The Bad Day A’Commeth

Distance: 125km
Time: 4 hrs 20 min

We have been truly blessed on our trip across Canada. There have been friendly people to meet, beautiful views to behold and over all some pretty good weather for biking. So, it seems as though there was bound to be a bad day to come and today was definitely that day!

The day started out alright as we packed everything up and left Ottawa to begin our trek into Quebec and Montreal. When we got to where us boys were to start biking for the day Mike went to unlock the bike rack and start taking off the bikes when he realized there was something out of the ordinary. The bike rack did not look as full as it normally did. There was a bike missing which must have been stolen during the night. Someone had found a way to loosen the bike rack just enough to pull the last bike off, which happened to belong to Mike. The whole BBA crew stood there for a few minutes taking in what had happened and deciding what to do next. Thankfully, there was a back-up bike available (Juliet’s bike) which the boys were able to put together and Mike was able to use. What could have been a huge delay of days was averted and the boys were able to continue their trek.

Things did not end there however as the boys cycled into a rainstorm later in the day and upon arriving in Montreal all three took little spills off their bikes with the wet weather conditions. None of the boys were seriously hurt (only have some minor scrapes) but this was enough to call an end to biking for the day. On top of the tough emotional and physical aspects of the day we all found that navigating through Montreal is extremely difficult which led to the guys and girls getting lost and having a hard time finding each other. We were to do a radio interview with Radio Canada but with getting lost, were not going to make it. In the end we just barely made the interview as Mike and Adam went into a Best Buy store to ask if they could use the phone and do the interview from there. The interview seemed to go well but even it did not go as planned with the interviewer only asking Mike questions even though he had both Mike and Adam on the phone.

By the end of the day, everyone was thankful to just find our campsite and get something to eat before falling exhausted into our beds. We were bound to have a bad day or two so hopefully with this behind us we can look forward to much better days ahead. Thankfully, we have the next two days to rest in Montreal and to recuperate from the worst day ever!