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Editing Post: 2025-09-08 Cancel

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This trip is border-to-border, so we started by loading 14 bikes on the top of the van, piling in, and driving to the border. Arriving there we unloaded and headed to the Peace Arch, which officially commemorates the Treaty of Ghent that ended the war of 1812 between the US and England (including Canada). Unofficially, it commemorates "over 200 years of peaceful coexistence and friendship between the two nations".

Inscriptions include:"Children of a Common Mother" on the U.S. side, "Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity" on the Canadian side, and "May These Gates Never Be Closed" above the archway.
Whelp, it was good while it lasted. The brief glow of good feeling flickered a bit reading those words.

But we were starting our adventure, so off we went. We only had 40 miles, so there was no great urgency, but people naturally separated into different groups. By far the fastest rider is 22yo Zoey (on the left of one of the pictures, the other being our leader Brielle), who is ranked 20th in the under-23 cross-country mountain biking rankings for the US. There are several other extremely fast cyclists, and then the rest of us. I'm merely trying to survive after messing up my newly-reconstructed right knee in the runup to the tour. If I can get through the first week or two, I'm good.

The group is overall a very impressive bunch of people, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them all over the next six weeks.

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