Day 1: Vancouver to Larabee State Park (72 miles)

It took me four hours to ride the 25 miles out of Vancouver and it's suburbs. I'd be embarrassed over that pace if it wasn't for the fact that I'm slightly surprised I made it back to the States at all.

When we pulled into the bus station, our driver (who was great and incredibly enthusiastic about my ill thought out trip,) wished all the Canadians on board a happy holiday.

And I'm just unloading my gear thinking, “Canadians celebrate Columbus Day? What the heck? We don't even really acknowledge it anymore.”

So I roll the half mile to the Vancouver Costco (literally right next to the soccer stadium and hockey arena. Brilliant place for a Costco) as it was the only place in Vancouver I really knew and I wanted to use their restroom. And get a hot dog.

Tragedy struck when I saw Costco was closed. Brilliant person that I am, I knew Costco only closed on five days out of the year, so using my powers of deduction, I realized the Canadians were not in fact celebrating Columbus Day, but Canadian Thanksgiving.

On the plus side, this meant traffic was going to be almost non existent, on the negative side, this meant nothing except bars and fast food was open.

Oh hi, Vancouver.

I had worried avout getting from Vancouver to the border because my phone wouldn't work if I found myself lost. Thankfully, the guys on r/Vancouverbicycling led me to the “Central Valley Greenway” and told me that would get me all the way out of Vancouver, then it was an easy ride to the border.

The CVG is a cool piece of bike infrastructure consisting of mups, bike lanes, and a short section of gravel. It's well  marked, almost completely flat (almost. I see you 11% grade) and meanders through Vancouver, Burnaby, and New Westminster.

I was literally on the Greenway for five minutes when my rear tube went out with a bang. I went to change it and saw the sidewall in my tire had exploded.

Well this is not good.

So, it takes some explaining about why my sidewall went out. The short version is, I ordered my front panniers, rack, and tires from Germany, but they were delivered while I was in California, so I had to pick them up from the post office.

I got back into Seattle Saturday night, Post office is closed Sunday and Monday was Columbus Day, so if I waited for them, the earliest I could have left was Wednesday.

Instead, I decided to just take half my gear in my back panniers and ride Vancouver to Seattle, pick up my stuff on Tuesday, then leave with everything from Seattle on Wed. This meant I had older tires on. This also meant that in the midst of my genius packing method of “chuck everything that fits into the bag,” I managed to leave my emergency tire at home.

So my sidewall is blown, my phone doesn't work, And it's Thanksgiving, so even if I found a bike shop, it wouldn't be open.

If you read my gear list however, you know I was carrying duct tape. I taped up my tire, lowered the pressure to about 30 psi so it wasn't bulging too badly, switched it to the front as all the weight was on the back, and headed for the border on duct tape and prayers.

The CVG was pretty nice to ride on and it conveniently ended at a Starbucks in the Vancouver suburbs. I used Starbuck's free Wi-Fi and discovered another bike route that took me across the bridge to the suburb of Surrey. From Surrey, it shouldn't be too hard to get to the border.

Excwpt I got lost, because of course I did. And it's hard to follow screenshots of directions and maps on your phone.

CVG right after "Beware of Bears" sign

So channeling my best inner scout, I situated the sun on my right shoulder and rode around until I found a large street that appeared to be going straight south  I chose wisely as this one turned into BC-99 and took me all the way to the border.

The customs officials were just as suspicious going into America as Canada, which surprised me as my passport is American, but half an hour later, I was finally free to ride through Blaine, WA.

From Blaine to Bellingham, it was all farm country and rolling hills. I think I would have enjoyed it quite a bit on my road bike, but I was hungry and tired and every little ride dropped my speed to single digits.

I hit Bellingham as it was getting dark and still had ten miles to go to my camp spot for the night: Larabee State Park, so I resigned myself to using my lights.

Downtown Bellingham was fun to ride through--low key with a bunch of stuff to look at. I'd like to come back some day and actually spend some time in the xity.. I've been to Bellingham only once before--a bike racing trip that almost ended with me face down, dead in a ditch, so riding through the area brought back some fond memories. (I survived that race because some jerk from Portland decided I was her good deed for the day and kept me up right.)

Rolling into Larabee at sunset

I finally made it to Larabee around 8pm. Was tired enough that I didn't want to bother pitching my tent. I'd frequented enough bike touring blogs in the past few weeks to decide to lay out my sleeping bag and pad on the picnic table.

That lasted for all of about 15 minutes before I almost rolled myself off the table twice.

And I was cold.

Pitched the tent and passed out cold by 8:45.

Tomorrow: 100 mile day and back to Seattle.

Total Mileage: 72
Best Sight: Just before Ferndale, I was rolling through farmland, so a lot of cows and horses. Saw an alpaca out of the corner of my eye, then did a double take when I realized it was playing with a deer.

Good Guy Driver of the Day: Going up a hill on a two labe road with no shoulder. Driver sat behind me until I crested and made the turn without any attempt to pass.