We started off the day today with the idea of getting an early start. I do not, in any way, like to wake up early; my mom is the exact opposite. We went to breakfast but then decided we should wait in town until around 10 am, when the bike shop opened. We only have a hand pump for our tires and it’s really hard to gauge when they’re at the right psi. We decided it would probably be a good idea to purchase a gauge seeing as there are no more bike shops for a little while. We stopped at this amazing bike shop right in Mission: Wentings’ Cycle & Mountain Shop. They were suuuper helpful and also gave us some great advice on route info. If you’re ever in need of a bike shop in the Mission area, you should check them out.

On our way out of town, I, being extremely clumsy, dropped my bike on my ankle and scraped it up a bit. It was a perfect time to break out the first aid kit for the first time! I bandaged it up and we were good to go again! Obviously, I should probably work on my wound dressing technique.

It was a relatively flat ride today, only a few climbs, nothing too bad. We took a quick pit stop for lunch at a gas station in the middle of no where for chocolate milk and samosas– great combo (not). A little over half way I was having some trouble with a noise in my chain but we were able to figure it out and it seems to have gone away for now. When we turned the bike over to take a look we had to take the bags off. One of the bags fell right into a really, really, deep ditch in the side of the road and it required a bit of maneuvering around prickly raspberry bushes to get it back, but all is well now and I have my precious laptop back.

Another exciting part of today was our first bear sighting! It was from far away, but I’m still going to count it. Welcome to Canada. Here’s a pretty blurry picture, but you get the idea.

Tomorrow we head up to the Coquihalla Summit. It’s a pretty steep 60km climb, no flat riding. We shall see how it goes. Sadly the Dutch team is now out of the World Cup, so it’s time to go to sleep. 9 am start tomorrow morning for day 3!