

And found Sean He was just getting his tire back on his bike But Lori, I was mad at Lori And Laurie's mad at me because I was mad at her And we didn't talk for hours And you know what's funny And Sean is the one who got left behind And he was laughing about it all

But Lori and I were mad at each other I was always mad at you Dustin So, like, I was mad at you the whole trip. If you noticed, I didn't talk to you, like, the whole trip. No, it's probably, it's about right. For the first time in the entire trip, you know, we've been berating Sean here about, like, how we wanted Lurie off the trip. And I actually had to be the peacemaker. I had to bring in some comic relief, settle everybody down, because I wasn't even mad about it.

I was like, they're leaving me. Like, this is new. Like, I can't believe they can't hear me, but okay, whatever. At least I had the bite. Sean, I think I'd beat you up a hill in that stretch, eh? Yeah, because I wasn't there. I also feel like it was very. I didn't have a flat tire, although it was very frequent that I was a kilometer and a half behind you guys.

So I'm not sure what the big deal was about Sean being a kilometer and a half behind you guys. You weren't heavy enough to pop a tire. Sean popped the most, I think, because of his big hips. I don't remember that one being a big fight, actually. I remember the incident, although I don't remember fighting over it. The one that I remember being just livid about was in Sudbury. And I wanted to stop in Sudbury. We had done whatever, 130 kilometers.

It was like, that's it, we're done. I don't want to go any farther. And Dustin was like, no, we're going further. And we kept going to the next town that was like another 20 kilometers. And the hotel that he thought was there was closed. And so we had to bike back into Sudbury. I was so mad. I don't recall this.

Carsey doesn't recall this. That's right. I think Larry is mad most of the trip. I was. I was mad at Dustin the whole trip. She needed someone to blame. Dustin's an easy target. That's an easy target

Okay Montreal River Hill We need to preface this by Before we leave for the trip Our father, dad Steve Newman Our father, dad Yeah

Shut up He had trucked Been a long-haul truck driver So he'd driven across Canada Back and forth Back and forth And he told us about the Montreal River Hill Which is on the northeast side of Lake Superior

Right along the edge and he's built it up of this I wish he was here to just explain it again but he built it up in our brains like holy crap this Montreal rural hill if we can bite it let me tell you it's a big hill it's a big hill right

so that morning we left it like we knew it was coming and we left at 4.30 in the morning in a pouring rainstorm it was pouring and over our left hand side was a bank and you could see Lake Superior there

and it was a giant storm lightning everything and the sky was like we couldn't see the road until the lightning flashed flashed and then you'd see everything and i remember at 430 morning a truck driver slowly going by us and you could see him like lean over it was just pouring and he's going like what are they doing right and we're just slowly pedaling i'm pretty sure that truck driver's going across canada put in long days and being like am i really seeing this like what the hell are those bikers doing out of 430 in the morning or the question about safety. Yeah.

We consider for safety. Yeah. So we're biking through, well, I mean, and then you gotta say, like you can't, if we took every rainstorm off or any time that there was a little bit of lightning,

we would have added an extra 20 days off, like easy. Like, it rained a loss. You just go. You just go. You just deal with it. And you just start moving. You're working hard,

so you're not cold. No. And I actually go faster in the rain, but whatever, you just go. And that's where we get to the base of the Montreal River Hill, and there's this little truck diner.

And it's porn and we all go, want breakfast, yeah, I'm on breakfast. And we go in. And all their breakfast sizes were named under different bears. The biggest being the polar bear. Sean and I get the second biggest. Which I think was the grizzly.

Yeah. You weeners. The grizzly had like, I don't know, two plates. The polar bear had four plates. It was massive. It was massive. And I remember it coming out and I'm like... So Sean and I ordered the second biggest one.

And Lori, how heavy were you like 110, 115 pounds? pounds maybe yeah probably 120 maybe one 20 maybe not a big not a big woman at all she orders the biggest plate and demolishes it like I mean and the guy running the place was just astonished I was astonished yeah I'm riding with her and I'm going there's no way you eat all that and she ate it all yeah and then we hop back on the bikes and crush the Montreal River yes and that's where we spit on the Montreal absolutely there's nothing and like no no offense to your dad however The Montreal River Hill compared to like the Coca-Hola. Not the same.

Yeah. No. Actually, our biggest mountain would climb was going into Merit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, out of Colonna. Yeah, climbing Colonna to Merit. That was the bad one. Yeah, that was hard.

All right, after a quick little break, we're left off at the Montreal River Hill. And the next thing I have written down is Thunder Bay, which is geographically the midpoint of Canada. Even though it seemed like forever to get there. Yes. It took forever to get there. And you're most of the way across Ontario, which took forever.

Yes. Dustin marked our halfway point by tipping over. I think I marked many points by tipping over on that trip. I remember doing all our bike repairs in Thunder Bay, including getting our chains replaced. Yeah, so we got our chains replaced. Yeah, I know a Dutch of bike repairs in Thunder Bay because that's a long ways to go on a bike. Well, we were saying when we took the break, I didn't even know that a chain can wear out when you're biking.

Because on a bike at home, you never changed when I grew up. When have you ever changed a bike? You don't. Because we never trained for this trip. That's right. I guess so. We would have changed chains probably, where we better prepared. So we get halfway across Thunder Bay.

We changed it. We all got brand new chains. We all, are you sure? We were talking about tires. And I was wondering, isn't it in Thunder Bay where we get the Kevlar one? Maybe, I don't think everyone got one though. Yeah. Not everyone got one because we had lots of flat tires after that.

But it solved getting, I think it was called an armadillo. An armadillo. And that prevented getting flat tires, a bunch of them for sure. Absolutely. I don't think we had one after that. I don't know. After we got it. But that couldn't happen then because we still had a day from Portage to Brandon

where we flattened so many tires and we had to patch. Yeah. I think it was Regina. Might have been Regina. Might have been Regina. You might be right. Okay. You got better memories.

I usually am. Just to ask her. So we move into Matt. Well, I should say I got a thorough shout out to the Lane family because they were my billets for three years of junior. That was one of my favorite places to stay. To stay? Yeah.

Yeah. That was really fun. I got to go horseback riding. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I just ditch you too. Wasn't your butt already too sore to really ride a horse? Way more comfortable than riding a bike.

I know. I were just putting that together too. I'm surprised I signed up for that. Yeah. We might have gone bareback actually. It was soft and cushiony. Yes. No kidding.

Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about that. Man, the horse rides. That was a fun. That was like a good stretch because once we hit dried and then we started to know more people again.

Yes. Because of me playing hockey out that way. Then we started to bump in different people. And then we move into, well, actually somebody Murray had asked. Murray once again, thrown on another question about what we thought of the single lane highway zinging and zagging through northern Ontario. I just remember the semi. There were so many semis that went by you and they push, pull you in and start and

them push you away. And there was only like a foot of shoulder on the other side of the white line. And so, yeah, you got buzzed by semis all day long. I remember, I think Northern Ontario is where I started noticing that I really hated whenever you saw a sign that the passing lane was coming in two kilometers because that meant a big hill was coming in two kilometers. And then at the top of that hill there would be a check break sign. And that meant you were going. Yeah, you're going downhill after that. I still, when I go on road trips, get like happy and sad feelings when I pass those signs.

The funny thing about Ontario, though, those weren't the worst highways. The worst highways came in Manitoba. Oh, absolutely. Manitoba was the worst. Everybody jokes about Saskatch when having the worst highways, but Manitoba has the worst. Manitoba in places didn't have shoulders. They had gravel shoulders. They had gravel shoulders.

And so the white line, as soon as you hit the white line, it was gravel from that point on. And so, well, we can talk about that. We actually got... We enter into Manitoba. The first thing that happens in Manitoba is for the first time that I think I can remember, we got a tailwind. Oh, it was amazing. So going across Canada, we keep running into, I mean, it wasn't a crazy amount of people,

but there was enough people biking Canada. They were just all, we were the only people they said was biking from east to west. The only people. There wasn't like, oh, yeah, there was four more heading. It was, why are you guys biking this way? Because we didn't research it and didn't realize. No, no, no. The reason why we didn't do it that way is because we're worried about the mountains on the west coast

and hitting them right away. Yeah. But everybody we met, every last one of them was going west of east. Was going west east because there was a tailwind. And the wind, when you get a little bit of a wind behind you, which happened coming just out of Ontario, heading towards Winnipeg, we went from doing like struggling to do 18 kilometers an hour to doing like 30 some kilometers an hour. It was unbelievable. And then the day out of, I remember the day out of Winnipeg wherever we were going, it was like. Farge of Leperre.

Yeah, yeah. It was three hours. to get from wherever in Ontario into Winnipeg. And then we did the same number of kilometers from Winnipeg to the next stop. And it took us like 12 hours that day because we had a headwind. We got a headwind again, right?

It was just, and that's why we, you know, we talked earlier, but why we started at 4 in the morning was to get away from the headwind. Yes. The headwind, the heat, the vehicles. Yep. Yes. Then we get to Portage. We get to Portage and Sean has a buddy

from Brian Nichols. He's now an officer of the RCMP. That's unbelievable because he's a character. We played together a couple of years out in Ontario. And Sean gets there and he's like, Dust, I'm going out tonight. No, no, no. I was so bad because we'd gone out the night before with Brendan McDonald's. That's right, and Winnipeg, yeah.

Right? We went on a little bit of a tear that night. Yep. And so we got out of that. Not all of us. Sean did. Yes. Okay.

Anyways. And we, we biked a portage and that was a long day. And I remember Tick being like, all right, ready to have some beers? And I was like, no, I need to recharge this. And so I went late on the couch and I woke up to him cracking a beer in my face. And I'm like, okay, yeah, let's go. All right, I'll have a beer with you. And before he went out that night, though, Sean goes, I might be out late tonight.

I'm like, Sean, I don't care what you do. But we're leaving at 4.30 in the morning. and if you're going to get smashed tonight, you're leading out tomorrow. No, no, no, you're not leading out tomorrow. You're leading me a whole day. That's correct. The whole day. Yeah.

And I'm down to go like, all right, let's do this. Yeah. So, Sean rolls into bed at what time? Like 3.30? No, it was 4 o'clock because I literally laid down and dust turned the light on. And I was like, I'm just going to lay here for a little bit. I actually had to, like, I had to shake him, kick him to get him out of bed that morning. That was the only morning where I had to physically assault him to get out of bed.

bed. Lori, for that matter. Who led that entire day? Sean led that entire day. I was dying. I've never gone through so many second winds in my entire life. And they'd last like 37 seconds and I'd feel glorious and then it was right back to feeling absolutely miserable.

That's also the day that we, one of the only days on the entire trip that we had to patch because we blew so many tires that day. And it was hot. Remember how hot it was? It was like 30 some above because we were riding at like four in the afternoon or three in the afternoon. And that's when, hey, at my worst point, my breaking point, we're laying there waiting for patches on the tires to fix.

And a guy pulls up, we're about 10K out of... Waiting for the glute drys to seal the patch. That's right. And we're about 10K out of Brandon. And guy pulls up in his truck and he's like, hey, you guys need a ride? And I said, no, thank you. We're good. And you look at me, you're like, you sure?

And I'm like, we're 10K out. I ain't catching no rides. I do remember laying in the ditch waiting for those patches. Semis going by us. And the wind coming off the semis. And I remember looking over at Sean and going, now this is biking across Canada. That moment right there is like, you're freaking dying. It's hot.

Sean's hungover. I'm hungover. We're waiting for patches to dry. You're all kind of miserable, but you're going to have days like this if you're going to bike across Canada. There's no way around it. Had Kyle Smyth asked, how many days were we hung over the next day? Sean, how many days were you hung over? I don't think it was that much.

I had a bad stretch in between Winnipeg, between Winnipeg and Portage was a terrible stretch. Yes. It was back-to-back days. But other than that, I don't think we really... I don't think I was drunk, hungover at all. I think we were in bed by like 8 p.m. The thing was you're so bloody tired because you're waking about 4 a.m.

So we're in bed by 8.9 o'clock. I remember getting the brand in the next day. We finally get into brand. Yes, 6 o'clock at night. He was our goalie at the time. Yeah. And Kevin Coke tried convincing me. to go out and I passed out on the floor I was so tired and I just like slept there for like

three straight hours woke up climbed on a couch and passed out again I was just like I could keep my eyes open anymore yeah pretty much would going for 48 hours straight yeah the thing is is I was sober about two hours in because you sweat it all out like I mean you want to get the booze out of your system just go for a 12-office yeah that's right go for a 12-hour bike ride Yes. How about the cops? Yeah. That was miserable.

I don't remember where that was. That's when we decided to get off the main Transcanada Highway. So the TransCanada Highway had stretches where, so it's a busy highway, and they had no shoulders. And so we decided to head a little bit south and then across. We went down south and there still was no shoulders. And we're on a lazy highway where there's not a lot of vehicles. We're riding side by side by side in the right-hand lane. And we're all kind of chit-chatting.

And some vehicle came up behind us and had to slow down because someone was coming the other way and then went around us, called the cops on us because we were blocking the highway. And so the cops pulled us over. And talked to us like, you can't be blocking the highway. And we're like, where are we supposed to bike? Man, there's no shoulders. Like, seriously. The cops were super sweet. They showed up because they thought, you know, probably been told, whatever.

And then when they pull us over, they're like, oh, this sucks. And they're like, okay, just if a semi comes, you got to get off. You got to get off. So they can go by. We're like, oh, okay, yeah, that sounds good. Yeah. We got yanked by the cops. I remember after the cops left, we started biking side by side again because we're having a good time and actually chat.

And then we're like, oh, whatever. What are they going to do? Give us a ticket. I thought that was just because, like, it was gravel. So we had no option except, like, I don't think we were biking side by side. No, we did bike. We did bike side by side some of that day. I remember.

We are actually getting along at that point, Lori. So we're actually chatting. I'm sure it was you guys biking side by side. I wouldn't do such a thing. You guys are the dicks. What else about Manitoba? Is there much left about Manitoba? No, it was terrible problems.

I just remember the worst day of my life being there, the cops, and no shoulders. Yeah. No shoulders was awful. It was awful. Yeah. And it didn't take as long to get across because we were three, four days. Three, four days and they were across. Yeah.

That's true. They started going fast again, even though they were. The prairies are bigger provinces. You're going straight across. And plus we're doing long days. Which leads us into Saskatchewan. I feel like the day from Manitoba into Saskatchewan was also quite long. I have a picture of it and we were like biking into the sunset.

Is that the day where we could the hotel was booked out and we had to keep biking? We found a bed and breakfast inside of the highway. Yeah, yeah. It was a great bed and breakfast again. So just to like give everyone an idea. We're biking and, you know, like two o'clock you're all into a town. And the next town is 40K down the road. We've already biked 120 or whatever the number was.

And we roll in and they got three motels. And because of the oil field, they're all booked. So it's like, well, what do we do? Well, what can we do? We've got to keep biking. So we keep biking not knowing we're getting. And that was at 7 at night when we were still biking because we couldn't find a place to stay. The picture, though, that Lori took is fantastic.

She's in the back and she takes a picture ahead of us. While I was biking. Yeah, of Sean and I. And the picture is just fantastic. It's biking Canada in a nutshell, that picture. And we roll by this little farm prairie house in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, that's a bed and breakfast. And of course they have room.

And it's seven at night and they're like, just give us a bed. Yeah, I'm going to go to bed. We'll be anything. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Right? They were awesome. Little, uh, little family there.

It was, uh, Chinese family with, they had like three little kids and, yeah. just a little farm I do remember staying in Stouton, Saskatchewan Oh, Stoughton. Stoughton was good. Yeah, so we stay in Stoughton, Saskatchewan, and we're eating at the restaurant there, and we realize they have gift certificates available at the Stoughton restaurant.

That's right. And we got Harley a gift certificate for like five bucks for the Stouton, Saskatchew. And they come out with the gift certificate book, and it's number zero zero two out of the gift certificate book. And we called Harley and said, Hey, Harles, we bought you a gift. Can't wait to give it to you.

So we got back and Harley's all pumped. Hey, would you guys get me? Here you go. And we gave him a gift certificate. It was $5 to Stoke in Saskatchewan restaurant. Yeah. I haven't spent a lot of time with Harley and yet I think he's probably the nicest brother. No, I totally is.

No, no, no, no disagrees with that. No, no, everyone knows that already. Like, who doesn't think Harley's the nicest Newman brother? Really? Yeah, no. That's accurate, for sure. I've written down that Saskatchewan had by far the worst headwind. Oh.

Manitoba's pretty bad, too. Yeah. I just remember Saskatchewan being some stinking flat. And maybe it was because you could see the next grain elevator coming. Like you remember just, like, you bike, and you can see the grain elevator, and it just made it go so slow. Yeah. It's a big thing, just waiting there, and then you get to the next little town there and do the grain elevator.

And then you start biking again, and you could see the peak of it again. You're like, got to be kidding me. Yeah. It was like Groundhog Day. You get to one town and look, and there. There's the next grain elevator. And they were all like 13 kilometers away. 13 kilometers.

Sean thought it was 20. I'm like, no, no, it was 13. It was exactly 13 kilometers. All those towns leading into Regina. You get to one and you can see the next grand elevator and you make to the next one and there's the next green elevator. It was all 13 kilometers apart.

Which along those 13 kilometer towns, we passed through the town of Francis, Saskatchewan. That my grandfather was born and raised this, like, lovely town that I was so... For some reason I think I've heard this before. So excited to get to Francis Saskatchewan And I took a picture of the grain elevator to bring back And like again, no smartphones I can't just like text this picture out

I have to take it and get it developed It was not It was the highlight of the trip for me as well For sure for sure Friends Everyone loved Francis Saskatchewan And then we like I was looking at I was going through Lori's camera

And I was like looking at the pictures right I'm going through and I'm And I just I don't I can't even explain it. My thumb click the button and it said do you want to delete? I can't even explain it. I just pressed yes. I wanted to press no but I clicked it again like double click and it deleted the photo so we don't have a picture of Francis Saskatch on the camera anymore. Yeah. And I'm going like what have I done? We can't turn around and bike back to it. Now it's like 40,

the only great elevator I wanted a picture of. Surprise, surprise Lurie was pissed off. Oh yeah, there's a little bit fired up. I was thinking the day we biked into Regina was horrendous. That win that day was

brutal. And to top it off, it was, we finally made it to Regina and we got on the ring road.

And what happened there? And Lori's bike tire, something went wrong with it. I can't remember what went

wrong with it. But we left you on. We left you on the ring road. That's where we got the armadillo tires

because your tire route. And so we left you on the road bike to the hotel, then I pulled a tire off mine, gave it to dust, and the bike back out to you to put my tire on your bike so that you could bite back in. That's the only time that ever happened.

Yeah. That's right. That was time for an armadillo tire. Yeah. We almost just kept going. We were talking about probably number two worst hotel on the list. Maple Creek. Maple Creek. Maple Creek. Yeah. Yeah. Maple Creek. You remember it had the yellow door. So it had a restaurant with a bar or something. On the top. On the top.

And there was a door coming out of the bar, out of the top floor, the second floor. But there was no stairs leading out of the door. And the door was yellow, so it stuck out. Think of it like a... But it was a door to nowhere. Think of like a red hotel and then this ugly yellow door coming off the top to nowhere. Yeah. That was a gross.

The rooms were sketchy too. Well, and I feel like it was sketchy in there. We were like sketchy people around. And I feel like that was one where maybe you could only get like one bed in a room. So you guys were going to stay in one room and I was staying in a separate room. And I was like, no way. I'm finding a way to bunk in with you guys. I think that's accurate.

I remember that. That was a bad hotel. Yeah. Right along the highway. Right along the road. Not in the town. Sorry, Maple Creeps. Yeah.

That was a bad one. Yeah. I also feel like around that area, swift current, Maple Creek was where we started really realizing that if someone hadn't actually biked the road, if they'd only driven the road, they had no concept of how many hills there were. Yes. Where they'd be like, oh, it's flat from here to wherever.

And then you start biking it, and you're like, this is not flat. No. And I remember that area being really particularly hilly, and I was offended because it was Saskatchewan and should have been quite flat. I remember the mountains leading into the mountains and thinking like, oh, this is flat going into here. And then you go through there and you're like, holy crap, this is not flat at all. No.

Because you notice every little hill with a bike. Yeah. I don't know if I got much more on Saskatchewan, be honest. No, we crossed in like four days. The thing is, Ontario took so much time. And you come out of Ontario and then you hit Manitoba, Saskatchew, and you just bomb through them so fast. Even Alberta is the same way. Yeah.

Like, oh, we get too much. It's my favorite. I waited an hour to tell this. We crashed through Alberta, didn't we? I think that is kind of. So I'm going to say this again, and I don't mean this to be rude, but Lori didn't lead often. Often. Right.

But coming into Calgary. She's excited. She's excited. Very excited. That's where Lori was from, so she's very excited. So we decided me and Dustin, let's let her lead. Into Calgary, she's, okay, sounds good. And so she's going, whatever, Rodham is.

We're on 22X. 22X. 22X. Maybe you should tell a story. I can tell the story because I remember vividly. We're going down 22X. and we're coming up over an overpass. And on the right hand side, there's a divider.

One of those cement dividers, it's about a foot wide on the top. But it's not, as you come up to the divider, there's actually a ramp up to the top. Yeah, like the cement divider instead of it just being a flat edge, actually had an angle on it. When you're coming up to it. I don't think it was a foot on the top. Like, I'm pretty impressive. It was like six inches. Yeah, probably.

Yeah, six inches. Yeah, like one of those cement dividers. But then it also had signs. Up the middle of it that pointed you towards the road. Essentially, there's a curve coming up. And Lori somehow... And Maine Dust are watching this. We're behind her.

We're sitting behind her kind of just chit-chat. And we're like, look, and you're almost like transfixed because you can't... It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. She ramped up that divider. Road up, what, six, eight feet up it? No. On the ramp?

No, it was like... On the ramp? It was probably... Four feet. Yeah. Two feet up and then across it another two feet. It was probably four feet of biking, but she had her entire bike on top of this cement barricade. And she hits the sign.

It's a two inch diameter sign probably. Yeah. The post? And busts it off. A bus it off. And then falls. And we go screaming up there because we're like, oh my God, are you okay? Is she going to be dead?

And she's like, yep. I think I'm okay. And then I'm pretty sure I cried laughing because I couldn't. I'm like, that was awesome. I needed a GoPro for it. Like, she totally busted off that. I still can't believe she busted off the pole for that sign. It was like two inches of diameter.

I can't believe you've ramped up that without meaning to and stayed on there to hit the sign. I couldn't have done it if I had meant to. No, no, not a chance. Not a chance. So we've given at this point Lori twice to lead and she's almost did a deer and broke off a sign. It's not true.

I led way more than that. I led way more than that. Oh. I think Calgary is the first time, because we spent a couple days in Calgary. I think we went out to Banff. We biked a day past. Yeah. And then got your mom to come and pick us up and bring us back.

Yeah. And then we spent a couple days and enjoyed ourselves. And everybody went and had their different friend groups. And we got a little bit of time away from each other. And it was the first time where I was like, like, four days away from completing this. Yeah. Like this is pretty, maybe not four days. It was eight.

It took just a few days to get through the mountains. Let's not underestimate the mountains. Mounds were big. But it was like in Ontario, Dost says, yeah, I think we're going to do this. And Calgary, when we got to Calgary, I was like, we are close to doing this. It wasn't a doubt at that point. It wasn't a doubt anymore. No, no.

I didn't know until Abbotsford. I actually thought when you get to Calgary that you were going to be like, bad good. See you guys. I'm just going to hang out with my boyfriend and my parents in color good. Because we had some really tough, I had to leave family and stuff like that from Calgary. And then the next one we went to Invermere, my best friend was there. We stayed with her. So it was like those were some tough days to keep going.

Yes. How cool was it though when we were biking into the mountains? Like when you first come over that one hill and all you see is mountains in front of you, that was pretty awesome. Absolutely. One of my favorite memories of scenery for sure. I mean, I live here. I see that every day. Yes.

But seeing it from the saddle of a bike is something else. Yeah. Especially when you come that far. Yeah. And I've just, I built the mountains up in my brain. Like, how are we going to get across mountains? By that time, like, what you didn't realize at the time that you did after the fact is that biking into a headwind all day

was tougher than climbing Rogers Pass. Yeah. Which reminds me, the guy who had the motorbike on Roger's Pass. So we're biking across through some tunnels going up towards Rogers Pass. And a guy flags us down. A very heavyset dude. Flagged us down because he parked his motorbike on the side of the road to take a picture or something. And his bike had slid down like a ravine.

And he needed help from someone to help push it out of the ravine. And so the four of us went down there. and somehow got it out of there. Just random. That was random. He was a big man, too. Yeah. With no shirt on.

With no shirt on. With no shirt on. Yeah. We've since biked there again. And like, I ran into my sister randomly at the top of Roger's pass. I'm like, yeah. Rogers Pass. Every time I go across Rogers Pass, I spit on Rogers Pass still.

I said this earlier, but me and Dust created this thing where any big, a converse You spit on it. You spit on it. It wasn't that big of a deal. There was nothing. Rogers Pass. Nothing. Yeah.

And Rogers Pass was a big accomplishment. I remember getting the top Rogers Pass and people just come up on a tourist bus. I'm like, a tourist on a bus. We did on bikes. A bunch of the Lemos. What was it? We talked about right before we took the break. What was the bad, bad climb?

In between Colonna and Merritt. Oh, it was brutal. That was horrible. That day would not end. No. I remember Lori, usually I was the one who made the call for snack breaks and we're climbing that climb. And all of a sudden, like, Lori's like, no.

No wonder I was grumpy. Yeah. I'm starving and you were making the call? I think so. Larry's like, we are stopping now because we were like, I don't know, an hour and a half into that climb. That climb took forever. That was the biggest climb we had by far.

Well, and I remember about that one is I was in the middle. so Dustin would get we bike and bike and bike and bike and then I'd lose sight of Lori behind me so I would stop and Dustin would bike until he was almost I was almost out of sight and I wait till Lori caught up to me

and then I slowly catch back up to dust and then when we did that almost the entire way Yeah And it was one time you thought it was going to end You go around a corner and there'd be more And you could see them still climbing on the other side And like

That day was tough That was the toughest day of the mountains That was a toughest climb for sure. And we just like, I don't know how fast we're going. You remember how fast we were going? We were not climbing. Just crawling. Yeah.

Like you're in the easiest gear, so like your legs are moving, but you're going nowhere. Yeah. I remember coming around that one corner and you could see like five kilometers of this long looping trail that goes up the mountain. And you're like, oh God. And yeah, it was brutal. Do you remember as soon, like when we started in Newfoundland, Day one, people would say you're going to see a ton of moose out there. Watch out for moose.

And then, like, day two, day three, day five, still no moose. And then we hit next province. And they're like, you're going to see so many moose. You didn't see a moose or bear any wildlife until, minus the deer you almost did. You didn't see any moose or any bear until BC. Yeah. And then we finally saw a moose and a bear. One moose.

Yeah. That was also one of my, I hate snakes. I hate them. I despise snakes. They freaked me out. And we stopped at a little roadside pullover. And there was a little trail to a hidden lake. And I started walking down it and a little tiny, like I mean a tiny snake went across.

And I screamed a little, ran back down. And then you guys were like, what? Snake, you're both kind of chuckle-line. I'm like, yeah, you're right. I'm not going to let that. I am, I'm going back in there. I walked back the same spot and went across the opposite way. I screamed again right back.

I love the. Snake was just having a great old tie with me. Messing with you. Yeah. How about the couple of bridges, well, a couple times. We talk about how hard the up ride was. But you remember going down those paths,

down the hills were unreal. But the problem was, is all the semis were riding their brakes in the entire time. So they were doing, I don't know, 60 kilometers down, and we could do 60 kilometers down. So we were like,

I remember There was times where we were right beside them and you just go right beside a semi and you didn't know whether to tap the brakes or just slowly glived by them because for once we were keeping up a vehicle and that was extremely dangerous. I remember the one time coming down a hill

and on the right hand side was a barrier because of the cliff and so he had no room and a logging truck passed you and the thing about the logging truck was it's not like a flat deck where it's the continuous width you have the front wheels you got logs then you got the back wheels and you're going fair the semi isn't going by you quick so you don't have to hold on for a couple seconds you're the semi goes by very slowly and you're worried about those back wheels sticking out and clipping you on the way by

i remember once or twice that happening and i'm being like oh god like he's going to clip me i'm going going to go over this ledge and that'll be the end of it if i don't go under the tires exactly and i just remember they were just crawling by you because we were going for once we got it standing downhill. So we're actually going at a decent clip. Yeah. The other one I remember

is when I was leading and I was coming up to a bridge and behind us was a hill with a curve. I remember before I entered the bridge looking over my shoulder and there was nothing coming. And I got just onto the bridge and a semi came smoking down.

And you guys stopped before the bridge and there was a vehicle coming the other way and the bridge was not wide. And that semi went by me doing mock chicken and I don't know how I made it across there. Because I thought for sure it was a dead man. Because there was no room to go and there's a vehicle coming the other way. Was it new Revelstoke?

Yeah. I think that was just outside of it. Yeah. That's the danger part of it for sure. Well, you can't underestimate. You know, like there's probably a handful of times we, I don't know if it's luck or what, but like you do something like that. We talked about safety earlier on.

It wasn't like we didn't have a vehicle driving behind us. It was just three bikers out. Giving her. Giving her. And there's a couple handful of times where it's a little bit sketchy. Yeah. Does that lead us to the Coca-Hola? I think that leads us to Coca-Hola.

Coca-Hola was awesome. Coca-Hala was the best. That was a fun day. We make it to the top of Coca-Hola. If nobody knows what the Coca-Holla is, it is a piece of highway that is, how long it was stretched? It's like 20 kilometers? Something like that, yeah. It's like 20K of straight downhill.

Yeah, but steep at the start. It might be like 35 or I think it's long. It was long. It was long. It was long. But it's double lane highway, so you don't have to worry about like shoulders, nothing like that. So you can cruise.

And the top is like eight and a half or nine percent or something like that. And I just remember Sean is in the lead at the top and we're not peddling. And we come up behind the semi. The semi's got his brakes on because you don't want to go too fat. He doesn't want to go too fast. And we, and we, like, come flying up along the semi, and Sean breaks,

and we're breaking behind the semi, and Sean's like, what do we do? I'm like, I don't go around him. So we... All three of us. And I'm sure he's going, like... No, his neck was almost... He's just like, you just see him.

He just kind of out along, and then he looks over, and I go flying by, and then his head snaps, and he sees the next two, and he's just like, holy! And we were doing... Well, Sean, you had the spinometer. Yeah, it was like 70-some.

70-some kilometers an hour. We figured it was probably faster than that because it didn't go past the super long. Yeah, I think we maxed it out. The scary thing about that is, though, is you don't want to hit a pebble or something in pack it because we were going fast. And Sean was going by far the fastest. Probably because he's the heaviest. That's true.

And I will not take that as a fence because I wanted to see how fast I could push that. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, I couldn't keep up to him. And we went flying down there. Passing semis. Cocoa. That was like, it wasn't. the victory day, but that felt that was pretty good.

That was pretty good because it's flat from there. Yeah, it wasn't hard after that at all. That's the last you pop out of there. Yeah. It's flat from Hope all the way. Hope. To River Valley, yeah. Yeah.

Remember where you're feeling on that? Because I think we went from there, we made it to Abbotsford. Yeah, stand here, cousins. And then Abbotsford, we made, our last day was out to the coast. Out to White Rock. Yeah. It was a super short. Somewhere, I have a table.

I filmed it. Like, I remember just biking with my video camera, just like going, and I wish I could have found it. Can't find the stupid thing. Hopefully at some point I can, but that day was really special. Yeah. That was a nice day. Yeah. Any other thoughts from BC before I get into a couple of questions?

Smoking a scar on the shores of white rock. Say that again? Smoking a cigar. Oh, smoke the cigar. Shores a white rock. That is right. That is right. That was kind of acclimatic.

We're like, well. It was a bed. Okay. Well, see you guys. Sean went one way. I went another way and Dustin went to the islands. What day we say it was? It was September.

We left June 27th. September 3rd, I think. September 3rd, we finish. And I'm in the, I mean, it's my last year of junior hockey. So I'm like, well, I'm missing training camp right now. I better get going. And Laurie's got to go back to school. Yeah, so she's going back to Calgary.

And Dustin's like, well, I'm going to head on to Victoria. So just as quickly as the trip came together, and nobody knows anybody, right? Me, we all hop on our flights and disappear and we haven't been in the same room since. That's right. We spend 69 days together and we haven't spent together really since. It's pretty crazy, to say the least.

Which brings me to, there was four questions that I thought were good to put at the end of this. One was from Chris Ross, which spot took your breath away along the trip, as in people or scenery? We've probably already talked about it, but I thought it was across all of Canada, was there a spot or was there a person that sticks out in your brain? Yeah, there's a few, like those first hills in Newfoundland when we were by the coast, it was like, a super hard day. We'd come cruising down those hills and take your momentum up just like halfway up the hill and then have to grind through the rest of it. And yet, oh my gosh, that scenery along the coast. That shoreline was so rugged. Amazing. Yeah.

Sometimes I remember going swimming where Terry Fox went swimming in Ontario in that one spot and that was really neat. It was a neat little spot. Oh, that place where you got sick just in Ontario. Yeah, the Ottawa River. Yeah, that was really nice. The Rainbow B&B. is one that I think about all the time. Yeah, the rainbow B&B was, it's just something that you just can't write that. Well, and you'd never stay there unless you're on a bike. Really?

Yeah, I was in the middle of nowhere. It was in Milanore. There's no way if you're doing any other kind of trip, unless you're looking for that. Yeah, that you'd stay at a place like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What preconceived notions about Canada or people in Canada

it either confirmed or changed your beliefs after you were done. That was Harley through that one. Manitoba's the worst. I didn't know that before we left. Well, you know, we talked a little bit of what Quebec, and sometimes in Western Canada we ride Quebec pretty hard, but the people were really good there, so that was something. I didn't realize how beautiful the East Coast is.

Yeah, absolutely. Maritimes are fantastic. Canada is so big and we're so close to the mountains. We always gravitate to the mountains. But a guy really should go to the East Coast more. Yep. You don't realize how much of a jam that spot is. Yeah.

It's a really laid-back lifestyle too. Yeah. And very unique compared to just very different from Western Canada for sure. Yep. In the hotel on Maple Creek. Steely. What do you think was the best part in your mind the trip? Is there something that you sticks out one way or another?

I mean, the whole thing's pretty awesome. Like, just the fact that we did that. Yeah. That's pretty cool. And I mean, I kind of joke in the beginning by saying, I'm not that special, although it is sort of that idea that you can do things that you put your mind to. That's right.

Yeah. Just jump on your bike every day. Yeah. I always loved how spontaneous that trip was. I mean, it took a year to get us there. But realistically, the conversation in the car, we weren't going to Amitton to buy bikes that day. We were going to, I don't know.

I can't remember what we were going to do. For all I know, we were going to a movie, and that was it. It just kind of came together. It was just kind of like, hey, like, where would you go traveling next? because I really admired Dustin going traveling for that long. You travel for a year. And I was playing hockey at the time. And I wanted to go travel at some point.

And so that conversation came out of the blue. And then to go do it. And people always ask, like, well, we saw it today. What training do you do? What did you buy? Like, what did it? And we just start. Start.

Don't get me wrong. We had some things go our way, even though looking back we go, man, we had a tough kind of, we still had some things go our way. We grinded through the first couple weeks because they were tough on all of us in different ways. But if you get going and if you just get your start, be amazed where you're at.

Let's get on your bike every day. My final question, and I hate to end this because I've really enjoyed this. This has been fun going down. Or do you have one more? Sure. No, you ask your final question. question. Okay, my final question is I was talking to Dust on the ride here and we, I'd done my first

podcast I'd mentioned, uh, asked Ken Rutherford. What are the three things that were biggest moments in your life? And then me and dust talked about it after and it was, um, question maybe should have been changed because everybody always goes to kids, marriage, that kind of thing. Where are the three things that maybe shaped your life? And we don't need three. I was just wondering, What did this trip do for you? How did it change your outlook on life, maybe your mindset, maybe where you were going to be a doctor, but you're going to be a doctor,

you did this trip and all of a sudden, boom, you went the opposite way? What happened after you came back? Did it change you at all? We'll start with Lori. We'll start with Dustin. Who wants to? I think, I don't know if it changed me that much, just because I pushed myself when I went traveling pretty hard before

to see what I could do and accomplish. And I'd done some triathlons before. Now this was on a whole different level. But it just kind of gives you that confidence to know that you can just, you know, if you want to do something, just keep putting your mind to him eventually you get it, essentially. Yeah, I'd say it was very similar for me doing bike trips after this one. and we traveled after this bike trip

and sort of just knowing that even when things were tough you could keep moving. Yeah. I remember leaving and going, I'm not coming back until this is done because I will not show up and have anyone tell me I know you couldn't do it. And I remember Jay, or all this brother saying to somebody

when me in the vehicle, they weren't taking bets. They asked you. what he thought, when we thought he'd quit. And he went, Sean won't quit. Sean will not come home and be quit. He will not ever do that because he does that. He knows he'll never hear the end of it.

And it's just like one of those things that I'm glad I saw through. And it's taught me basically what you guys are talking about, that you set your mind to anything, whether it's putting a man on the moon or starting a podcast. If you just start, you can accomplish things that nobody else thinks you can. And it was a very, very timely thing to have happened in my life. I think just showing up half the time is half the battle, right?

Yeah. Keep showing up. You'll figure it out and learn and adjust and adapt. Your body on a trip like this has to adapt. Even if you train, it's still going to have to adapt because you're not going to be biking 120K a day for days on end beforehand with paniers and all the rest of it in the elements. because you'll take days off.

Whereas with this, we just, once we got rolling, we just rolled. And we should mention how big our legs were at the end. You remember how, like, Dustin, well, you both have been teasing me about how big out, but my legs, your guys' legs, it looked like you had a T-bone steak above your kneecap. Like, it was a giant muscle. Yeah. Yeah. And Sean had these big mammoth tree trunk legs.

It was the greatest thing to go back to hockey. I can't even. explain how like I just could skate for days and never get tired. Yeah. I had a rep. My second game in a junior, skate by me and go, Newman, yeah. What the hell are you been doing all the off season? I was like, what do you mean?

He's like, well, you just, you won't stop skating. Like, you've been out here like 40 flipping minutes. I'm like, oh yeah, I bike Canada. You did. What? It was really cool, right? You look like you're about to ask a question. Oh, I'm through my question.

Yeah, no, I was just going to. I also point out that you guys give me a hard time for slowing us down in the beginning. However, had I not slowed us down, we would not have done this in 69 days. That's right. That was a question. Somebody to ask if we timed it out for 69 days. You can't plan something like that. You can't plan something like that.

There was another story that Joe Belanger wanted me to share. So it took me. It took me. I'm going to get the tattoo. Two years ago? I did it 11 years, I think, after we did it because I wanted to do it 10 years. All through college, I had all these designs of these tattoos

that I wanted to get for doing this, right? And I had some ugly ones designed. And they never came through. And I even put down a deposit in Wisconsin. I'm like, okay, I'm getting one. And then never went. And I finally got a tattoo on my leg two years ago. And I don't think either of you've ever done anything.

that no no Dustin said he was going to and then chicken out yeah I'm too much of it was yeah well I really appreciate a like getting back together this has been a lot of fun I hope you guys have enjoyed as much as I have I think from the banter we've had I think everybody can agree it was a lot of fun and probably shouldn't wait 13 years to to do it again and if we ever decide to bike anywhere again that'd be a lot of fun too yeah it would be a good time. Well, thanks again for coming on. This is awesome.

Thanks, Sean. Thanks, Sean. Hey, guys. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed that. That has been something that I have wanted to do every year since we completed it and finally get in a room with Lori and Dustin and sit down and talk through our travels and something that was very special.

And I continue to look back on with Fawn memories. It's one of the things that really really. shaped the direction of my life, I guess you could say. And so to get that caught on the podcast is going to mean a lot to me. It means a lot to me already, but I know in years to come I'm going to look back and really enjoy listening to that one again. So thanks Dustin and Lori for being such good sports and doing that one with me. Next week we have two local boys, Austin McDonald from Turtleford, Saskatchewan

and Lucas Bench from Marsden, Saskatch, both boys played for the Lloydminster Junior and Bobcats, and they're now playing college and university. So look forward to sitting down with those guys and talking about hockey and their journey with it and what they got coming up next. So tune in next week. Until then.