By Emma;

As we were pushing Falkor up some steep hills on the Sea to Sky Highway yesterday, several things floated across my thoughts. They were all pretty much based around one simple fact; that Brendon is amazing. His determination, focus, persistence and all-round mental fitness is astonishing.

Seconds before take-off from Riverside campground, Whistler

We are carrying about 50 kg of gear, the bike weighs about 25 kg and with our combined weight of around 130 kg, it’s a lotta mass to get up any incline. And while the hills were not super steep, they were sure steep enough to slow us down to about 5kph and get in a good cardio workout. My legs started burning pretty quickly and instantly my mind started to suggest that I should get off and walk the bike. I was surprised by how lame my mental fitness was. So my ‘lazy brain’ and my ‘tough brain’ went back & forth considering the merits of; continuing through the pain to pedal or getting off and pushing it up hill. And this is when it hit me; team work will get us through anything. I know for a fact that if we were on single bikes, I would have absolutely gotten off mine and walked mine up the steep bits. And I know too that this would be a bad decision as walking a bike up hill is equally as hard as peddling, combined with that and the sense of disappointment you feel at not having conquered the hill or your mental weakness. It also establishes a mental level of acceptable behaviour.  So when I realised yesterday that the worst thing about getting off the bike would be letting Brendon down, well, there was nothing left to do but put my back into those pedal stokes and commit to making it to the top. No matter the speed or the pain, I knew we would get there. And now this sense of achievement has overwhelmed all of the aches and has given me a glimpse at how strong my mind can be. You just gotta ignore the doubts and believe in yourself. And believe in your team!

It took us 2 hours to load the bike

So at the end of Day 1, I am living the ‘anything is possible’ mantra. I know there will be more hills, and I know they will get steeper and the head winds will get stronger and the sun will keep on getting hotter, but I also know that we will get tougher and our team work resolute and with our goal in focus, we can conquer each day as it comes.

On the road

Day 1 stats:

Cycled 57km on the Sea to Sky Hwy from Whistler to Squamish in a killer head wind.

It took  2 h 44mins

Average speed  20.7 kpm

Top speed  65.9
 kph

Elevation  480 m

Decent  1095 m

She’s a heavy rig to get up the hills, but man oh man does she go quickly down them. If it weren’t for the head wind, I reckon we woulda been riding the 80kph speed limit.

View of the Squamish Valley

Thanks to everyone for generously supporting World Bicycle Relief.  At the end of Day 1, we have raised a whopping $6,6861 which is 51.2% of our total goal! TotallyAmazing!