Tripping with Mike

A remote 1,000 km loop around the furthest reaches of Vancouver Island - bears and eagles everywhere, rain and sun, big hills and endless scenery. Introduction In early July 2022 I set off on a two week bikepacking tour of North Vancouver Island. The previous year I had done the BC Epic 1000 race from Merritt to Fernie during the infamous heat dome in June (I was the lanterne rouge) and vowed I would subsequently aim for shorter less strenuous bikepacking trips.  Yet, after reading about the new Tree to Sea loop on North Vancouver Island and realizing I had a 10+ day window in early July, the next thing I found myself doing was cycling up the Sunshine Coast to catch a ferry with my bike and gear over to Comox to start the ride. Trip Log I kept a running trip log of traveling into and out of the loop and what follows is the story of the ride.  Overall it was about 1,000 km of riding up and down about 14,000 metres of elevation. I camped 7 nights and stayed in a hotel or motel 3...

A 3 day backcountry mountain bike route on BC's Sunshine Coast with lots of single track, great vistas and quad busting hills to round it out. Introduction In the summer of 2021 I was one day back from riding in the BC Epic 1000 and decided to go out for a mountain bike ride on the North Shore. I was feeling pretty fit having ridden for 10 days in the heat on a fully loaded gravel bike, roughly a 100 km a day.  After a couple of laps I started my way down to my car and promptly crashed on a slippery corner where I wasn't paying attention and broke my collarbone. My summer of mountain bike riding was pretty much finished which wasn't great but to placate myself I started planning out two rides I was interested in the fall once my collarbone healed up. The last was riding the Moab Rocks XC race in Moab in late October and to prepare as well as make sure my collarbone was healed enough I planned to ride a 2 night, 3 day 100-120 km mountain bike bikepacking route on the Sunshin...

Nine days of very hot riding over 1,000 kilometres and 11,000 metres of climbing across the best riding and scenery in British Columbia. Introduction After finishing my Banff to Penticton bike ride in 2020, I wasn't expecting to do another 10+ day bikepacking ride anytime soon but as the summer of 2021 approached, I found myself signing up for a bikpacking race called the BC Epic 1000. This is a bike race from Merritt, BC through to Fernie BC on the same TransCanada Trail I had ridden the other direction from Banff.   So on June 26 I lined up at the start line with 50-60 other folks ready to ride off into the hills of Merritt. There had been some considerable debate ahead of the race around cancelling or stopping it as the weather was incredibly hot - upwards of 40 celsius - with no end in sight.  It became referred to across BC as the "Heat Dome" of 2021. Despite this, with some careful planning, lots of hydration, riding in the early morning and into the night while avo...