Adam Hooper's Blog

Paris Pictures

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:05:21 -0500

I've posted pictures from Paris. (After opening the album, press the right-arrow key on your keyboard to scroll to the next image.).

It was a brief trip, hence the brief album.

Waves of weather

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:43:19 -0400

It's raining.

It's always raining in Canada's maritime provinces. Rain dive-bombs from above, it sloshes under-wheel and it materializes out of thin air—or, to be more literal, out of thick air. Waterfalls don't send up mist because there's no space for mist in this air. There's only space for me, curling over my handlebars to make myself hydrodynamic.

The sun peeks out one day in New Brunswick. Its heat makes my camera lens so foggy I fear I've lost my window to the world. Life returns to normal soon enough: the lens and rain restore themselves simultaneously.

It's drizzling. This dreary Friday morning, I'm munching fruit leather near Saint John River. The Trans-Canada Highway isn't far and there's a bridge beside me. Haze silences all.

Suddenly, music emerges from an invisible portion of the river bank. It's Rebecca Black's “Friday.”

It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday....

There's plenty of time to think on a bicycle, but it's not useful thinking. I start a typical morning with plans to ponder my future, but soon my mind follows the circles made by my feet.

Party party yeah, party party yeah, fun fun fun fun....

It begins to rain, so I disagree.

My mind—fun—revolves—fun—around—fun—that song—fun—all week.

It's sunny and I've reached Moncton, New Brunswick, my last stop before the Atlantic. I eat a vegan wrap and drink a smoothie and a fair-trade cappuccino on a healthy-restaurant patio. Two waitresses are taking turns serving me. They speak French with English accents and English with French accents and I decide I like this part of Canada. This is Acadia, a region which formerly belonged to France.

They bring me inside to consult their cyclist coworker for campground suggestions. He's a native French-speaker, I think, because the waitresses switch to French when they speak with him. His French sounds more English than his English does. He says the coastal campgrounds near Moncton are expensive and uninspiring.

“I was thinking of going to Murray Beach,” I say in English-sounding French, and I point at my map. Murray Beach is a provincial park.

Their eyes pop. All three swoon. It's decided.

Murray Beach is sunny. There are many campers and no trees. Hundreds of us are camping on the grassy slope beside the ocean. An aging cyclist from the RV next door befriends me and we compare bicycles and stories. He surely has more of both, but he prefers listening.

It's neither sunny nor raining. I'm on Prince Edward Island and the state of the sky is crucial. The royals are visiting. Local news stations talk about how the weather might affect Will and Kate, over and over and over again.

It's drizzling and the royal pair is shaking hands a few easy kilometres away from me. I stay put. I'm the only person in the province who isn't excited.

A familiar-looking house sits beside the ocean on the northern side of Prince Edward Island.

It's sunny for three days and a breeze is behind me the entire time. This is Nova Scotia, and the fortuitous weather convinces me to detour for three days along the Cabot Trail, a winding road with the toughest hills and grandest scenery since the Rockies.

I climb for hours and careen for minutes, day in, day out. I meet cyclists, enjoy their company and eventually pass them. I watch silhouettes of hikers walk the mountaintops. I stop to chat with tourists and locals at lookout points and gas stations.

Coves line the roads all over Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The sun is gentle and the ocean is relaxing. I sleep at the best campground in Canada. It's in a village called Meat Cove. The dirt road is long and steep and loose. I skid when I brake and my wheel spins when I stand up to pedal.

Meat Cove has the best campground in canada. Yes, that's a tent on the part of the campground that juts out into the ocean.

The air is cold when I arrive near sunset and it's colder when I leave near sunrise. Cold is good for hard exercise.

It's the rainiest day yet. I'm in Newfoundland. The province is known as The Rock and I believe its people must be rocky, too, or the constant weather would whittle them to naught.

A lighthouse greets visitors who ride the ferry to Channel-Port aux Basques, on the western side of Newfoundland.

The sun has abandoned me and I'm cold. A beastly wind hammers at my helmet and daggers of rain swoop up under my visor.

I find a diner and order a hearty late breakfast, plus a plate of pancakes with “syrup.” I'm always skeptical of “syrup,” but today's syrup is in fact maple syrup, which is the only syrup, really, so I'm relieved.

Another cyclist walks in. I met him last night in the campground. He'd been talking on the phone with his wife on the only patch of ground where he could find signal. He was soaked then, too, because it was pouring then, too. He's a native Newfoundlander who lives in Ontario and cycled halfway across the country. He crashed thrice during his trip. He showed me the bruises.

He's sopping wet and shivering, as I was 15 minutes ago. He sits with me and orders the same breakfast I'm eating, minus the pancakes. The waitress asks if we're father and son. She eyes me and blushes and fills my water bottles and shows me where the bathroom is. I leave forever to battle the elemental rock as my could-be-father stays and chats with her about things only Newfoundlanders would understand.

Newfoundlanders certainly don't understand me.

One day is gray but almost dry. “Yer crazy,” says a stringy construction worker holding a stop sign. His accent sounds rural-American. He swears often, and each curse thuds.

He shakes his head. Thud. “Yer crazy, man.” Shake. Thud.

The next day is gray and dry again. “Oh my sweet, lovin' Lord,” says a waitress after I eat my pancakes and tell her how far I've come.

The Trans-Canada Highway misses most of the ocean along Newfoundland, but it passes countless lakes.

It's so rainy I only see horizontal streaks of wet. The wind rocks me from side to side. It's my grand finale—my last day.

Gusts ambush me. I veer a metre to the left or right each time to compensate. I can't avoid being swept into traffic.

I laugh and cackle and yawp and the rain tries to muffle me and it can't. I am equal to the wind, the rain, the Rock. When they roar, I roar back and pedal harder. I'm like them—pure intensity.

“Come on, hit me with all you've got!” I shout. “Yeeeeeah!”

You have to be mad to ride a bicycle in weather like this.

I'm in a diner. Customers shiver as they enter and wince as they leave. I pee my final pee in a crowded men's room. I'm in the stall, and a man at the urinal is talking to a man at the sink in a Newfoundland accent that sounds Irish.

“Glad to see the weather's back to normal, eh?”

“What's that?”

“I said, glad to see the weather's back to normal.”

A chuckle. “Oh, yeah.”

Feeling the finish

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:18:32 -0400

Soon I'd turn northeast and the wind would push me. For now I was climbing my last hilly, gusty challenge, 50 kilometres from St. John's.

How would I feel when I ended my ride? I hadn't been sure for the first 88 days of my trip. I pondered the question one last time—and I figured it out.

It would feel like finishing a great book.

I recalled the characters as I pedalled. The motherly cafe owner in Newfoundland who gave me a discount on breakfast and made me a free sandwich for the road. The chill bike-shop employee in British Columbia who directed me to a fantastic cappuccino. The cook who lived beside his traincar restaurant in New Brunswick and ambushed me with a plate of strawberries. My Grade 6 teacher who brought me breakfast and lunch in Nova Scotia in return for a poetry recital. Friends and family who said the right thing, always.

Hundreds of people had swirled around the protagonist, and the book wouldn't be complete without each one.

Obstacles vanished as the end approached. Our hero's chain wouldn't snap, his tires wouldn't deflate and nobody would steal his bicycle.

It once seemed like a book without resolution, but that changed.

The protagonist hadn't accomplished most of his goals. He hadn't sold stories on the road, he'd never applied for jobs and he'd barely finished the tracking website he'd intended to code before his trip began. He hadn't even thanked all his donors. He hadn't thought through the life issues he'd meant to think through. He hadn't discovered himself. His future, which had started as a to-do list, seemed even less predictable than before.

This book didn't have a stale moral like “tend your future” or “manage your tasks.” The message was the opposite.

Live one day at a time.

Relax.

Trust your impulses.

These are hardly epiphanies, but I gained a new perspective. I'd been whipped by wind, submerged in rain and subjected to the words of strangers, whims of road crews, mistakes of other drivers and fatigue-hewn gaps in my own alertness. And I made it anyway. This final-day chapter summarized the entire book.

The road turned like pages as I sailed to the end, letting words and ideas and gusts flow through me. You don't need to focus on every word at the end of a book, because the words are mere shadows of the deeper meaning. A final chapter is like a goodbye kiss, reminding you of everything important, why it mattered and why it's okay to let go.

It lasted hours, but it could have been seconds.

I arrived in St. John's.

I closed the covers and paused in the bliss between a perfect book and an untamed library.

Home stretch

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:21:21 -0400

The Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia is a cyclist's paradise with leg-defying climbs and brake-defying drops.

I'm fewer than 600 kilometres from finished.

Please be patient while I enact my new strategy: bike like mad. Once I'm done, I'll tackle my queue of blog topics:

Finishing
Atlantic Canada
Trains
My equipment
What I've learned
A summary of my trip

Fury Cycling

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 17:14:10 -0400

The Adam of Canada Day was in a foul mood.

For one thing, there weren't enough nice people. When a friendly old man chatted with him after second breakfast at a diner, the conversation turned to politics Adam had to hide his anger. The man disliked New Brunswick's requirement that government employees must speak French. Adam thought, but didn't say, that the policy seems reasonable because a third of New Brunswick's population is natively French-speaking. Adam made three polite attempts to extricate himself from the discussion: first by donning his gloves, second by walking over to the counter to pay for his meal, and finally by riding away and shouting goodbye over his shoulder.

The bad day began with a rotten night before. Adam had chosen to treat himself to a motel room, which the owner offered to cyclists at $69 instead of $89. As he showed Adam the room, the man had complained about cyclists demanding cheap fares. He'd pointed to the second bed in the room and told Adam that if he so much as touched it, the fare would rise by $20. Ditto for the second towel in the bathroom. Adam had fantasized about peeing on the second bed and stealing the towels, but in the end he'd done nothing.

Grand Falls, New Brunswick, has some grand falls.

He'd washed his clothes in the sink and the air was too humid to dry them. He was cycling in cold, wet clothes. The sun hadn't shone all week.

Well, not exactly. The sun had shone for about five minutes on the motel day. Adam had been on the phone with a journalist. Jeff, the cook at a now-a-restaurant Canadian Pacific traincar a few kilometres back, had suddenly appeared and offered him a styrofoam plate of strawberries and maple syrup. Jeff was the first acquaintance Adam had seen twice while crossing Canada.

That's what sunshine feels like, Adam thought.

It hadn't lasted.

For one thing, he realized in Fredericton he'd probably dropped the key to his bicycle lock at the motel. He felt stupid lugging a heavy chunk of useless metal for hundreds of kilometres, hoping his effort was less stupid than throwing away the lock and then finding the key.

And in the morning somebody had blared Friday, the annoying faux-pop YouTube song, near the road. It was stuck in Adam's head all day.

Most campgrounds in Canada are parking lots. Thousands of campers park in these sites every day, often paying $30 or $40 per night. It's something to fume about.

He'd encounter the coast the next day, but his trip was far from over.

Maybe that was it. Two friends had asked, in the past week, if he ever felt like returning home. In the Prairies the idea hadn't occurred to him. Now he had crossed the continent and he wanted more Montreal bagels. The rest of the trip seemed pointless.

The wind was behind him and he vented to himself all day. He fumed as he gulped delicious ice cream. He stayed dumb when two nuclear parents answered questions from their two nuclear children about his bicycle.

Normally Adam could mute his frequent flips from happy to depressed and back. His mood usually swayed with the winds and his impatience rose with the hills. Today he was stuck on one emotion.

Finally, before nightfall, the clouds parted.

The ocean lay a day ahead.

He camped alone with the mosquitoes.

Happiness lay a day ahead.

The sun returned as I reached the coast. I re-entered French-speaking New Brunswick and my route was lined with the Acadian flag.

A family walks beneath a setting sun in Murray Beach Provincial Park, New Brunswick.

The 12.9-kilometre Confederation Bridge links New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island, where this picture was taken.

Vive le bicycle libre

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 23:35:32 -0400

Quebec is the best province yet.

This is only partly because it's my home. The language perked my ears even before I entered the province, a French with such a unique accent we call it Quebecois.

I crossed a bridge into the province, and wham! A bicycle lane greeted me at the first intersection.

Quebec is the only province I've seen so far with road signs for bicycle lanes. The signs and lanes make up a huge network, called the Route Verte. Signposts led me from Hawkesbury, Ontario to Edmunston, New Brunswick.

Montreal is the best part of all. It's replete with rent-a-bike stands holding dozens of new-age bicycles, called Bixi bicycles. Detach one whenever you need it, ride it wherever you like and drop it off near your destination, all for $5 a day. It's far cheaper if you pay $78 for the entire year, or even $19 if you already bought a yearly bus pass.

There are hundreds of Bixi stands in Montreal.

Five years ago, pre-Bixi, Montreal was an adequate cycling city with modest lanes. Now there are lanes every few blocks and Montreal drivers are careful around cyclists.

Montreal is also famous for its bagels. I've seen St. Viateur Bagels bagels on sale in New Brunswick and New York.

Two of Quebec's major bicycle routes follow the St. Lawrence River toward the Atlantic Ocean. I took both, crossing by ferry at Quebec City.

Chateau Frontenac sits over the river in Quebec City. Quebec is Canada's first city, founded by the French where high banks would deter attacks. Today those same hills make for furious exercise.

These routes are usually wide shoulders on service roads. They do stray from the main road sometimes to introduce cyclists to river vistas, farm towns and the occasional monster climb up a steep St. Lawrence bank.

The Route Verte takes a detour towards a tourist village on the river.

The French settled Quebec in strips so each farmer could access the road and river. It's easy to tell a land's history from an airplane: English Canada has square lots and French Canada has rectangular ones.

The final bicycle route, southeast of Riviere-du-Loup, is actually part of the Trans-Canada Trail, made for walking and cycling. The hard-packed gravel is great for sunny days, and free campsites await every few dozen kilometres. I didn't trust my road bike to make it through in the rain, so I reverted to the Trans-Canada Highway on my final day. The enormous shoulder led me safely to New Brunswick.

I saw dozens of long-distance cyclists in Quebec. And no wonder: this is the perfect place to go for a ride.

Cappuccino neverland

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 11:27:13 -0400

I ordered two pieces of focaccia, a salad and a cappuccino.

“Have you ever ordered a cappuccino here before?” asked the cashier.

I hadn't, as a matter of fact. This was the Modern Bakery in Revelstoke, a ski town in British Columbia, and I was only stopping for lunch.

“It's a layer of espresso, a layer of milk and a layer of foam,” she said, gesturing with her hand.

I think it was a question, as in, “do you understand the ramifications of what you're asking?”

I do. A cappuccino is more than a splendid beverage. I use fair-trade cappuccino to experience each city I visit.

“Fair trade” means growers are paid a decent wage for their labour, as verified by an independent referee and advertised by a logo. Fair trade makes a world of difference to faraway families, and it sometimes costs a few extra pennies per cup of coffee in Canada. The trade-off appeals to many coffee connoisseurs, so shops that sell it are usually classy.

For instance, the Modern Bakery was so crowded some customers ate outside in near-freezing weather. Clearly, Revelstoke residents appreciate great food and coffee.

In each city, the vibe is different.

The bubbles are too big on this cappuccino from the Calico coffee shop in Thunder Bay. Big bubbles burst and leave pock-marks. It tasted superb, despite this flaw, and the atmosphere was friendly and homey.

Ottawa inspired this ritual. Its Bridgehead coffee chain is all over town and its cappuccinos are always the same—just like our politics. That's a good quality in a Bridgehead cappuccino.

The non-profit Coffee House in Calgary, Canada's oil city, is the opposite. As I waited for the cappuccino machine to repair itself in the trendy Kensington district, a man in a pressed shirt walked in, absorbed the vibe and fled. Perhaps he disliked the server's blue hair and small bowler hat, or maybe he feared the man wearing dreadlocks, a bandana and a spikey leather jacket who was buddy-buddy with all the customers. Maybe he couldn't stand the girl sitting with her friends in a corner who couldn't play her electric guitar—not that it was plugged in. Most customers weren't drinking coffee, but I don't think coffee was the point. Some people need an antidote to Calgary's corporate hamster cage. (Skyscrapers in downtown Calgary are connected by tunnels above street level.)

Winnipeg can't brew cappuccinos. Mondragon, the “political bookstore and vegan restaurant,” dropped a thin film of foam onto a watery brew. I visited Fyxx next door in desperation. The non-fair-trade cappuccino was equally disappointing.

The barista actually stirred my cappuccino in the River Cafe in Owen Sound, a tourism hub on Lake Huron. Ick.

I was more impressed by Cafe Natura in Sault Ste. Marie, near the historic canal that bridges Lake Superior to Lake Huron and the bridge that links Canada to the United States. The waiter told me they don't serve cappuccino, then he cooked me pancakes.

And the good cappuccinos? I've drunk plenty. The best was in Banff.

The Wild Flour Bakery is a half-block removed from the tourist lane and its cappuccino was spot-on. Two other customers my age were reading their afternoons away. Babylon by David Gray played over the speakers at the perfect volume, neither too loud to hear nor too soft to hum along. I looked out the wall of windows to the sunny weather and thought to myself, I could stop biking and just live here.

Banff is surrounded by hiking and biking and camping and skiing adventures. Heck, it's in a national park. Artists from across the country flock there to create magic at the Banff Centre, and the coffee shop is perfect. As a reformed ski bum told me back home, it's Neverland.

Neverland. You never grow old, you never get bored and you never regret anything. You laugh when people ask what you plan to accomplish in life. You die a child, innocent and blissful.

Too soon, the song ended. I shook myself back to the present.

That was a good cappuccino.

Food food food

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 23:41:25 -0400

The day I visited Sault Ste. Marie, I didn't go to bed hungry. That's because I stopped early, at 5 p.m., and ate until dark.

Food	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Energy
Omelette with spinach, chicken, english muffins (breakfast #1)	76g	18g	38g	618 kcal
Pancakes (3) (breakfast #2)	114g	24g	33g	804 kcal
Loaf's worth of PB&J sandwiches (lunch+supper)	414g	120g	72g	3,024 kcal
Bottle of thirst quencher (lunch)	58g	0g	0g	234 kcal
Granola (lunch+supper)	35g	6g	5g	206 kcal
Ice cream cone (snack)	43g	23g	6g	394 kcal
Half-box of pasta with half-jar of pesto (supper)	143g	113g	19g	1,665 kcal
Apple cider, from two packets (supper)	42g	0g	0g	166 kcal
Apple (supper)	25g	0g	0g	100 kcal
Box of cookies (supper)	210g	60g	20g	1,460 kcal
Total	950g	304g	173g	8,671 kcal

A typical person needs 2,000 kcal per day.

I spend over $30 per day on groceries and meals.

Most days I bicycle too long so there's no time left to eat. I've lost over 3 kilograms in two months on the road.

In momery

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 01:59:30 -0400

Early explorers paddled through the rocky, lake-y, swampy Canadian Shield. Then came dynamite, then trains, then roads.

Today, 1,500 kilometres of narrow Trans-Canada Highway weave near lakes, cross rivers and climb hills, taking frequent shortcuts through blasted outcrops.

The outcrops are miniature echoes from Rockies roads, some 10 metres high, others peaking below my shoulders. Couples have eternalized their love on them by spray-painting hearts and their initials.

A scrawl of white paint shouts from one glistening rock face: IN MOMERY OF PICKY.

The Y in MOMERY hides in a crevice. The author, desperate that Picky not be fergot, sprayed another PICKY a few metres ahead.

I never knew Picky, but as I bicycled around the Great Lakes I could imagine the death: a quick thud, after which the driver fled a nagging guilt. An hour later, 100 kilometres separated culprit from corpse.

A car zooms past a dead racoon.

Animals aren't the only victims of road accidents. Crosses behind guard rails give testimonies of human tragedies.

I saw a man standing by the side of the highway. He dashed into his car and zipped away before I could approach. He left behind a wreath.

I survived the Canadian Shield, and I'm leaving the Trans-Canada Highway for a while. My life has flashed before my eyes so many times I began fast-forwarding the boring bits.

Horses are equipped to travel on the soft shoulders of the Trans-Canada Highway, but cyclists must join the cars.

Many drivers are allergic to lane changes and they come within centimetres of clipping my bicycle, even though they have ample space to circumvent me. RVs and pick-up trucks lugging fishing boats make me wince, as they often steer into my path too early. I think they don't realize how big their vehicles are.

A half-dozen oncoming motorists have even passed cars in front of them using the lane I'm bicycling in, scraping past me head-on at 120 kilometres per hour. I wish I could explain to them that I'm not aware they're coming until it's too late because I don't expect to be hit by oncoming traffic. If they killed me, I imagine yelling, they'd face life in prison for criminal negligence causing death. There would be ready witnesses in the cars they passed.

But they're long gone before the rush of adrenaline releases me.

More than 200,000 Canadians are injured in motor vehicle accidents in an average year, according to Transport Canada. That's around six out of every 1,000 people being hurt every year. Thousands die every year. Car accidents account for almost one per cent of deaths in Canada.

As I survive hour to hour, I reason that my own near-scrapes aren't anybody's fault. They're everybody's fault.

It's clear to me now: human beings are bad at driving. Our reflexes are too slow, our real-time risk analysis is too optimistic and we'll never see all the bumps and hiccups and obstacles on the road. We don't plan what we'll do if we see a pannier-laden cyclist in our lane, and we forge ahead anyway. Several truck drivers have coloured outside the white line in the shoulder after passing me, stirring up dust. If they can't control the edges of their vehicles, how can the rest of us, who have far less experience?

Road signs are phrased to convince you that you're a safe driver but everything aside from you is dangerous. School buses and cement trucks might slam into you from side streets. Deer and moose might charge you. Slippery roads will make your car fishtail.

Those are lies. In truth, you are dangerous. Take responsibility: you're driving a deathtrap too quickly to control it.

Please, for everybody's sake, avoid driving when you can. When you can't, be careful.

Remomber Picky.

Lake Superior's fog can roll onto the road in bad weather, making me invisible.

Much of northern Ontario is gorgeous. A viewpoint on Manitoulin Island overlooks the Georgian Bay in Lake Huron.

Because

Tue, 31 May 2011 10:55:04 -0400

For the confused among my readers, I'm working on my Next Big Thing: a bicycle trip across Canada.

I'm riding from the west coast to the east coast.

Mile 0 of the Trans-Canada Highway is in Victoria. There are thousands of miles (and even more thousands of kilometres) between there and the end.

My bicycle is a Surly Long Haul Trucker. Edward at Ride Bicycles in Seattle taped the handlebar grips at the very beginning of my journey.

This bicycle is my only companion, so Edward made sure it's perfect. (I later added a handlebar bag, making it even more perfect.)

Goals abound. People from faraway lands ask me about Canada as I roam the world. I want to shed my ums and ahs and learn about my home. Plus, this trip gives me some time to myself all while introducing me to wonderful people.

You can help. The two supplies I require most are food and inspiration. Since you probably can't feed me, please inspire me. I'm raising money for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or in English, Doctors Without Borders). You've likely heard of it: it's an organization that saves lives amidst chaos by providing treatments, necessities and vaccines.

Why MSF? Some donors scoff at large charities, thinking a small donation doesn't make much difference. Actually, the reality is the opposite. MSF is structured to save lives without prejudice; if you, the donor, try to specialize your gift (and stipulate that your donation must, say, build houses for earthquake survivors) then you're essentially micro-managing. MSF is likely to have a better idea what help is needed and how to best deliver it, making your life-saving donation as effective as possible.

Trust these people. They're great.

I've added a "donate" link to the map accompanying each new blog post about my adventures. I'll finish this post with another.

Please donate to MSF. Your donation gives me the energy to continue. It also makes the world a better place.