Prologue Day 3 - A Connected World

The rain predicted yesterday came through with sunny partly cloudy skies. The ride to Victoria involved 2 new bridge crossings,a shuttle through a tunnel, a 90 minute ferry crossing, and 47 miles of great cycling.

Just 16 miles into the ride Serge (one of the Swiss riders) started to have an odd noise coming from his bike. While waiting for the tunnel shuttle, I figured out, finally, that the root fUse of the noise was a damaged front dérailleur, It would no longer stay in position, the cage was rubbing on the large chain ring, and it would.not shift out of the small chain ring - not a good way to start a 5,000 mile adventure.

The problem solver/engineer in me put together a plan. I called Eric, my son, at home on New Jersey and asked if he could Google bike shops in Victoria, find one withthe specific part needed (not a common one) and text me back with the specifics. Eric likes challenges like this too, and within 15 minutes, came back with a bike shop, street address,and phone number.
I called the bike shop, told them of our predicament and got things coordinated for repairs once we got into Victoria.
Kudos to the staff and mechanics at Fort Street Cycle - great service - they had Serge's bike fixed in 30 minutes and even found and fixed another problem that we hadn't mentioned.

The evening was spent having dinner and a beer (or two - carbo loading) with my High School physics teacher who I hadn't seen since I was last out in Victoria in 1978.

He gave me a great walking tour of the town, educating me on lots of it's unique aspects among other things showing me the last section of street paved with the wooden equivalent of a cobblestone. Did I mention that there were lots of huge trees around here.

Photos and final editing will take place when I get back to Vancouver - this was "tap-typed" on my iTouch.

Another sunny day for the ride back after the "mile 0" wheel dip in the Pacific.