Days 71-73: Rest Day in Fredericton, Fredericton to Young’s Cove (T.D.: 89.0km; S.T: 4h14min), Young’s Cove to Moncton (T.D.: 96.7km; S.T.: 4h34min), Moncton NB to Charlottetown PEI (T.D.: 157.6km: S.T.: ?)

After a rest day in Fredericton, we wrapped things up with a victory lap to Charlottetown with Caroline’s brother Mike. We had three days of biking with equal parts sun, rain and fun times (lots of each). Stayed at McCready’s Motel in Young’s Cove on night one, with Aunts Beth and Helene in Moncton on night two, and with sister Kathleen in Stratford, PEI on our last night. Final count on the odometer: 6751.7 km. Not too shabby. I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking... 

 

And then there were three.

 

Michael Lee + Pumpkins = EXCITEMENT 

 

Michael Lee + Bike Tripping = FLAT TIRES

 Lunch under a bridge like common trolls.

 Brother and sister in perfect jumping harmony.

 Mike speeding ahead on his borrowed, weightless road bike while we haul his gear...

 Arrival in Young's Cove.

 And McCready's Motel: The finest in luxury accommodations.

 With good food to boot. Dinner.

 Dessert.

 

 And breakfast.

 On the road to Moncton (day 73) - a stop in Salisbury, home of the Silver Fox.

 And the Dairy Queen.

Mike got the hang of posing in front of welcome signs really quickly.

 Home-cooked meals!

 Cooked up with Aunts Beth and Helene - Thanks ladies!

 A rainy day en route out of Moncton and towards PEI.

And another flat tire for newbie Mike.

 Shediac: Home of the GIANT LOBSTER!

 A shuttle ride across the Confederation Bridge!

 Another great Michael pose.

 But the master remains undefeated!

 Caroline and Pat: Champions of the Pacific-Atlantic cycle route - Vancouver to Charlottetown!

 Kathleen meets us on her bykle!

 Three words: ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT LOBSTER DINNER

 Icing on the long-awaited REBAR CHOCOLATE CAKE (you know it's been a good trip if it ends with one of these. Booya)

Day 70: Bath to Fredericton (T.D.: 121.4km; S.T.: 6h40min)

I’ve lived in New Brunswick pretty much all my life, and travelled between Bath and Fredericton countless times. I had never realized, however, until I looked at a map in preparation for today’s ride, that the St. John River runs almost entirely north-south between Bath and Woodstock, and then makes a sharp 90 degree turn east towards Fredericton. The highway, moreover, follows the river – and while this doesn’t matter much to someone in a car, it carries significant implications for a couple of long-distance cyclists. Anyone familiar with the Pythagorean Theorem can tell you that it would be much quicker to cut a diagonal line between Bath and Fredericton rather than follow the main road along this right angle route. Fortunately, there is such a diagonal line, and while the low speed limit and spotty pavement conditions keep drivers off this road for the most part, we thought we’d give it a try. It would, after all, turn an ambitious 145-km-day into a more reasonable 120-km one. 

Not a bad idea in theory (thanks Pythagorus!), but we’d forgotten that while highway speed limits don’t much matter to us, spotty pavement conditions do. It wasn’t long before we’d hit some dusty dirt roads which, with our thin tires and weighty saddle bags, caused us a fair bit of grief. 

Today was not a day to dwell on the negatives though – we were on the homestretch, quite literally! We battled up hills (another thing neither of us had ever seriously considered was just how darn hilly NB is – worse even, than Western Ontario), against headwinds, and in the face of more angry dogs – all the evils of cycle-touring that we’d encountered throughout the trip wrapped up into a single-day journey, and still managed to enjoy ourselves fiercely. This trip has been one where the negatives could easily overwhelm your body and mind if you let them. But never in the 6000+ kms did sore bums and tired legs get the best of us – kind of amazingly. I mean, when we started planning for this trip, we envisioned a real nightmarish “character-building” sort of experience filled with rain, mosquitoes, torn muscles, flat tires and cranky significant others. We still wanted to give it the ol’ college try though, and we’re glad we did, because it was WAY better than we expected. Even the most punishing of days ended with an amazing meal and a blissful sleep, the most dependable rewards of a hard day’s work. Even the time spent in the saddle, pedaling away – which most people view with a kind of befuddled bewilderment (“surely you must get BORED!”) – offered us a kind of zen-like meditation on both inner and outer landscapes. What some see as the monotony of long-distance cycling can, if you surrender to it, become a rhythmic routine where life’s main problem, getting from point A to point B, is solved beautifully by a “just keep going” mantra. It all sounds kind of new-agey when you put it on a page like this, but it’s true. Our only responsibility was to ourselves and each other, to not kill ourselves with carelessness, to keep going to the next stop, and maybe to blog about it later – and the simplicity in all of this was super refreshing. We were asked a few times whether we’d ever think of repeating the trip. Now that a little time has passed, I think we’d both answer “definitely”. 

Not that we were thinking about all of this, particularly, as we lunched in Millville, NB sometime near mid-afternoon, but you get the picture. From Millville it was more hills and valleys to the Mactaquac Dam – a superstructure on the St. John River that we’d only ever crossed by car on the way to the golf course or the beach.

 Here, we called mom to alert her to our presence within the city limits (knowing full well that she’d likely already “sensed” that we’d arrived). Did some jumping jacks at the “Welcome to Fredericton” sign and then cruised into the increasingly familiar territory of Silverwood, the Bucket Club, the Woodstock Road, etc., before turning onto the gravel path that would lead us home. Here, we met, in a moment of shining splendor, none other than the matriarch who haunts these pages herself: Ann Brennan. She’d dusted off her pink CCM, strapped on an ill-fitting helmet, and rode out to meet us. Not 5 minutes later did Father Brennan arrive too, equally comical in his bike helmet and work apparel (like I’m one to talk – at least it’s clear that I came by it honestly). A family reunited, we pedaled home leisurely, where more welcomes, high-fives, and most importantly, hamburgers, awaited us. It’s good to be home.

Av. Spd.: 18.5km/h

Mx. Spd.: 59.8km/h

Total km logged, Vancouver to Fredericton: 6408km

Day 69: Rest Day in Bath

Lovely rest day in the motherland, visiting aunts and uncles, and eating well.

 

Day 68: Grand Falls to Bath (T.D.: 73.8km; S.T.: 4h26min)

Aya, what a day. We woke up and bid adieu to Grammy and the rest of the fam, and began what we thought would be a restful journey through my ancestral stomping grounds, the potato fields of Victoria and Carleton Counties. What we found involved a blistering head wind, climb after excruciating climb, and a bunch of mangy dogs chasing after us. Funny thing about those dogs. The night before, my uncle Jimmy asked us, “So, how many dogs have you been chased by?”. We replied, in all honesty, “none”. The matter was more or less dropped, but we should have heeded Jimmy’s words for the portentous omen that they were. Maybe it was the back roads we took, or maybe the fine folks of my ancestral stomping grounds are just particularly bad dog trainers, but we had no less than three dogs chase us down, nipping at our furiously pedaling feet, and about a dozen more who would have had they not been leashed to the doghouse. Stressful!

       

 Anyway, it was probably our bad. We decided to take “the scenic route,” crossing the old Limestone Siding bridge and following the east riverbank through Perth-Andover to Bath. We should have stayed on the highway in retrospect. Alas, we did not. All in all, for a 70km day, it was punishing.

        But the punishment was met with the best of all rewards: my lovely Nana jumping up and down in her driveway as we rolled in around suppertime. Nana has been following our blog, an ardent supporter/worrier, and was actually talking with my mom (both likely fretting over our whereabouts) when she saw Caroline’s orange flag through her kitchen window. She had also been, as she is wont to do, cooking up a storm, and we enjoyed a hearty meal of east coast mussels, salad, and baguettes. 

Av. Spd.: 16.6 km/h

Mx. Spd.: 64.4km/h (Highest max speed of the whole journey? Weird!)

Animal most likely to get bear-sprayed: Your dog, if you don’t keep him on a leash when we ride by!

Day 67: Notre-Dame-Du-Lac QC to Grand Falls NB (T.D.: 110.2km; S.T.: 5h36min)

        Wowee – so strange to arrive back in our home province today by bicycle after such a long journey. We had a little extra power in our legs, riding as we were in familiar territory – or maybe that was just another blessed tailwind. Either way, we were feeling good as we sailed through a perfect September day in old NB. We stopped in Edmunston for a picnic lunch, and followed a friendly local out of town. The fellow was so nice it made me feel bad for this poor-taste pose (But come on! What kind of slogan is that, St. Leonard?).

We made excellent time to my mom’s hometown of Grand Falls, where we were welcomed like royalty by a gathering of extended family, who fed us pizza and beer! Nothing feels more like home than pizza and beer. 

Av. Spd.: 19.6 km/h

Mx. Spd.: 49.3km/h

Homewrecker award: The guy on the Edmunston welcome sign. Caroline fell in love. She says I never bring her flowers. I told her that guy is just a sign. She said, yeah, a sign that if you don’t shape up, I’m gonna leave you for a French-Canadian. I told her, please don’t leave me.