Cycling from Vancouver to New York - Part 1 - Canada

Day one Vancouver to New York, let's go. After leaving our warm showers host's house and a quick few photos from his cleaner we're leaving Vancouver on our way towards New York. We'd be riding around 2000 kilometers through Canada and after only the first 30 we got our first sight of some Canadian wildlife. So we're only about 30 k's from where we started this morning in Vancouver. We're just having lunch in this little suburban park here in Mission and sitting there having lunch and a black bear just ran straight through this park up the little hill behind me. So day one, bear sightings, one. Canada, one. We then had our first of many rain showers on our way to our first night's camp at Trout Lake. But it was blue skies the next morning as the first of many snow-capped mountains came into view. The rain didn't hold off long though and it looked like wet days might become our new normal. Day three now and the rain has set in. We're heading off towards Hope today. We had a good campsite last night. We did have a nice view of Cheam Peak up behind us but clouds have overtaken that. The rain probably won't stop for a couple days now and we're uphill most of the time. So let's just get it done. Rainy day has meant plenty of stops for shelter and cups of tea to warm us up as we made our way into the mountains. Big ride up the hill from Hope this morning and we're just a little rest stop by the side of the road having a cup of tea and enjoying the view. Finding a spot to camp wherever we could we focused on staying dry and warm and hydrated. We've woken up this morning and it's still raining. It's been raining for about two days so we're just going to stay in the tent and drink coffee and avoid riding up the hill. With our first few days on the road being cold and wet it was safe to say we were pretty excited when the sun came back out. So we've just arrived at Mule Deer campground after a day of hills and rain. The sun has come out. Just drying our tent out behind us here. The river running by our side. Pretty much the best campsite we've ever been to. Day is looking up. What's on the menu chef? Rice wraps. And the sun kept on shining as we made our way towards the small town of Princeton where we spent the night camped by the river at another Great Warm Showers hosts house. Excited to start out the next day on the Kettle Valley Rail Trail. Just started out on the Kettle Valley Rail Trail this morning after leaving Princeton where we stayed last night. Had a good little warm shower stay there. About 10km's in. Sun is shining. Birds are chirping. Having a cup of hot choccy. Life is good. The Kettle Valley Rail Trail took us through mixed terrain with surfaces ranging from sandy single track to hard pack gravel and everything in between. It's fairly well maintained but was at times a challenge on our fully loaded touring bikes. Some days were slow and tough riding but well worth the effort for the nature and scenery it provided. We found plenty of good campsites as well as a few characters along the way. Dude I'm ******* riding the Great Northern bikepacking route. 9,000 miles. 14,000km's. Almost half a million feet of climbing. And I ran into Simon and Laura here. Fucking **** yeah. Love life. We made a quick detour off route into Kelowna to visit some family and also found this great ride along the Okanagan Lake through Goats Peak Regional Park. A long push uphill then got us back on the trail in time to ride the Myra Canyon Trestles. The Myra Canyon is full of awesome views and with its 18 trestles and two tunnels originally built over 100 years ago this section of the trail was super fun to ride. But just as we got through it, disaster struck. Two broken spokes. Broken derailleur we've jimmied up with a cable tie. We'll be able to nurse it for a few kilometers but we've got to get out of here because something's ripped apart. A rabbit just behind us. So yeah. We managed to get ourselves back to a road and hitch a lift into town and with some help from a local bike shop we're back on the trail before the end of the day. Well we got back on the trail yesterday after some great work by the guys at Fresh Air down in Kelowna. They got us a new derailleur and chain and everything sorted for the bike. Good to get back out here. Good little campsite last night but we had a visitor last night. A little rodent decided to munch on my grips as well as on Laura's shoes. Anyway not too bad and good to be back out here. We never had a problem finding a great place to camp along the trail and spent many nights camping by the side of a river taking in some of Canada's natural beauty. As we approached the town of Grand Forks the Kettle Valley Rail Trail was coming to an end but on our final day we met some longhorn sheep and found a cool little cabin that we couldn't pass up staying in for the night. We've only done about 25k today but we just found this little hut. We still meant to ride 35 more k's but it was too good to pass up so we're going to stay here for the night. Let's have a look inside. A little kitchen area and some little bunks to stay in. So this is us for the night. We were treated to a great view from our cabin and even a visit from another bike tourer. The next day we started out on the Columbia and Western Trail and when we did the rain started to fall and the temperature started to drop. After a few river crossings on our way over the Polson Pass and just our socks and sandals some new strange measures were taken to try keep dry and warm. What's going on here? Nothing. Raining one day and beautiful the next the sun had come out for our ferry trip across Kootenay Lake and onwards towards the town of Fernie. So it's been a couple days since I showed you one of our camp spots. We're now on the way to Fernie and we've left Cranston, Creston, Creston this morning. A bit of highway riding but not too bad. Slight incline the whole way and we're just going through a bit glary but got a nice little foresty campsite in here just tucked away in the bushes. We're not too far from the road but pretty hidden down a little trail. Nice little spot. Hopefully no wildlife come and disturb our sleep tonight but should be good. So I've just chucked the panniers with the food and stuff up in a tree what they call the bear hang here so that nothing comes and finds us in our camp thanks to sniffing out our food. Hopefully she's safe up there for the night and yeah that's how we keep our food and ourselves safe when camping. Cucumber, cheese and chippies. An absolute delight. Here's our campsite for the night. We were going to go further but we found this little spot that just looked perfect right by a stream with a fire pit going so we got plenty of water right from the river. Great place to camp. Just leaving Fernie now. Really cool little town full of bike packers and bike tourers. It's a really cool vibe there. We're headed east away from the mountains towards the prairies. Another beautiful day out here. The Rockies behind us with snow on top. Just a great part of Canada. Very different landscape today than it has been the last week or so. Pretty far from the Rockies now. It's just sort of rolling green barbed land as far as you can see. Long straight roads all the way to Saskatchewan. Disappointment of a lifetime. We're here on the main street of Foremost and the local diner where we're going to have Canadian bacon and pancakes for breakfast is closed so we're having coffee and wraps on the side of the street. A bit of rain today but I'll take this any day over the headwind we had yesterday. Headed to a town called Many Berries which we've been told is pretty much deserted but apparently there's a pie shop maybe on the way there so we'll have a look for a piece of pie and then head on to Many Berries. Have a look for somewhere to rest our heads. As we rode through the rain we were really looking forward to our lunch of blueberry pie and it wasn't the only treat that was in store for us that day. When we arrived in Many Berries a friendly local invited us to spend the night at his place with another bike tourer that he'd invited in and his 20 or so cats. It was an interesting night to say the least and definitely a local experience. Classic meal for us at the moment cucumber cheese and crisps on a wrap. We crossed the border into Saskatchewan on some long straight dirt roads that were tough riding when the wind wasn't in our favor and when the rain and hail started it made tough riding seem almost impossible. Built up peanut butter mud completely stopped us in our tracks and all we could do was stop and wait for the storm to pass. We've had an absolute nightmare of a day today we got stuck in the mud for a while the road we were trying to take just wasn't getting us anywhere so we had to turn around change tact and find somewhere to camp for the night. We've got ourselves a little spot here we just asked a local farmer if we could pull up in his yard really nice guy just let us have a spot and this is us settling in for the night pretty miserable day out here glad we got a shelter and that's about it The skies had cleared up for our final stretch of riding through Canada and we were in for one last show of Canadian kindness when we met Bob and Shelley These two farmers who we met at a small town store invited us back to their place for a cookout and then to stay the night at their farm. One night stay turned into two and we enjoyed learning about life on the farm, played with their dogs and even got a tour of their grain elevator. We passed so many of these massive buildings during our time in Canada and were extremely interested in learning how they worked. We were like kids on a school excursion exploring every part of the elevator and asking tons of questions and Bob and Shelley seemed as happy as we were to be giving us the tour. We had an amazing time with Bob and Shelley on their farm and saying goodbye to them was like saying goodbye to family. Our time in Canada was now coming to an end as we were headed for the US border and onwards towards New York. Follow along by subscribing to this channel or finding us on Instagram at We Ride Bikes Places