At first, I was like, WTF is this? How do you pronounce it? “Quill”? “kwee-uhl”? Is it French? Maybe “soo-ill”? I never would have guessed “cool”. I’m no branding expert, but right off the bat, the name just doesn’t seem like something that will catch on easily.

Functionally, the site hasn’t had very positive reviews. They claim to index more pages than Google - over 120 billion. However, looking up very simple words often brought no results, and as of two days ago, searching for “Cuil” returned no results related to the site itself, either. If they can’t find themselves in their own search engine, who’s going to trust them for anything?

A search for "Cuil" returns nothing related to itself

In a timely fashion, the guys at Google’s blog had a post last Friday mentioning they’ve indexed 1 trillion unique URLs on the web. Take that Cuil, with your measly 120 billion…

It makes me mad to see some ex-Google employees drum up 33 million dollars over a bunch of hype. I hope the investors lose their money. They deserve it.

Bicycle World in Cornwall

We stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s not far from the Quebec border. Shortly after lunch, we hit the border and took a few pictures. We met a nice French cyclist who rode with us for a bit and gave us some tips on the construction we’d encounter. We took Route Verte #5, which was a very nice bike path that went on forever. It followed alongside the Soulanges Canal, which used to be Quebec’s main shipping route before the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959.

At the Quebec border

Around this time, I started feeling a weird pain in my right ankle/achilles area. It got worse as the day went on, but luckily I was able to continue riding.

Riding alongside the St. Lawrence in Quebec

When we reached the end of Route Verte, we were mostly on streets, going through some very nice little towns. Pat got his first flat tire around this time. Shortly after that, Spencer broke another spoke. We stopped for dinner in some little town at a roadside pub. At about 7pm, we realized we still had about 30km to go before we’d be in Montreal. We knew this was the homestretch, so we started riding hard. Along the way, we encountered a spandex rider on a fast-looking bike, so we started chasing him. We were on his tail for over 30 minutes, and Spencer caught him at one point, but then fell back to join us. We were ripping it up, averaging over 30km/h with our fully loaded bikes, gaining speed up hills, racing through the busy streets. It was a lot of fun, and I’d like to think we kinda scared the guy away, although he very well may have just been going home…

We continued along at a pretty quick pace, making it to our hotel in Montreal at 8:30 - at the same time Pat and Spencer’s girlfriends rolled up in their cab.

It was quite the adventure, with a lot of ups and downs, but it was tons of fun. Riding our bikes was a full time job for those four days, and I know I really pushed myself to my limits, both physically and mentally. It was a great feeling to make it to our destination, knowing we could just relax and enjoy Montreal for a few days. And to top it all off, we had a free bus ride home.

Distance covered: 160km
Total time on the road: 12.5 hours (8am to 8:30pm)

Total trip distance: 633km
Total time on the road: 48.5 hours

Mickey

We went around the neighbourhood to see if we could find her or any trace of her, but we had no luck. Yesterday after work, I went down to Whitby Animal Services, where I learned the bad news. It didn’t happen at all like I expected it would have.

I got there and told the very large man that I was looking for my family’s cat. Ken and I went to check out the cages where all the cats were, and Mickey wasn’t among them. I asked about the worst-case scenario, and he said “let’s check the roadkill book”. The last entry in the book noted a “domestic long hair gray cat” that was trapped and put down because it was considered wild…

I asked him if he could tell me where it was caught, but he said they weren’t allowed to release that info. He did, however look up the traps that were lent out and he told me the trap was borrowed by someone on Garrard Rd, which is very near our house. When he wasn’t looking, I peeked at the form and saw the exact address, which is a house almost right behind ours.

Ken was a nice guy, albeit very vulgar, tossing out f-bombs, calling women “broads” and ranting about a lot of things both job-related and not-at-all-job-related. He explained the situation like this: basically, the people were having some sort of nuisance issue with a cat coming around. This could be that the cat was digging, shitting, or spraying on their property or perhaps fighting or tormenting one of their animals. Usually, Animal Services would recommend that the people find the owner and either confront them or get one of the officers to go and speak with the pet owner to warn them of the problem.

In our case, we don’t know the people since they live on another street outside our subdivision. Mickey didn’t have a collar, so there was no identifying information. At that point, the people borrowed a trap from the town, caught Mickey and brought her in. She had no way of being identified, so there was no way to contact us. Ken said based on the report, the cat was considered “wild” and therefore had to be put down. Typically, a cat won’t be too happy being in a cage, so they let it calm down first before attempting to let it out and put it into a holding cell. A well-behaved cat would normally be held for seven days, but Mickey was a bit crazy, and I could see that she would probably not co-operate very well. He said if after several attempts to handle the cat, it still won’t calm down and poses a danger to staff or other animals, it will be deemed wild and put down.

I almost wish she had just been hit by a car or something. Mickey was about 11 years old and still had some years left. Instead, she was put down for reasons she had no control over and couldn’t understand. I can’t help feeling partially responsible, since we didn’t have a collar or any other identifying marks on her (like a microchip or ear tattoo). There’s a lesson to be learned here. Make sure your pets have a collar with some sort of ID on it. Registering your pet with the town or city is also a good idea.

I hate to think of what her last hours were like, being scared, trapped in a cage. Instead, I’ll try to remember the last time I saw her - she was laying on my stomach, purring as I petted her head.

Mickey wrapped up in a newspaper

Packing up the morning of Day 3

Around lunch time, we stopped for Spencer to fix a spoke and we were surprised to see our friends Chris and Sandra pull up in front of us. They were in the Brockville area for the weekend, so we met up with them again once we got into Brockville and had some lunch.

In the late afternoon, the rain started up again. It got really dark and windy just as we got to Crysler Park, which is somewhere around Morrisburg. We took cover at the pavilion there for about an hour while we waited out the storm. The rain slowed down, so we took off and eventually made it onto this really cool forest trail. The rain started coming down hard again and it was getting dark quickly. We started to worry a bit about where we’d be able spend the night, but we kept on pedaling through the rainy forest and suddenly we found ourselves at the entrance to Farran Park campground.

Morrisburg

Waiting out the storm at Crysler Park

Nice sunset between the rain storms

Riding through the rainy forest at night

The young sweetie at the front gate must have liked us boys, because she was really nice and gave us free camping for the night. We set up our tent in the rain and had a shitty night’s sleep because of the rain and extreme winds.

Distance covered: 140km
Total time on the road: 12 hours (9:30am to 9:30pm)

Spencer was down to his last spoke, which broke on the way out of Pat’s cottage. We stopped off at a tourist booth to wait while Spencer took Pat’s bike across the bridge to Belleville to find a bike shop. Spencer returned at around 10:30am with some replacement spokes, fixed up his bike and we were off by 11am.

Tourist booth near Pat's cottage

Throughout the whole morning, the conditions were pretty bad. We were riding on fairly busy roads that didn’t have very good shoulders. The rain was coming and going, and we were riding into the wind for much of the time.

We stopped in Picton for lunch at Subway. It took me about an hour to eat my sub. I had a baby stomach for some reason, but it improved by the end of the day. After lunch, we took the Glenora Ferry across to Adolphustown, which led the way into Kingston. The ferry is part of the Loyalist Parkway (Hwy 33), and is free. The ride took about 10 minutes.

Glenora Ferry

Once we landed on the other side, it was like a whole new day. The sun was shining, the winds were at our back, and the roads were nice and flat for as far as the eye could see. We were traveling as a pack, our mini peloton riding at a quick, yet easy to sustain pace for almost three straight hours.

Awesome straight roads with a nice paved shoulder

We made it to hilly downtown Kingston just in time for dinner, and we ate at a nice little pub. A short time later, we were in Gananoque, where some sort of biker weekend was taking place. We saw a lot of motorcycles, but didn’t run into any problems with the Hell’s Angels. We did however, run into a problem just outside Gananoque, when we took a wrong turn and got a bit lost. After riding for about 6km and not finding the campground we were expecting, we realized where we made the wrong turn and started heading back. That’s when Spencer broke another spoke and darkness started falling very quickly.

Downtown Kingston

We struggled to get Spencer’s bike fixed quickly, trying to see what we were doing with flashlights. The mosquitoes were absolutely horrible and we got eaten pretty badly. Once fixed, we high-tailed it to the Landon Bay Campground in the dark. We were holding flashlights trying to see where we were going. It was pretty scary, but we made it to the park just after 10pm. They were closed, but there was a sign saying we could find a spot to camp and register later. We found a spot, set up the tent and went to bed. It was hot, humid and gross, and very difficult to sleep, especially with the thunderstorms and strong winds we had that night.

Distance covered: 160km
Total time on the road: 11 hours (11am to 10pm)

As mentioned previously, we started off the day by meeting up at Spencer’s house for a little pre-ride sendoff party. We presented the money to Wyatt’s aunt, took some pictures and said our goodbyes.

The first day was by far the worst day. I was really discouraged a lot of the time, and felt like quitting and going home a few times. I just couldn’t picture doing this for three more days.

We were on the road for 13 hours, making it to Pat’s cottage at around 8:30pm. We covered 173km, which was the longest distance any of us had ever ridden in a single day.

I had two flat tires and Spencer broke four spokes, with no spares left.

When we finally made it to the cottage, I was really tired and could hardly breathe. It felt like my lungs were shutting down and just didn’t want to keep working. We did some stretching, which I think really helped with soreness and recovery. I slept really well that night.

Here’s a couple more from day 1:

Distance covered: 173km
Total time on the road: 13 hours (7:30am to 8:30pm)

Thanks to the generosity and support of a bunch of people, we more than doubled our goal of raising $1000. Our final count came to $2100! Thanks to everyone who donated, including family members, friends, coworkers, the fine people at Marigold Ford in Whitby, Coach Canada for the free bus ride home and everyone else who contributed or helped out in any way.

We met at Spencer’s house on Friday morning at 7am for a little send-off party. We presented the money we raised to Wyatt’s aunt, took some photos and then we were off. Within four minutes, we had our first breakdown. Spencer broke the first of many spokes. It took a good 25 minutes or so to get fixed, then we were off again. As we were turning into Darlington Provincial Park, I took a little spill on some loose gravel. Luckily, I didn’t get hurt and nothing on my bike was affected. As soon as we left the park, I got a flat tire. Ten minutes later, I got another one.

So, within the first hour or so, we had three breakdowns and one wipeout. It got better from there. Spencer’s spokes broke almost routinely throughout the ride, but the frequency decreased as the days went on. It wasn’t horrible though - spoke breaks provided us with a little break to get off the bike and stretch.

We had a good time in Montreal, checking out the sights, eating at different restaurants and drinking at different bars and pubs. It’s a nice city, like a smaller, Frencher Toronto. While we were there, we got to check out a little bit of the Jazz Festival, which drew a lot of crowds.

Over the next week or so, I’ll write about some of the highlights of the trip and upload some pictures.

First of all, I realized that if I’m going on a longer ride (more than 25km), the first 40 minutes to an hour is usually shit. I’m sure it’s all mental, and it’s definitely getting better, but I’ve noticed a few times that I’ll feel crappy or tired for no reason. I’ll usually think there’s no way I am going to make the distance and the thought of turning back home creeps into my mind a lot.

If I press on and push through the discomfort/pain/bad thoughts, the rest of the ride goes really well. I’ll pass a point where it seems like all of a sudden I’m “in the zone” and I could just keep riding all day. I think it’s probably similar to a runner’s high. I will ride for an hour straight and then sort of snap out of my trance and realize I’ve just gone a long distance, not totally sure how I got there.

At this point, I am as prepared as I can be for the trip. By Thursday, I will have put 1,000km on my bike this year. The hills are not as daunting as they used to be, and I almost look forward to some big climbs. The only thing I’m not sure about is riding long days back-to-back for four days straight. I think if I get enough rest, eat well and stay hydrated, I should be fine. The rest will all be psychological.

I’m really looking forward to this trip. I think it will be a great test of my abilities, and I’ll be pushing myself to the limit physically and mentally. I just keep thinking of the great feeling of accomplishment I’ll have when we roll into Montreal on June 30th.

After talking with my friend for a bit, the possibility of getting the job sounded very promising. He told me if it were up to him, he’d hire me right away, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

Almost immediately, my mind started racing with thoughts of relocating to a new city for this new job. The very next weekend, I drove out to Oakville to get a feel for the town and see what it was like. I started thinking about finding a new place to live, how soon I would be able to move and all the other things that come with a big life changing event.

As time passed, I got a bit more information about parts of the job, and about relocating/commuting. That last part really put my mind at ease. My friend basically told me to try commuting for the first month or so, and then figure out how close or far away I could move to keep a balance between getting to work and still being close to my family, friends and everything else in Whitby that I’m used to.

As the hiring process continued, I had several phone interviews. They went very well, except for the last one. In this particular interview, I was asked a lot of tough technical questions, and I had no idea how to answer them. Suddenly, the job was not what it originally appeared to be - it was sort of similar to what I do now, but not really…

Needless to say, I was contacted several days later and was informed they would be moving forward with several other applicants. They thanked me for my time and that was that.

Overall, the entire process was interesting, but the time and stress could have been lessened if so many assumptions weren’t made from the start. I learned a lot, and I’ll take that with me moving forward. It was a long, drawn out process, and even though things didn’t work out, I’m glad it’s finally over, because the uncertainty was annoying.

We agreed to raise some money and get people to sponsor us for our ride to Montreal. I am hoping we can raise $1000, and all proceeds will go towards Wyatt’s family and the Cardiology Department at The Hospital for Sick Children, through the SickKids Foundation.

I think it’s a great cause, and it really makes the trip to Montreal a lot more meaningful. It also puts a lot more pressure on us to actually go the distance. A lot of people have been very generous, making donations and offering support, which is great. If you are interested in helping out, contact me and we’ll make arrangements.

For more information about Wyatt, see:
http://caringbridge.org/visit/wyatts
http://www.totsites.com/tot/wyatts