{"id":383,"date":"2018-06-06T19:13:30","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T23:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/?p=383"},"modified":"2018-06-24T19:46:29","modified_gmt":"2018-06-24T23:46:29","slug":"almost-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/almost-ready\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost ready…"},"content":{"rendered":"

One more day before the pre-adventure begins: the drive to Prudhoe Bay. I can hardly wait, the drive itself will be a lot of fun, and certainly a whole lot easier and shorter than the ride back!!!<\/p>\n

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First and last test ride with almost all my gear. Pure bliss!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some say the hardest part of a long trip is to get to the start, and I hope it is true because the last few weeks haven\u2019t been very easy. Between knee issues and having to say goodbye to people I won\u2019t get to see for maybe a very long time, I even forgot at times that I do this because it\u2019s fun!!!<\/p>\n

But the last few weeks have also been absolutely amazing. So many people showed their support in many different ways. Some wrote me a card or an email. Others took me out for coffee, ice cream or a meal. I received nice useful gifts such as camping soap, probiotics and energy bars. A friend lent me his car so I could save time while doing my last runarounds. I got a ride to the bus station in Quebec City. In Montreal, a friend, who took a day off to give me a hand with carrying my luggage to the airport, was waiting for me with a nice coffee and muffins from our favourite cafe. Another friend picked me up at the airport in Whitehorse and let me stay at her house while I was sorting all my gear (you can imagine the space I am using, but maybe not the incredible food she is baking!). And over the next 2-3 days, a friend will drive me all the way up to Prudhoe Bay, a 2000km drive from Whitehorse and we will have a sat phone that another friend lent to us for the trip. This is just some of the nice gestures that really mean a lot to me. There is more, and I haven\u2019t even given my first pedal stroke on this journey yet!<\/p>\n

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My nice coffee and muffins from L\u2019Etincelle cafe in Montreal. Really funny that the sign behind me says \u201cTired of being cold even in the summer?\u201d It is an ad for a detox center (\u201cgele\u201d also means \u201cstone\u201d in French) but it seems appropriate when you look at the forecast for the North Dalton Highway! It is not warm up there!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I should be on my bike on Sarturday (weather permitting), and start riding south. It will be a while before I can update my website because there isn\u2019t many internet cafes (or anything else, for that matter) on the Dalton Highway… It should take me at least 2 weeks before I reach Fairbanks, and hopefully by then my knees and the rest of my 43 year old body will have adjusted to the rhythm. I am sure I will already have lots of stories to tell.<\/p>\n

Thank you all for your support and encouragement. I will be pedaling alone, but I will often think about all the people who are with me in thoughts and I am sure it will help me through the difficult times. And when things will be going well, I will be happy thinking about the stories I\u2019ll be able to share later.<\/p>\n

It is the biggest project I ever started, but inspired by Henry Ford\u2019s quote \u201cNothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs\u201d, I will take one section, one day or one hill at a time and we\u2019ll see where that takes me!<\/p>\n

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German tour cyclists that I met near Whitehorse, they are going from Anchorage to California.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One more day before the pre-adventure begins: the drive to Prudhoe Bay. I can hardly wait, the drive itself will be a lot of fun, and certainly a whole lot easier and shorter than the ride back!!! Some say the hardest part of a long trip is to get to the start, and I hope it is true because the last few weeks haven\u2019t been very easy. Between knee issues and having to say goodbye to people I won\u2019t get…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,18,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-canada","category-north-america","category-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions\/471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}