Ps, Dun laghaire, or however you spell it (still havent' figured it out... the port on southside dublin)..i swear there is a three etappes hill there! it goes up, levels off, goes up, levels off..and again!....and it killed me!

the europeans build nice gradual inclines into their mountains. The irish don't count on any cyclists, ever!

oh, even the dutch have the one or other usable bike type nowadays - at least the dutch long distance cyclists i met had them...

if you are riding something like this
i'm not surprised that your knees don't like getting you uphill. (unless i missed the motor... )

frame geometry is a philosophy on its own... i was thinking along those lines - but that's fairly general.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_bicycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touring_bicycle the last pic is about what i think would be a good enough bike to make crossing the continent rather a pleasure and not pure pain...

pretty close, Dun Laoghaire (i was cheating) - i have wayyyyyyyy more difficulties to pronounce it ... glad you found your way back to life though .

Oy you, when did you sneak into my shed?!

*Grins* yep, thats the beasty and the only motor is me.

I think I agree with you though regarding hte other two bikes, but will my skirt blow into the wheel? I'm not seeing skirt protectors?!

its the only country i've been hit while wearing a bright orange vest and wiht a blinking light, in the middle of daylight, standing still in the middle of a traffic jam, by a car and had the driver claim to 'not see me while she backed in to me....

hey, if she was driving backwards all the way?

seriously, sorry that that happened to you.
with the exeption of downtown dublin i found the irish really respectful towards me as a bike traveler, i can't say that of every european country. i had one of my more serious encounters with a car on a bike path (as in "cyclists only") in rural southern germany. luckily i'm consequently having my helmet on...

ermmm

i'm actually very much against helmets. They don't make sense ergonomically. If they redesigned them to actually be safe as opposed to being tiny scullcaps i'd be all for them.

And this was indowntown dublin, how did you guess? *grins*
Most countries are good for cycling though.

i guess we have to agree that we disagree on the helmet issue. although, if you do your trip across canada, be aware that here in bc you can get fined for not wearing one.

i have a close friend who most probably wouldn't have survived his bike accident without helmet. the impact force, combined with the relative sharpness of the concrete edge he hit after being knocked off his bike by a truck, would have split his skull - instead of leaving the helmet literally in two pieces and him with some bruises and a moderate concussion.

It's only a short hop but if you want to raise some money for cancer research there's always the Vancouver-to-Seattle sponsored ride next summer.

Pedalling for a cause

I never said I didn't wear them - If thats the law I stick to it. However I"m still not convinced they are designed to make sense. I'd want to see more around the forehead and the temples for one.

A Newfoundland based pedant writes......

No you didn't. You cycled across mainland Canada - which is still quite the achievement, I'll grant you that. Proper cross Canada cycles/drives/runs start in St John's NL. Terry Fox f'r example.

Yes, technically you are correct. In fact, the correct cycle, or crossing, should be Victoria, B.C. to St. John's, N.L. (Victoria, at the bottom of Douglas street, is designated '0' km for the start of the trans-Canada, there's also a statue of Terry Fox there) - but as I said, we had the idea in a pub, never did any research, apart from buy a Canadian road map, and arrived in Vancouver and headed off (the wrong way !)

Interestingly, going St.John's to Victoria, I think, would be more of a challenge than going the Victoria to St. John's route.

Cheers for that. That's well worth looking into, I've a couple of friends whom I also may be able to get to register for it. Thanks.

If you got across Canada on that bike then you'd deserve 18 Olympic gold medals!

We were going to buy Carerra mountain bikes from Sportmart (again, not having a clue), but thankfully an expert in a bike shop in Vancouver basically pleaded with us to buy Touring bikes in order to have any chance of crossing Canada. He was sooo right! You need the right bike to have any chance of a long-distance cycle.

Right now its still a tossup between vancouver adn calgary..depends on where I get a job nibble, but I might be asking for the addy some time soon!

Hey, nothing wrong with a good, sturdy dutch bike ...;-)