Day 13: Golden, BC 0km

We've been having a relaxing day strolling (and of course eating) around Golden. It turns out that we were more exhausted than we thought, this business of cycling across Canada is hard work! Alex is currently napping in the tent at 4pm. We allowed ourselves to sleep until 8am today in attempt to catch up on sleep while getting used to the time zone change. We're now on Alberta time, which is two hours behind Ontario (instead of three). We were surprised to pass the sign instructing to push clocks ahead in the middle of our descent yesterday; we had both assumed the time change would happen at the provincial border. Weird. Are we the only ones who didn't know this?

We've also been reunited with another cyclist we met back in Mission, BC. He smartly took the route out of Hope through the Fraser Canyon, rather than climbing Allison Pass (in Mission he told Alex he rode the pass years ago and it nearly killed him). He's debating whether to cycle 'only' to Calgary or push all the way east, so it is likely that we'll see him a few more times.

We've met two other sets of people riding from Vancouver to Toronto and one cyclist riding alone to St. John's. It's always interesting to compare notes and routes, there seems to be a huge difference in approach people take to it. One way, is to push through and try to cover as much ground as possible everyday. This makes sense given how much time it takes to cycle the thousands of kilometres it takes to get across the country. While I can't imagine when we'll have this much time again, I am definitely glad that we have given ourselves three months to do this. For one, we'd be exhausted and likely miserable if we were spending ten hours in the saddle everyday. Second, this is also a trip across Canada, not just a bike trip. It's important for us to be able to visit different towns and meet people along the way. So far our time balance has leaned toward the bikes but we're making efforts to explore during our many food and bathroom breaks. Plus, the eight flexible days we added to our schedule allows for an extra rest day to be allocated each week.  This will allow for more thorough visiting and much needed breaks from riding and weather exposure.

Tomorrow is fittingly our last major climb and our last day in BC, which we'll end at about 1500 metres in Lake Louise, AB. We're a little bit sad to leave BC behind and the climb out of Golden looks fierce enough to make a cyclist camp here forever, but we're also excited to go forward. The forecast is calling for thunderstorms tomorrow, let's hope we get a free pass on that one!