Capital to the Coast 2011

It's been almost two years since Jeff and I reached Argentina on our bikes. Two years is a long time to be sitting at home, re-living the adventure of a lifetime. I'll be honest - I miss riding my bike everyday. I miss that life. And since returning home Jeff and I have been talking a bit about our next 'great' adventure, maybe crossing Asia from Hong Kong to Istanbul, winding our way through the Central Asian republics, crossing 5000 metre passes in Tibet, experiencing the culture of Iran… But right now, that one is still in the planning phase, and won't be happening for a number of years. So for right now, in order to just remember what bicycle touring is all about, we decided to go on a little ride and see a part of our own country that we've never seen before. This summer we'll saddle up and ride from our national capital, Ottawa, to the Atlantic coast in Halifax. It's only a ride of 1500 km, which maybe we're taking a bit too lightly, but planning on riding in ten days of cycling. No marathon this time - just a nice little sprint.

And this time, it's not just Jeff and I. We've got two friends joining us. First is Chris Morshead of Ottawa. Chris and I became friends shortly after I arrived back from Argentina. He's the kind of guy who loves adventure and pushing himself. He convinced me to run a marathon relay with him, in February, without doing any training. Just to make it more challenging. He's that kind of guy. He's also got an honours degree in International Development, and an interest in the global side of things. A perfect fit for touring with us, we think. He's got no experience in cycle touring, but we have the feeling he's going to be out in front every day, pushing us on.

The second cyclist joining us is Paul Skinner, of Strathroy, Ontario. Paul is also enrolled in an honours program in International Development at the University of Ottawa, and seems to pretty much always be up for an adventure. Now I wasn't exactly sure how to introduce him- I've got three different ones planned out. I could tell you that we met Paul while on our ride for HOPE, in Ecuador - in fact, we even mentioned him in our blog entry "Climbing Cotopaxi (aka: The Hardest Day of Our Lives)". The line went something like this: "The Canadians came a little while later, and we learned that Paul had thrown up a number of times as well". We met at the refugio, halfway up Cotopaxi, in one of the most physically challenging days of our lives. We did happen to meet up again in Guayaquil, Ecuador a week or so later, where we went out together to watch some Champions League soccer. Or another way to introduce him would be as the brother of Laura and Sarah, the sisters who joined us and made cycling a lot more fun from Huaraz to Cuzco, Peru. You may remember a few blog entries with those girls mentioned once or twice… This time we've convinced their brother to come along, which we're sure he would have done back in Peru if his visit to South America had been a bit longer. Or finally the third way I could introduce him is as the younger brother of my girlfriend Laura. We've been together for just over two years now, and I thought it would be great to have her younger brother out biking with us for this trip.

See now if you can piece those three things together - you might find a nice little behing-the-scenes love story from ride for HOPE that happened without a real mention here on our blog, but actually makes quite the story…

Anyhow, we'll jump back to the present. Chris, Paul, Jeff and I are going to ride our bikes from Ottawa to Halifax, 1500 kms, in 10 days of cycling. We're excited for it. It's going to be a lot of fun - but we've decided again to make it more than that. Cycling from here to Argentina more than reinforced our desire to make a difference in the world and help fight poverty, which we're going to continue to do through this trip. This time we've partnered with Kiva, the largest micro-loan coordinators on the internet.

Micro-loans are a relatively new way of jump-starting development, which we all are big fans of. Entrepreneurs, whether it's an asparagus farmer in Peru or a weaver in Bangladesh, apply to a local micro-loan agency for a small amount of capital in order to start or expand their business, usually in the $500-$1200 range. These agencies help with a business plan, and loan the money. Then the profile of the entrepreneur gets posted on Kiva. This is where you come in. You visit the site, and read about the various entrepreneurs looking to build their business. You pick one, and with a few pecks at the keyboard, they have a loan! A loan of just $25 can be the difference between subsistence living, and growing a business to support a family and thrive. And the best part is that this is a loan. As part of the business plan, the entrepreneur will pay back the micro-loan, ensuring development in a sustainable manner. You then get the $25 (or $50, or $100) back in your account, and you can either put it back on your credit card, or lend it to somebody else, or just donate it to the Kiva organization, and get a tax receipt.

Basically, if you're going to have $25 sitting in your bank account this year, you might as well do this. That $25 could make all the difference to somebody else. And it doesn't cost you a thing.

You can find out a bit more information on our website for this trip www.capitaltothecoast.com, and you can make a loan through our Capital to the Coast team at Kiva. Just click "Join Team", create a profile, pick who you want to make a micro-loan to, and you're set! It's honestly very easy, and fun as well. I promise you, you'll enjoy this. And you'll want to do it again. As the loans come in we can see the progress our team is making, and we are sure that we'll have no problem reaching our goal of $1500, a dollar for every kilometre that we're riding.

I hope you're all doing well, and hopefully you'll enjoy coming along for the ride once again! We hope you'll join our team!