Cycle the Sunshine Coast, BC

My virtual cycling tour across Canada landed me just west of "Indian Head" at 1801km from Horseshoe Bay, BC.  Indian Head? Yep I kid you not!  And what does every town need when named from a First Nation's part of their anatomy - a INDIAN HEAD?  YEP!   Indian Head is a town in southeast Saskatchewan, Canada, 69 km east of Regina. The town is directly north of the Trans-Canada Highway. The town is known for its federally-operated Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) experimental farm and tree nursery that produces seedlings for shelter belts.   So  there you go.  I've been riding into the darnedest towns!   ---WAB1234---

My virtual tour lands me in Moose Jaw at 1663km across Canada.  How did this place get its name? Wiki (gotta love Wiki!) says "Marked on a map as  Moose Jaw Bone Creek  in an 1857 survey by surveyor John Palliser, [ 1 ]  there are two theories as to how the city got its name. The first one is that it comes from the  Plains Cree  name moscâstani-sîpiy  meaning "a warm place by the river", indicative of the protection from the weather that the  Coteau Range  provides to the river valley containing the city [ 2 ] and also the  Plains Cree  word Moose Gaw  meaning warm breezes. The other is that on the map of the city the Moose Jaw river is shaped like a  moose 's jaw." I like the first version rather than the obvious.  Traveling luck has a better break down of Moose Jaw here  .  Of course every town aptly named from a moose's anatomy should have a giant statue of it!      Regina is ...

280km and 11:29:40 in two days defines the circle tour around the Georgia Basin aka the Circle Tour.  To summarized my event on the Saturday, I got off the ferry and realized that I only had 40km to complete a Century which is the definitive event in a cyclist goal bucket list.  I picked out my route and ended up completing 160km (100miles) at the end of the day.  To give a better perspective of the distance, just jump in the car at Horseshoe Bay and drive east on the HWY 1 for a little less than 2 hours and you'll hit 160km just outside of Hope, BC.   Anyway, the next day was start of a 120km trip down the coast on the old island hwy and for all intents and purposes I was cycling into headwind all the way!!!! (Actually I just checked the weather data and it was a 30km headwind which equates to a 4% grade uphill for effort).  Here's some pictures:   Picture 1 - Deer and two fawns in Comox Picture 2 - In between Comox and Courtney on t...

A great start to the ride in Comox. I've done about 161 km and 6 hour 35 min of riding. 120km to go to Nanaimo.

11:00 am June 26. Whew! Completed the second leg of my journey and I'm at 118km and 4:41 hours into it. This second leg was really pleasant with almost no highway traffic and wide shoulders. I felt really safe here. The shoulder was pretty clean compare to highway 101 near Sechelt. On to Comox and to visit friends to end day ones adventure.

Well I'm 85 km into my first day and it's 7:50am in morning! Completed to date - 3:24:31 time, 85.61 km, 25.1 km per hour. Well the first leg was awesome although it didn't start too well. I woke up at 2:45am and took my time to put everything together. Went through my checklist, yep all good to go. I left the house at 4am and it was very dark which required me to use some lights. The first 1/2 hour in the dark was a bit eerie because it was so quiet. About 10 min into the ride I needed a drink of water and no water bottles. Man! It wasn't on my list! So I realized that nothing was open in Gibsons at 4:30 am except for Timmy's which had these pathetic water bottles. Good enough I said and shelled out $3.45 (rip off). There was almost no traffic most of the way which I counted 10 cars. I'm now waiting for the 8:25 ferry where I'll rest, stretch, get sugared up and ride to Powell River for 30km.

Today is my big two day ride. Will be testing and sending pictures of my trip along the way. ---WAB1234--- Sent from my iPhone