Day 1: Vancouver to Mission, BC 70.17

Hello from Sun Valley Campground. We had a great ride today, starting from our B&B in Vancouver we headed to Stanley Park for the symbolic launch at the Pacific Ocean. I had forgotten how wonderful it is to ride in Vancouver with fresh ocean air and bike lanes all around you. We were longing to spend an extra day in the city but we were too hyped about starting the ride so we started our trek east along Hastings, which eventually becomes highway seven.

We were feeling pretty smug about our quick adaptation to the heavy load we're now pulling on our bikes. On the flat and mild-moderate hills it doesn't make too much of a difference; we're a little bit slower but when you can build up a momentum it's almost possible to forget the packs are there. That is at least until you're 'mountain-struck', then there is no mistaking you have seventy extra pounds to heave up the steep grades. Burnaby mountain gave us quite the strenuous initiation into what lies ahead in the next few days. Luckily we got the worst of today's climbing out of the way within the first 20km before enjoying an invigorating descent and some relatively flat riding through Port Moody and Coquitlam. Between Maple Ridge and Mission some rolling hills pick up again as the vistas shift from power shopping centers to rivers, mountains, and railroads.

Following the Lougheed highway/highway 7 for the duration of the ride you'd expect it to have been miserable. I generally always find highway riding at least a little harrowing, and to be honest today there was some of that, but it helps that there was a wide paved shoulder for *most* of our route. Sometimes it dropped off or was covered in too much debris to safely cycle upon but drivers generally gave us our right to the road and passed us with room to spare. Actually, we get the sense that many of the drivers around here are also cyclists --in Toronto we get honked at for being on the road at all, whereas here we're honked at so that people can give us the thumbs up!

Amazing bike infrastructure generally attracts many cyclists and we've met a lot of great people today. We cycled briefly with a tourer from Belgium who has already been cycling for a month. He started in San Francisco and is now on his way east with no set destination. We have to admit we took some delight at us taking a faster pace than him ;-).  Now we're at camp bordered by touring cyclists on either side, all with stories to tell.

We're both feeling pretty good and happy to be on tour, though it hasn't quite sunk in that we'll be doing this for three months. For now, it looks like rain is coming and we need to pack up for the night.

We'll be in touch soon!
Vanessa and Alex

Note: we're writing posts through email on the iphone and it seems unable to accommodate text and photos at the same time so until we can fix it from a computer we'll be posting the two separately.