Whether it was our excitement to get started with our journey, or the bright sun peaking through the blinds, we both beat out our alarms and started off our day extra early! Our first Warmshower’s host, Cameron, made us both these delicious power smoothies to send off on our journey.

We had about 63km until our first ferry to Victoria, and our route leaving south of Vancouver including our fist climb up Ontario street, ironically enough. Once our bodies more or less readjusted to the added weight from the panniers, we found a moderately slower than usual road biking speed to help keep us from burning out early in our trip. We found some really quiet cycle facilities during our first stretch of road, and also crossed a few bridges to make our way towards the Tsawwassen ferry. For the Fraser River bridge specifically, we needed to get a little creative with the to avoid some unexpected construction.

We made it about 38km until we hit our first flat. We suspect it was due to hitting a large rock in an industrial area, but we’ll need to keep an eye out since our pannier bags are adding a considerable amount of weight to our bikes.

Once we made it across to Victoria by ferry, we had about 33km left to ride. Victoria has a really nice cycling network called the Lochside Trail which connects almost immediately from the ferry. We made our way through the island towards our 2nd Warmshower’s host’s place where we were greeted with a delicious and hardy meal to cap off our first day. We gained some great knowledge about the Pacific Coast Trail, other incredible journeys from past guests, and we’re very fortunate that our host was able to offer Sammy a huge upgrade to his front tire to immensity increase the likelyhood of making it to Los Angeles without potential tire concerns.

All said and done, it’s been a pretty successful first day of touring. We head to the states tomorrow which means no more Tim’s or easy access to Canada Wide calling or messaging, so we’ll likely get a little more creative with wifi!

Count:

Km – 96

Bananas – 3

Tim’s – 1

Warmshowers – 2

After arriving in Vancouver yesterday morning, the first thing on our mind was to check on our bikes. Fortunately, we have both taken the time to learn about bike boxes, and found out that many shops will spare boxes for free since they tend to dump them later in the summer anyways. Our bikes arrived safe and sound with no damage!

Since Sammy’s brother is working in Vancouver for the summer, we set up shop and reassembled our bikes at the place he is staying, and then made a few runs to the nearby MEC to double check a few components. We can confirm, sushi is both extremely good and reasonably priced in Vancouver.

We never expected to cycle before our big trip, but travelling by bike in Vancouver is very convenient. We made our way through Stanley Park, the Seawall, and today we ended up doing a 68km ride to Whyte Cliff (oops) with our Warmshowers host, his friend, and Sammy’s brother.

Although we’re both sad to leave this incredible city, we’re excited to begin our journey towards Los Angeles tomorrow morning.

Count:

Warmshowers – 1

KM – 68