2011 Natal Days Festival, Part 2: July 28-Aug 1, 2011

On Monday morning, I arose at 5:30 AM, to get ready to cycle to Dartmouth to compete in my first (running) road race in 3 years. After registering and gingerly warming up my IT Band Syndrome-plagued knee, I took my place with the 1200 other runners to wait for over 1 minute after the gun was fired to reach the starting line for the 6 mile event (10 km).

(And we're off! Well, sort of...)

The Dartmouth Natal Day Road Race is a 105 year-old tradition. Officially it is the third oldest running race in North America. As you can see from the above photo, it gathers quite a crowd, and with beautiful tree-lined streets like this, it's no wonder why.

The race even drew out local fans who pitched in to keep everyone cool on this blistering hot day.

After finishing the road race, and cleaning up, I walked about 20 meters back to the race course which had now been turned into a parade route. Stanley Cup winning hockey player, Brad Marchand of the Boston Bruins, was the Honorary Parade Marshal. This position essentially involved nothing more than sitting in a car and waving at fans. However, this couldn't be done efficiently, as dozens of fans kept forcing the parade to stop by running up to try and get Brad's autograph.

Of course, what would a parade be without marching Mounties?

All of my favourite floats were back again, like the Crime Stoppers Jailbirds, the tiny fire engine, and the Shriners with their Paddy Wagon.

There were even some new favourites as well, like these Japanese drummers, or the pirates who shot bubbles from their cannon. To be fair, the pirates aren't really new, since they were at Sullivan's Pond last year for the Mayor's Dartmouth Tea Party, but this is the first time I've seen them in a float.

After the parade - because I obviously hadn't had enough exercise this day - I rode back to the Macdonald Bridge to participate in the 29th annual Bridgewalk. Just like at last year's Bridgewalk, the city shuts down the Macdonald Bridge for the day and pedestrians are encouraged to walk over and back as many times as they'd like. It's the best day of the year, in my opinion.

Additionally, it doesn't hurt that the organizers serve free cake either. If I'm honest, this fact had no small part in my decision to come participate.

If for some crazy reason you don't like cake, you could also look at the classic cars. This '54 Bel-Air was probably my favourite. I had forgotten about the "good ol' days" before computers (and fuel economy and safety and performance...) when a small Ea-pea could fit in the engine bay of an automobile.

Plenty of extra encouragement existed along the roughly mile-long bridge. If the oompa band didn't make you pick up your feet (or stroller wheels), then Mr. MACPASS could definitely brighten your day with his gargantuan smile.

By the time I had crossed over to Halifax and back though, I was truly exhausted and could barely stay awake. I decided to conclude yet another successful EP Natal Days weekend by cycling back over the bridge and back home to fall asleep.

HRM Bike Week 2011, Part 3: Pancake Breakfast and Bill 93 Proclamation

On the morning of Wednesday, June 1, I woke up and geared up early in the morning to cycle across the Macdonald Bridge for a free pancake breakfast. It won't take regular readers long to figure out that EP Dave loves free food, and will do just about anything to get it. However, if I can get free food at an event that promotes cycling I will ride my bicycle across the ocean to get it (literally in this case).

(Shivering in the cold since 6:30 am - it was about 8:40 am when this picture was taken - these three HRM heroes served pancakes, fruit salad, and juice to passing cyclists, and seconds of it to me.)

While a free pancake breakfast for cyclists is reason enough to get up early and leave the house, it wasn't the only cycling related event happening on this day. Teams of relays from different corners of Nova Scotia had been cycling for ten days across the province, and would be converging on the capital, Halifax, at 1:00 pm to deliver a copy of a historic bill to the Legislature that would become an official law on this day.

The bill in question, Bill 93 (the one meter law), requires all motor vehicles to give a one-metre birth to cyclists when passing (drivers can move into the oncoming traffic lane when it is safe to do so). The law also makes it punishable by law to drive or park in a bicycle lane too - that means you taxi cab drivers. Halifax still has a long way to go to reach the level of cities like Victoria, Bike Mecca of Canada, or even Ottawa, but this law is a good first step, and is the first of its kind in Canada.

Bill 93 is largely the result of intense lobbying by the Halifax Cycling Coalition (HCC). The HCC was formed in 2007 after the death of 19 year old Michael Brooker. Brooker was cycling downtown in the morning, when he was struck by a transport truck and killed.

HRM Bike Week 2011, Part 2: Bike & Boat

On Tuesday, one of the most anticipated events of the week (on my part, anyway) was happening, and I could barely wait.

(I'm not used to seeing a full bicycle rack.)

(Apparently neither was the boat club. Here you can see bikes locked to fences and trees, and if you look closely, you can see that the fence way back in the distance has bikes locked to it too.)

The reason there were so many bicycles parked outside of the St. Mary's Boat Club on this day, is because people who rode their bicycles were able to paddle a canoe or kayak for an entire hour, and/or join a group yoga session, for free. This was a marvelelous idea for a few reasons: A) It involves bicycles (enough said), B) look at how many people showed up - it was obviously a success, and C) Nobody in Halifax seems to even knows that this place exists. Most of the staff who work at the facility only found out about it through past HRM Bike Week Bike & Boat events.

St. Mary's Boat Club is actually a municipally subsidised facility in a prime location on the Northwest Arm. It provides an inexpensive recreation experience to the entire population of HRM for less than the cost of going to the a movie. Twice a week during the summer, the Club provides group canoe and kayaking sessions, and you can even take lessons on how to sail.

(On this day, it was going to be kayaking for me, and from the above image, you can see that most of the other visitors were interested in paddling in a kayak as well.)

Our friendly, neighbourhood instructor-man, Steve, helped us get into the kayaks safely (read: dryly). However, I decided to get a bit of practice in on the dock first.

(Hey, who's that good-lookin' guy in the blue kayak? He looks like he can really paddle.)

After an hour we finally were able to get everyone into the water and were on our way around the Arm.

The Northwest Arm is one of the most beautiful and interesting areas in Halifax, if not Nova Scotia. In and around it you can find trails, National Historic Sites, towers, parks, monuments, homes of rich people, and even dead American soldiers.

(Some of the houses, like that one behind me, cost upward of $900 000. Here I paddle past and steal some of its attention. My apologies to the owner. Special thanks to my new friend Brent who teamed up with me to perform a daring boat to boat transfer of my camera before taking these shots.)

(Lest you think St. Mary's Boat Club only offers kayaking, I provide this picture as proof that canoes can also be rented. In hindsight, canoeing is far more relaxing than kayaking - it's just far too tempting for me to try and make my kayak go fast.)

Towards the end of our session, we congregated in Melville's Cove to hear a bit of history. Long-time readers of EPTN (and those who clicked on the above links) will know that Melville's Island used to be a prison during the War of 1812. The soldiers would shoot across the cove to a small peninsula they called Target Island (the Brits at that time seemed incapable of distinguishing peninsulas from islands). Many years later it was discovered that there were dead American prisoners of war burried on the "island." But now you get to hear "the rest of the story."

Because of the American policy of "leave no man behind," The United States of America proposed that some soil be brought up across the border, spread over the ground, and Target Island be named American territory. Well, the leaders of Halifax are capable of making at least one good decision, and they figured it wasn't such a good idea to have a bit of the U.S.A right in the middle of Halifax. Instead, it was agreed upon that the area be named a park, and a monument was placed there with the names of all the soldiers. Every year on the last Monday of May (the day before this day, incidentally), a Memorial Day celebration honouring the soldiers is held on the renamed Deadman's Island.

(One of our guides exhibits proper boating safety, as he recounts the history of Deadman's Island, and tells a story about how he and some other instructors told the students at a summer camp that the area was haunted with the ghosts of the buried American. The students were told the ghosts became bald eagles, which nest around the Northwest Arm. One day the students came screaming down from a hill, and a bald eagle was chasing them. 10 of the 11 children ran and hid, but one brave little girl grabbed a mini-oar, about three feet long, and started waving it in the air to defend the canoe. It sounds like she's got what it takes to be the next EP. From here on, I will refer to her as "EP Girl.")

HRM Bike Week 2011, Part 1: Take A Seat

From May 27, to June 5, the best event of the year will be taking place at various locations around the city. HRM Bike week was developed to celebrate cycling and encourage and nurture a cycling friendly environment in the Halifax area, as well as to encourage new riders to give it a try and riders who haven't tried it in a while to dust off their old two wheelers and experience the joy of peddling once again.

I specifically remember seeing advertisements for this ten day event in the Farmers' Market on my first day out exploring when I arrived here last May. However, I was disappointed to see that the week in question would be the week I would be on my train journey to Vancouver. Consequently, I've been waiting with anticipation for this year's event for a full 12 months, and I don't plan to miss any more of it than I have to.

The first event I attended took place on Monday, May 30, on the Dalhousie University campus. The Halifax Cycling Coalition organized a showing of a film entitled Take A Seat, and for $8 I received admission, free cake, free popcorn, free apple juice (or Daveoline, as it's been called in the past), and a 3 year membership to the Halifax Cycling Coalition.

Take A Seat is the story of an amazing young man from England, Dominic Gill, who rode a tandem bicycle from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, 29 519 km down the western coast of the Americas until he reached the most southerly city in South America, Ushuaia. The bicycle weighed far too much for him to peddle the whole journey on his own, and so along the way he met, and was able to convince over 270 people to jump on the back of his bicycle and travel anywhere from a few minutes, to a few days with him to help him out. The whole journey took him over two years.

To get an idea of how long this is, find Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, on Google Maps. Zoom in until the scale reading reads about 10km (bottom left corner of the map), and then commence clicking and dragging the screen all the way down to Ushuaia, Chile. The whole operation took me about eight minutes of constant dragging. I got lost a couple of times around Mexico, and ended up in the Pacific Ocean before I widened the image to see where I was.

How long did it take you? How many times did you get lost? How many clicks did it take? Now, imagine each one of those drags being about 2-5 days worth of peddling on a 100 kg bicycle.

Watching the film I remember strongly the sense of isolation he related feeling as he spent a lot of the journey by himself. To Dominic, being alone was the hardest part. Additionally, I was struck by his determination to push through, even after suffering hundreds of tube punctures, and breaking his bicycle numerous times in different places, not to mention having intense diarrhoea at one point.

Mostly though, I smiled at the people he met along the journey who recognized someone doing something special, and who wanted to be involved in it themselves. Watching Take A Seat has renewed my love of cycling, my love of people, and my love for the sense of adventure that prompted me to embark on this grand mission of living in every province, and visiting every National Historic Site of Canada.

Helltown Helloween Alleycat Race: October 31, 2010

Recently my EP Cruiser was stolen, so I was "forced" to buy two new second hand bicycles. One was a cheaper version of my EP Cruiser that works almost as well but cost less than $100. The other bicycle is a used semi-competition road racer (now known as the EP Racer) that reminded me of a better, faster version of my original blue bicycle that so faithfully carried me around town my first two months (when it wasn't getting a flat tire or breaking down every two days).

Fast forward to some time last week when I noticed an advertisement for an Alleycat race in the window of one of my favourite bicycle shops - Nauss Bicycle Shop - in the North End (regular readers all know how I feel about North End Halifax). Not knowing what an Alleycat race was, I did some research and it appeared to be an informal type of open-road race started by Toronto cycle couriers in the late '80s, which has now spread around the world.

Apparently there are many different kinds of Alleycat races, and this particular race in which I was taking part had a courier theme. All the contestants would be given a list of "pick-up" and "drop-off" locations around HRM. We were free to choose our own path around the city, and could do the pick-ups or drops in any order we wanted. The winner would be the first person to complete all of the drops and then arrive at the finish location - The Old Mill bar in Dartmouth - a roughly 20-25 kilometre journey depending on which order you decided to hit the requisite checkpoints.

The race started in front of the Alexander Keith's Brewery near the Waterfront, Le Mans style, with every racer having to run across a busy street to his/her locked bicycle, unlock said bicycle, and then head off to his/her first destination. The boards in the picture above were quite slippery in the rain though, and more than one racer slipped on his backside.

If you're trying to follow along on Google Maps I suggest not bothering, though the checkpoints were mainly located in North End Halifax, but went as far south-west as Chocolate Lake (near the Northwest Arm), and as far east as Sullivan's Pond, in Dartmouth. Furthermore, if you're trying to imagine what an Alleycat race might look like, check out this video or this one (disclaimer: these videos are from a third-party and the views/riding techniques represented in them are not necessarily the same as those held/practised by EP Dave).

(Sweaty, exhausted, but none-the-less happy racers resting their aching legs at the "finish line.")

I may have finished DFL ("Dead Friggin' Last"), but that's okay because a) I had a blast, b) Alleycats are really all about participation and getting to the final destination to enjoy some food and drinks with your fellow competitors, who are by this point your good friends - you've all battled the four-wheeled murder/heart-disease machines together - and c) there's actually an award for DFL (I won a cow mug).

I can't wait for the next race, and the next chance to get back out on a bicycle and ride fast.

Critical Mass: September 24, 2010

If you're going to be an Ea-pea, you've got to ride a bicycle; it's that simple. But even if you aren't an ea-pea, you should still ride a bicycle because it runs on fat and saves you money, as opposed to a car that runs on money and makes you fat.

The problem is that for many would-be-heroes, the streets can be a scary place. While I welcome the traffic whizzing by me dangerously close, because I get to thumb my nose at the drivers and look smug when they have to stop during traffic jams, and I pass on by them again, I realize that not all people are as keen as me on the idea of being a road warrior for awesomeness. Thankfully then, there is an event called Critical Mass in Halifax that runs on the last Friday of every month (and indeed in over 300 other cities around the world).

Critical Mass is essentially a semi-organized ride that celebrates being the most powerful force on the road, as it provides strength in numbers for two-wheeled obesity fighters. While the idea and concept of mass rides originated in the late seventies in Sweden (of course), it was not until 1992 in San Franscisco that the spectacle became a regular event.

While Critical Mass bicycle tours are often described as "protests" in the media, the participants themselves describe it as a "celebration of cycling," and this gets them around the sticky legal requirement of giving police advanced notice of an planned protest.

What generally happens at a Critical Mass style event is that any cyclist who wishes to join meets up at a pre-arranged meeting place and the course for the ride is determined by whoever is in front at any particular moment. When it comes to intersections, one or two riders will stop their bicycles and block or "cork" the oncoming traffic until all of the other cyclists have made it through. The rest of the cyclists ring their bells or cheer at the pitiful drivers who feel terrorized by the cyclists for a change (my words and feeling, not necessarily the official position of the organizers).

On September 24 I made my first ride in a Critical Mass event, and I must say that it was brilliant. While I didn't know anyone at first, I made a number of acquaintances along the ride and enjoyed for the first time being able to ride where I pleased without having to constantly look over my shoulder for oncoming murderers... I mean drivers.

I will make it a regular part of my routine to ride in every Critical Mass event that I can until I leave Halifax. To paraphrase Bill Nye: there's something wrong with a society that drives a car to the gym to ride a stationary bicycle. Furthermore, commuting to work in a car increases your nation's dependency on oil (mostly "foreign"), which in turn drives the demand for American "wars on terror", not to mention fuelling extremist fundamentalist terrorism. I don't have any facts for that, but I'm pretty sure it's true. In any event, it's best to be safe rather than sorry. Therefore I say to you, stop supporting terrorism; ride a bicycle.

(The unofficial organizer addresses the crowd of cyclists at Victoria Park underneath the Robbie Burns statue, before the big ride. This month's ride was in honour of a cyclist who was killed when he was hit by a transport truck attempting to pass on the highway.)

(The best scene in Halifax: dozens of cyclists blocking traffic.)

(Happy cyclist on Spring Garden Road. No, it's not me.)

(Where do you stop when you're a cyclist? If you have 60 friends, you stop wherever you want. Take that car drivers!)

Hopscotch Urban Arts Festival: September 11, 2010

According to what I've read, Halifax once had a great hip-hop scene. Unfortunately, when many of its past up and coming artists "made it big", the rest of the hip-hop scene was left to pick up the pieces. This year "the scene" tried to do just that with the Hopscotch Urban Arts Festival.

(An unknown - to me - dancer gives a free "popping" lesson to some eager young students.)

All day long, for 9 hours from 1 to 10 PM on September 11th, there were free hip-hop workshops, free dance lessons, a 100 foot "art wall" graffiti competition, the first ever national break dancing competition in Atlantic Canada, and a free concert featuring Halifax hip-hop legends like the Juno Award winning Classified.

As expected, the Grand Parade where it was located featured what must have been the largest concentration of teenagers who look like they would steal your car in all of Halifax. (Seriously guys, your art is neat, but all joking aside Grandpa Ea-pea is here to say that you really need to pull up your pants, wear a belt, and put your caps on the right way round because you look ridiculous tripping over the crotch of your own trousers.)

Even more impressive was the announcement that the fantastic French urban art artists of Cellograff would be making their North American debut at this festival. Unlike most "graffiti" artists (I'm sure they don't like it being called graffiti, but there's only so many times I can type "urban art" in one post without hating myself), Cellograff do not paint on the side of some business owner's establishment or on one of CN's grain cars, but rather they use large sheets of cellophane plastic stretched out between two trees or street posts to create their unique masterpieces.

Quite frankly the whole thing was not really my bag, but it was impressive, and this rather well intentioned event would have been completely unknown to me had someone not thought to drop a flier in the basket of my EP Cruiser (my new bike), while I was busy volunteering for the Fringe Festival the night before. That's right, this great coming together of me and the Hopscotch festival was only possible because of this unknown canvasser. Score one for canvassing, score one for bike baskets, and more importantly score one for cycling.

Atlantic Fringe Festival: September 2-12

(The Bus Stop Theatre - next to a bus stop on Gottingen Street - is one of the five theatres hosting performances for the 2010 Atlantic Film Festival. It has no operating budget whatsoever. As The Bus Stop Theatre's technical director, Evan Brown, puts it: "it doesn't get any more... fringe than us.")

"Fringe" theatre is a term that originated in 1948 to describe the unofficial companies performing at the second Edinburgh International Fair. The term was coined by the twentieth century Scottish playwright, Robert Kemp, and since then it has been picked up by several festivals and theatres to describe a brand of alternative theatre that can best be summed up as "fun on the cheap."

Despite living in Edmonton, Alberta, home to the oldest Fringe Festival in North America and the second largest Fringe Festival in the world for a number of years, I had never actually checked out any of the performances there. I had always been to poor and/or "busy" (just a synonym for lazy, really) to go, and so it was with great anticipation that I waited all summer for this year's Atlantic Fringe Festival in Halifax - its 20th season.

Again, I found myself somewhat underfunded this year, but with 25 theatre and dance shows ranging from musicals to belly dancing to comedies and dramas, and over 230 performances in five different theatres, I was sure I could find a few shows to see. More importantly, the ticket prices were typically in the $6 to $10 range, so I could do it even on my tight budget.

I ended up settling on three shows I thought sounded interesting, and were all shown in one day in relatively close locations to each other. The first show was called Jewish Girls Don't Kayak, and was about one Jewish woman's journey to find an identity for herself outside of being Jewish, only to discover that she truly was Jewish in the end.

The next show I watched was called My Five Near Death Experiences. This was a series of stories and poems read by Arthur Moore, a teacher from Moncton, New Brunswick, about events that have happened in his life. All of them generally relate back to poems he has written or stories from his classroom.

By far the most entertaining show I saw though, was a performance called Breaking Point. Breaking Point was a play about a teenaged boy who is the youngest child in a family of professional torturers. He is named after his grandfather, who himself was a legendary torturer, and is the son of the greatest living torturer. Unfortunately he is a) not very good at torturing people, and b) has no interest in it. In the play, he must prepare for his entrance examinations to enter a prestigious torturing school soon (or else he won't get a good career), and so his older sister who hates him lends her "help." Hilarity ensues.

Had my Fringe experience stopped there I would have been quite pleased. However, I had read in The Coast that the Atlantic Fringe Festival is always looking for volunteers, and so I cycled over to the head office to see if I could be of service. I ended up signing up to volunteer to sell tickets for nine more shows on the final weekend of the Festival.

As a perk for volunteering, I was allowed to watch any show for which I sold tickets, for free. As a result, by the end of the week I had been to all five theatres, and had seen a dozen different performances. Not a bad result for my first Fringe attempt, if I do say so myself.

EP Bike Trip #2: Peggy's Cove, Part 2

When I last left you, I was recuperating from my failed first attempt to cycle 43 km to see the world famous village and lighthouse at Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia. Fast forward two days and after filling my new light weight riding pack (a children's backpack I bought at Wal-Mart) with my new light weight, high pressure bicycle pump, spare tube (really just my old tube I had patched up in case of an absolute emergency), a patch kit for any extra punctures I may encure, a smorgasbord of tools, and all the other things I normally bring on a trip, I headed out the door to take another crack at making it all the way.

This time the weather was much more agreeable, and I found it quite pleasant not having to battle the wind. I did however dislike battling the heat that comes with no breeze, especially when I had to wait in line at a road repaving for more than twenty minutes - it'd better get a bicycle lane!

Since I purchased my bicycle in Ottawa, and hadn't had time to set it up properly at the shop before it was shipped (I was on a tight sight seeing schedule), my riding position for the past six weeks or so had been less than optimally efficient. After about 8 km into the ride I figured there was no need to continue torturing myself, and so I pulled over at the only gas station along the entire road to adjust my seat height and position. After fiddling around with every conceivable position for about half an hour, I finally settled on my favourite height/angle, and continued on.

I may have been set back a half-hour, but in hindsight it was definitely worth it. The new position placed my back in better alignment so it didn't get quite as sore, and my legs were able to push more effectively, meaning I practically whizzed along compared to what I had been doing before.

At Shad Bay, the half-way point, I stopped to rest and eat the sandwich and apple I had packed for myself. From here I had one last chance to take the shorter route to Prospect, but I stayed strong and continued on to Peggy's Cove.

This was not the first time I had been to Peggy's Cove - in 2001 I had travelled to Halifax as part of high school music trip. I remember quite distinctly enjoying my visit that first time, but being too immature to truly appreciate it. In fact, one of the main reasons for coming to live in Halifax was to atone for wasting my great chance when I was younger, and to see everything again, the "right way".

During that trip there were three events that stuck out in my mind: 1) Exploring Downtown Halifax, which I actually did very well with no regrets, 2) Visiting the Atlantic Ocean, which I did not do well, but successfully recompleted during EP Bike Trip #1, and finally, 3) going to Peggy's Cove. What follows is the closing of roughly a decades worth of regret (over not paying more attention at Peggy's Cove, not over my whole life), and the beginning of a new chapter for EP Dave, in which I move forward and create new goals.

(I've been waiting roughly nine years to take a picture of these homes. I saw them from the lighthouse when I was here in 2001, but for some reason it was just "too far" to go walk over 200 metres and check them out for myself.)

(This rock, carved with scenes from Peggy's Cove's history/legend, is a memorial to all the fishermen of Peggy's Cove who harvest the ocean - perhaps too much recently. It's called Fishermen's Monument and was carved and donated by local artist William E. deGarthe.)

(There it is, perhaps the most photographed lighthouse in the world. Definitely in all of Canada at least.)

(The fog rolls in quickly though on the coast, and in a matter of minutes the sky can go from clear to thick as soup.)

An interesting side note: The public toilet at Peggy's Cove's Information Centre uses little electricity, employ zero chemicals, create no odour, and produce only safe and reusable end products like compost. In the basement underneath the washroom are four large compost chambers. Any water that is used comes from collected rain water, and waste water is disbursed through a planter bed (whatever that is) to prevent contamination of the ecosystem. These toilets are the first public washroom in Canada to use composting together with treatment from a planter bed.

On my way back home, the sky was still a bit foggy, but I stopped in at a little restaurant along the side of the road in West Dover, called Shaw's Landing (with the beautiful view from the patio seen above). I had noticed on the way to Peggy's Cove that a sign out front said "The Best Fish and Chips" and having seen numerous Fish and Chips shops in Halifax and in Scotland, but never having had the money to go to one (in Halifax), I decided to treat myself. In the interest of full disclosure, I did not have the money at this moment either, but I didn't want to get to the end of my life and regret not having tried those fish and chips.

EP Bike Trip #2: Peggy's Cove, Part 1

Some time back in July, after I had completed one of my long bicycle rides, I set a goal for myself of being able to ride to Peggy's Cove and back in one day. The distance from my home to Peggy's Cove is roughly 43 km, with a lot of rolling hills. Since that means I would being doing twice my regular distance if I wanted to get back home, I knew I would have to do a fair bit of training first.

My original plan for the "training ride" this day, was to go to the town of Prospect to photograph the quaint fishing village there and then ride back, so that I would get used to having to make a second long ride in the same day (I felt exhausted for the last fifteen kilometres of my Crystal Crescent Bike Trip). However, on this day the wind was a little bit strong, and I started to get upset about it. I was so fed up with battling the head wind, that I decided to try and make it all the way to Peggy's Cove so that I could enjoy the tail wind on the way back.

A couple of days earlier I had seen a petition in one of my local bike shops (Cyclesmith) seeking a paved bicycle lane on the popular Peggy's Cove route. I signed it because any infrastructure work that makes moving easier for riders of bicycles and harder for drivers of cars is a great plan in my mind. Today though, when I got on to Prospect Road, which leads to Peggy's Cove, I found out why everyone wanted to have the bicycle lane.

On the road to Herring Cove, via Purcell's Cove (Purcell's Cove Road) there is a short bicycle lanes for part of the journey, but for the most part the road is wide enough to accommodate both car and bicycle, although not comfortably or conveniently. The road to Peggy's Cove though is ridiculously narrow. I suppose the actually driving lane isn't too bad, but there is absolutely no shoulder whatsoever, which means riders are forced to ride in the lane with the cars when there's barely enough room for the cars. Often I found myself riding on the thin, rough wash-boarded strip of "road" just off to the side of the lane which made for a bumpy ride.

The problem with bumpy rides and road bicycles, is that if you do not have your tires fully inflated it can cause a pinched tube quite easily. I found this out the hard way, after I ran into a small pothole. "Pfffff...." went my front tire immediately (the fourth flat tire I have suffered in the last 8 or so days), and I was left standing there on the side of the road just before the community of Hatchet Lake, with an unusable bicycle.

I thought I saw a garage just up the highway, and I was right, so I decided to walk towards it. When I got there though, the mechanics said they couldn't help me because I didn't have my adapter with me (road bicycle tires have a different shaped valve than a normal mountain bike style tube). Luckily I had brought a sandwich with me though, and after having some lunch I resigned myself to my only remaining option: hitch-hiking back to Halifax.

This was my first time hitch-hiking, so I wasn't sure how long it would take to get picked up, but I have driven past a number of hitch hikers in my day without picking them up (now I feel remorse...), so I had an idea of how it was done. It wasn't as bad as I thought, and after twenty to twenty-five minutes someone turned around to pick me up. Unfortunately they couldn't get me all the way into town, because they were rushed for time, but they did drop me off at a Canadian Tire not too far away from my home.

I went inside the Canadian Tire and bought myself a new bicycle tube. One of the young kids working there helped me change my tube, and he was quite interested in hearing about my hitch-hiking story, as he had never done it before and thought it must have been quite a scary experience. Unfortunately I remembered after the fact that I didn't have my adapter with me and none of the bicycles Canadian Tire sells use a Presta valve, so I couldn't pump my tire up. So after all that wasted time and effort, I was still faced with a roughly hour long walk back home, with a bike that still didn't work properly.

When I did get home, I pumped up my tire and was pleased to see that it looked like a wheel. However, about two hours later I came back and found it flat again. I took off the tire to check for any sharp objects that were still poking through the inside, and found that I had actually torn a hole in the side of the tire, which had pinched the tube as it tried to force its way out. I ended up having to buy a new tube and a new tire. After some deliberation I thought it was best to spend a few extra dollars and buy a more expensive, but thicker, tire that looked and felt much more suitable for taking on potholes and glass from stupid rednecks who chuck their bottles out of their windows (note: this happens far far less in Nova Scotia than in Alberta).

While a lesser ea-pea may have taken the flat as a warning from the road gods to stay away, I was only more resolved to make it to Peggy's Cove, and so I set about preparing for my return attempt in two nights time. (Part 2, to come soon...)

Interesting Person #2: Chang-geun Lee

Chang-geun Lee came to Canada from South Korea 7 months ago to study English. I met him outside the Subway on Spring Garden Road. He told me that he was on a journey from Toronto, through Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, up to Newfoundland, and then back to Toronto. He couldn't have been more friendly. When I later told Chris Waldron about Chang-geun's proposed journey, while he was in the last fifteen minutes of an 8 hour ride, his jaw dropped in amazement at the staggering distances he would have ridden each day over the last month. Follow Chang-geun's journey on his blog here.