Week #1 - our arrival in Jasper!

Even with our procrastinating tendencies, we still managed to leave on our scheduled departure date - September 1st.  Six days later, we are in Jasper, having survived our first week of cycle touring.  It's been a challenging week, but a rewarding week as well.  We've woken up to frost most mornings, and biked through sunshine, wind, sleet and rain - and that's in only our first 4 days of biking!

As we wrote in our first post, 10 days before departure, we hadn't spent a whole lot of time in training, and we knew that the first few weeks would be difficult.  We knew this, and yet didn't really spend any time actually visualizing the difficulties that we would face.  This first week has really tested our resolve.  From the emotional goodbye's of leaving home for a year, to that first hill that we climbed with our loaded bikes - to the last hill that we climbed every day.  It's all been very tough, but we just keep pedaling.   And at the top of every hill, it feels worth it. 

We've had some amazing views of the Canadian Rockies, and had a chance to camp in our own private campground!  We've already slept in an empty lot, a closed campground, and a dark museum (and for those of you who really know us - they were of course, all free of charge!)  Climbing the Sunwapta Pass was an event that we had been anticipating since we started planning our route.  We knew that it would be one of the biggest climbs that we would face in North America, and the worst part was that we were tackling it with so little conditioning.  But bit by bit, metre by metre, we pedaled our bikes onward.  Every stop that we made, I was more out of breath than I ever had been before.  My heart was beating faster and harder than I think it's ever beaten before.  But eventually, with grins on our faces, we made it to the summit of the pass.  It's an amazing feeling to look back over the road that you've just ridden, and to see the progress that you've made.  Looking down at the road, so far below in a valley; it's an almost indescribable feeling.  

Our true reward for that climb came the next morning, as we left the Columbia Icefields Centre out into the drizzle.  Adorned in our full rain-gear, we mounted our bikes and started pedaling.  However, as the grade became steeper and steeper and we lost all the elevation that we had worked so hard to attain, our feet couldn't keep up with the pedals, and we flew down that windy mountain road at speeds that our mother would not like to hear, and that our bike computers couldn't calculate.  (They both topped out at 72.66 km/h).  It is such an exhilarating feeling with the wind in your face, to propel yourself at such speeds, when you've worked so hard to get there.   

We've been lucky enough to meet a number of people who have encouraged us already.  From the lunch-time conversations with fellow cyclists and travelers, to a fist-pump out a car window as you bike by, to the simplest smile and a wave from vehicles as they pass you by.  All do wonders to help you keep pedaling, keep those legs pumping, and make it up that next hill.  We'd encourage all of you, if you see a biker out there on the highway - give them a wave as you drive by.  Or even a honk, if you're coming from the opposite direction.  However if you try it as you come up behind them - well that's just dangerous, and to be honest, quite scary.  

Tomorrow morning we will pedal off, early in the morning and head west on the Yellowhead and what will most likely be our first border crossing - into British Columbia.  We are hoping to reach Kamloops after 6 or 7 nights spent camping in roadside turnouts, and mountain runaway lanes.  

We've updated our photo album, and we hope you'll take a look.  We've been lucky enough to cycle through some beautiful mountain scenery and we thought we should share at least a little bit of that with you.