One month ago we were looking at whether or not we would be doing our Sunshine Coast loop at Easter. I have even arranged the extra time off from work. However, in spite of good intentions we have not gotten that much riding in, with only one long ride of about 60 km. Then the promise of relatives coming that wekend gave us more motivation to do a few things around the house, and less motivation to get out riding. However, we do know that the visit from my parents is not a certain thing at this point. We may end up doing some other rides if they don't make it over to our Island by Easter, which is now little more than a week away. Maybe we can use the "guilt thing" to make them come over if they try to back out.

We plan on continuing our long, drawn out Cross Canada Tour this year. The original plan was to finish with a ride to the East Coast from Montreal. However, that is still a considerable distance, and someone recommended to Marilyn that we should ride around the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. Which does sound like a wonderful ride, but also a much longer route to the Maritimes. Now, a fellow has emailed us his account of his trip around the Gaspe, and Marilyn was a little put off by the "H" word-not hills, although it sounds like there are lots of them, but her favourite, headwinds. So, until we decide if we want to do the Gaspe or not, we really can't decide on where we will get to-maybe to Halifax, or maybe not.

This is also the time of year to look at our cycling year that was, and the cycling year to be. The past year ws not a great cycling year for Marilyn and myself. I am almost embarrassed to say that the only "bicycle camping" we did was during our three weeks of holidays, and not as much then as we would have liked. We missed out on doing our annual Sunshine Coast loop ride at Easter, as it was near our moving date to the new house. No overnighters to Stamp Falls, Parksville, or Lake Cowichan. Pretty sad state of affairs.

Our holidays this year continued our trek across this great country of ours, Canada. We have resumed where we left off last year, travelling from Thunder Bay, Ontario to Montreal, Quebec. We saw some jaw-dropping scenery, met some great people, and rode about 1900 kilometres of crappy pavement with no shoulders and lots of semis. The trip was a hard one, with us finding the hills in Ontario as hard as anything we have ridden to this point. Whether this was from our lack of riding ( or at least lack of loaded rding) or not is debatable, but it was definitely a challenge. Our optimism that we would ride into shape, and just ride some longer days later in the trip proved to be wrong also. The lack of shoulders on the Ontario highways, combined with the broken and potholed pavement, and the need to watch for semi trucks bearing down at high speed, made it both physically and mentally tiring, and really made it hard to do longer days to make up the miles. After about 5 hours on the road, it was time to call it a day. Who knows, maybe its just us getting older. We did make our destination, after riding every day for 21 days in a row.

Nanaimo was lucky enough to host the National Cyclocross championships this year thanks to Normon Thibault organizing a fine event. Marilyn and I volunteered at the event-I spent one morning helping set up the course, and we both spent the entire day of the event marshalling a section of the course. It was great to watch the racing, but would have been nice to be able to watch other sections of the race. Normon had also organized an Island Cyclocross series, and we got out to watch two of those races-one in Courtenay that was pretty gnarly, and the last of the series at Fletchers Farm near Parksville, which featured a great water hazard for the riders. Every comment I heard, whether from spectators or competitors, was favourable at all the races I attended. I hope that means even more races here next year!

KAKABECKA FALLS, ONTARIO