Meeting other cyclists on our way to Dryden

Throughout the trip, we haven't met too many other cyclists doing the trip across, and those that we have, we have not seen again. So far, we have met Ryan in Rogers Pass, some of the riders of the Kids Cancer Tour, the Japanese kid on our way to Brandon, and another Ryan, the bartender at Earl's who's starting his trip within the next week or so.

We riders of the Moving Muscles Ride ask that you check out www.visiongreennow.ca if you have a few minutes. It is the website for Ryan the bartender's initiative, as he raises money for the David Suzuki Foundation. We wish him the best of luck on his own journey!

On our ride from Kenora, we met some fellow cyclists making the trip across the country. We first met Lisa as we pulled in to a picnic rest area on the side of the highway. We invited her to eat with us, and found out she is also from London, Ontario, and graduated from Bishop's University last year. She's doing the trip alone. We then met Bruce as he was leaving the same rest area, who's doing his third big touring trip on his own. He lives on Cortez Island in BC, and left Vancouver on May 28, so you can imagine that he is just flying. We ended up catching him after lunch, helping him fix a flat and lending him a spare tire after his had some problems. Amazingly both he and Lisa have only had one flat apiece. Does that say something about us? Probably that the original tires we had had worn out, because we haven't had any flats wince the switch.

We all rode together throughout the afternoon, talking about our trips. They were both impressed with our group's dynamic and by how much money we have raised to date. It was nice for us to have someone new to ride with, and it was nice for them to have anyone to ride with at all! Lisa confessed to us that she never would have made it to Dryden if she hadn't met us. Turns out she was pretty low on motivation in the morning, but it's amazing how seeing some new faces can give you energy. It sure helped us today as well.

With a slight wind at our backs, we all cruised easily to Dryden, eventually setting up at Aaron Provincial Park 160km past Kenora. Lisa parted ways after we all stopped for some groceries, but Bruce stuck with us to camp for the night. We shared some of our food with him (we had lots), including our dessert of macaroons and slowpokes. He's promised Pat, Mike, and Brian some espresso in the morning, as he has a small personal percolator that he carries with him. They've been looking for something similar for a while. We may catch up to Lisa tomorrow, but she gets up a bit earlier than us, so we'll see how the day goes.

With shelter from the wind, the riding in Northwestern Ontario has been pretty smooth to date, so hopefully we can keep it up. We'll see where we get tomorrow.
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