Thank You!!

The journey finished successfully and it was a tremendous experience. During the trip, we experienced moments of anxiety, irritability, loss of enthusiasm, desiring to quit, etc. , but the emotional support of our great friends, and thinking about the cause of this trip kept us cycling.
In this post, which is the last post on this blog we want to thank all the great people, who supported this event, financially and emotionally. Lots of friends prayed for us and cheered for us, THANK YOU!

We highly appreciate the financial support of our sponsor, "House of Persian Rugs".

We also deeply appreciate the kind help and support of "Friends of Children of Labour Cultural Centre", they did a great job and managed all the details of this event so professionally. Also we are thankful to our great friends at "Multi Faith Centre, University of Calgary" for their support.

Last but not least, we are grateful to all of the great people who attended the kick-off and accompanied us for the first few kilometers, also we are warmly thankful to the wonderful people who came to the wrap-up at UBC.


The total amount of the donations received for this event is $1930, thanks to all the generous donors.

V A N C O U V E R

5:30 pm, July 14, 2010; we are now in student union building, UBC.

Day 11, Hope-Mission

Today, we rode about 85 km from Hope to Mission on road 7. The weather was calm, mostly cloudy, an ideal path for biking, no big uphills, no traffic and no wind. However in a small part of the way (about 2 km) we climbed a 11% uphill, which was the steepest road on the whole way from Calgary to Vancouver. We walked most of this part. Apart from this part, the road was mostly flat. We are now in "Mission" and updating the blog from the library. Today was an easy day of the trip and we still have lots of energy :) Tomorrow will be the last day of the trip. We are planning to have lunch in Vancouver, in an Iranian restaurant. Less than 100 km to Vancouver, the "Mission" will be accomplished tomorrow. The wrap up event will be on Wednesday at 6:00 pm in UBC student union building.

Day 10, Hope

Today we started cycling from Hope and rode about 8 km, but the storm did not allow us to move any further. So we decided to come back to Hope and stay another night here. Hopefully tomorrow the weather gets better, and we can finish the remaining small part of this tremendous journey.

Day 9, Merritt-Hope

Today we rode about 120 km, from Merritt to Hope. For the first 30 km we rode on coldwater road, a beautiful road in the mountains along the coldwater river. Comparing with highway 5, this road has less elevation gain, so we decided to ride on this road for the first 30 km. This road merges to HW5. At the very beginning of the junction of the coldwater road and HW5 there is a steep uphill, which took about 1 hour to climb. Immediately after reaching the highest point of the road, a strong headwind started blowing and accompanied us for the whole remaining part of the road to Hope. Riding on uphills with this strong wind was very hard. From Merritt to Hope there is only one rest area. For the last 30 km of the road ending to Hope, we enjoyed riding on a steep downhill, with the average speed of 35 km/hr. Merritt to Hope was the hardest and at the same time, the most beautiful section of the trip.

We ran out of water, so we asked the passing cars for the water, a nice guy gave us some water and juice.

Day 8, Kamloops-Merritt

Today we rode about 85 km, from Kamloops to Merritt on highway 5. We did not continue on highway 1 (TransCanada) as cycling is not allowed on highway 1 from Kamloops to Vancouver. The road has lots of ups and downs. The elevation of Kamloops is about 850 m. We climbed up to 1444 m (Surrey Lake Summit, which was the highest point of our whole way from Calgary to Vancouver) and finally got to Merritt with the elevation of 600 m. The last 30 km of the road was downhill (up to 6%) and we really enjoyed cycling on this part of the road.

Getting ready for a hot day!

Day 7, Salmon Arm-Kamloops

Today we rode about 105 km, from Salmon Arm to Kamloops. The road was flat and the weather was very hot. At the beginning of this part, we rode along the river with nice views, but after about 50 km the road was really boring. It was more or less like a desert. We also got a flat tire today. We were lucky, for this happened near a gas station and restaurant. After having a good lunch, we changed the tube and continued our way. The weather in Kamloops was very hot.

Day 6, Revelstoke-Salmon Arm

Today we cycled about 100 km, from Revelstoke to Salmon Arm. The road was mostly flat. About 30 km near the Salmon Arm there was an accident that caused a heavy traffic and we had to slow down at that part. The weather also was very hot today. Apart from the hot weather we did not have any problem. We are now staying in a good place, the super 8 inn, in Salmon Arm. From the day we started up to today we have traveled more than 50% of the total way to Vancouver.

Day 5, Rogers Pass-Revelstoke

Today we cycled form Rogers Pass to Revelstoke. The road in the first 25 kilometres was very steep and narrow and it took us about 2.5 hours to pass this part. It was the hardest section of our trip so far. After this 25 km we reached the highest point of Rogers Pass area, with elevation of 1330 m. Most of the way after this point to Revelstoke was downhill. We are now staying in a dirty hostel in Revelstke :) Mohsen and I are both impatiently waiting for tomorrow morning to leave here and find a good place in Salmon Arm to stay for the next night. Today was also a special day for my bike, the total distance that I have traveled with my bike so far reached 1000 km.

Day 4, Golden-Rogers Pass

After having a very good rest at Dreamcatcher hostel in Golden, we started the 4th day of our journey. We rode from Golden to Rogers pass, about 60 km. Most of the road was uphill and hard for biking. We stayed at Heather Mountain Lodge, a beautiful, quiet place, about 25 km of Rogers Pass. During the winter this lodge is used for accommodation of heli-skiers. A few minutes after our arrival a black bear came to parking area of the lodge. The servant told us that black bears usually come down the mountain to eat berry near the lodge. She has seen several of them, but only black bears. She told us that Grizzly bears are too shy to come near the lodge and eat food. We decided to send our unnecessary stuff by Greyhound bus, from Golden to Revelstoke, so that we can climb the hills during the 4th and 5th days of our trip with a lighter bike. We carried only the extremely needed stuff and each sent one of our panniers by bus to Revelstoke. We had super, huge supper at the lodge and had a deep sleep there.

Abbi and Charles, the nice owners of Dreamcatcher hostel in Golden.

Day 3, Lake Louise-Golden

Today, July 5, we rode from Lake Louise to Golden. The road was so beautiful, but at the beginning (about 15km) we experienced strong headwind. A few kilometers after Lake Louise, we had a unique experience during the journey. We saw a bear near the road eating food. Today we also passed the Alberta/British Columbia border, we were very excited at the moment we saw the BC sign and got more confidence that we can finish this journey successfully. About 20 kilometers before Golden, Sara and Faezeh joined us. They came by car to pick up Majid at Golden. We ate lunch with them and then continued cycling to Golden. We had a great dinner with Sara, Faezeh and Majid in a Greek restaurant in Golden. Majid went back to Calgary. It was such a great pleasure to be with him for the first 3 days of our journey. We miss him a lot. We are currently at Dreamcatcher hostel. The quality of service is very high and the owners are a nice couple and helping us a lot. :)