Guest Blog: July 22-25

Sans panniers, making excellent time.  Kyle has the repair kit.

by Carly Schmidt

The faithful readers of this blog and followers of this incredible journey may recognize my name as Jordan’s older sister, and my wedding the cause of the unique Ontario-east, west-Ontario direction of the Bikes for Bricks trip. Before I recap our incredible 3 days with the bikers, I’d just like to say how grateful I am to all three for seamlessly accommodating my marriage into their rigourous schedule, and especially to my brother Jordan for always making us a priority, despite all that he has taken on with this trip. I appreciate everything and I’m so proud of you. This will be a summer that we’ll never, ever forget!

Day 5: Special Delivery

I am always happy to be asked to blog on here, especially after spending the last couple days with them.

Let me backtrack for a minute to Wednesday night when I arrived in tow with my handy camera man (Jason) to Lisa's house in Ottawa. I brought the very exciting brand new working Blackberry with me, more camera mounts and a eagerness to see how they were doing. Stay tuned for tons of pictures and videos!

Day 5 started off with an early breakfast thanks to Lisa and Family, again thanks for the wonderful hospitality you showed the boys! It was then off to Parliament for a special treat, where the guys would meet MP Harold Albrecht for a quick picture. He is a busy guy and we appreciated the time! Beautiful as always, the scenery in Ottawa never disappoints.

The boys were off and cycling while we ran around to get some last minute things that were missing. First stop was Mountain Equipment Co-op where an extremely nice employee was quite helpful. He ended up giving us 3 mounts for free to take to the guys to try and mount the Drift cameras better. The biggest challenge of the store was deciding which spork to purchase for the guys. For those that might not know, a spork is a spoon and a fork and the plastic ones that had originally been purchased were just not cutting it. Sporks bought, mounts in hand we headed out to try and "catch" them. Knowing they had gotten a head start, we followed the road they were cycling on and hoped to catch up with them sooner than later (seeing as I was going East and home was West).

SPOTTED! 3 young guys outfitted in Marin/Royal gear taking a water break on the side of the road. Quite happy to receive their sporks and mounts they sent us off on one more errand before we headed home. It was off to McDonald's we went, armed with 6 water bottles, a camel back and FREE smoothies coupons that were generously given to the guys by Perry, the owner of McDonald's in Stittsville. Many thanks to Perry, as you can tell the smoothies hit the spot for the guys!

It was goodbye all over and the boys hopped back onto their bikes and prepared to cycle another 100km. I had a chance to talk them again this morning and here is what they have to say about the ride yesterday

" We floored it all day. Quebec Roads are excellent, very flat Ottawa River Valley. We were doing 30km/hr just cruising easy and hit upwards of 40 km/hr sometimes. We pushed it late into the day, 8:00pm. We could have stopped at 150km in Lachute but went the extra 20 to St Canut to a campground we found. We had a delicious treat of sausages and called it a night. Special thanks to the staff at Pecco's cycle shop in Ottawa for the tune up"

I must say one thing  before I sign off here and that is I am MORE than confident that Jordan, Kyle and Tyler will indeed cycle across Canada successfully and that they will raise a lot of money for Heartwood Place. They feel great, they look great and if anyone can do it, it's them. Thanks to the guys for sitting through a million questions while we filmed them and GREAT JOB thus far!

Guest Blogger: Chad

[Guest blog #2 from our good friend Chad, who joined us for a training ride on Friday]


I have been following this blog since it began and last Friday I was following Tyler and Jordan around the Woolwich/Wellesley countryside. 

I learned 3 things on this biking expedition: 
1. I hate wind,
2. I am not even close to in proper shape to bike across Canada, and 
3. My hybrid generic road bike might as well be a small tricycle compared to the Marin bikes that my fellow bikers were sporting. 


I was battling the wind all evening and losing spectacularly while my friends were faring much better. The first 25 kilometres of the trip was mostly straight into the wind and broke my spirit along with devastating my upper body as I attempted to hold myself on my bike. My active lifestyle has not prepared me for the riggers of a 50km bike ride let alone 7 weeks of approximately 150km per day rides. 


I was able to try out Tyler's Marin bike on the trip from Crosshill to St Clements and it made a considerable difference. I was able to keep pace and not fall back like I had been on the first half of the trip. Our speed did improve considerably with the wind at our backs and once I returned to my bike I fell far behind Tyler and Jordan while they raced to Wagner's Corners at 34km/hr. The trip drained me physically and mentally and I don't think I would be able complete a cross Canada trip and I tip my hat to these gentleman as they are about to embark on this monumental journey. 


Jordan did joke about inviting me to join them on their trip but I don't think I would make it as far as Quebec and would have to do the "bus home of shame". I will just have to keep my pride and continue my far less impressive lifestyle of soccer, hockey and squash games. 


Good luck guys!


[You can read Tyler's account of the day here and Jordan's here]