Day 1: Blast off!!!!

VROOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!

Thats the sound of a rocket taking off!

crinkle...crinkle..huff...puff..."be safe!!!"...hufff....crinkle..."watch for cars"....pufff..

The sound to be heard as we left 22 Rosemount on our geared up bicycles at about 5:30pm on July 15th, 2009; only 10 hours later and 20 pounds heavier then

Larissa was handeling her mighty steed "sap" whilst Sean was rearing behind the majestic "esteban" on a modest first day journey from Larissa's home in Toronto to a friends home in Pickering.

Although the original layout of our trip had us travelling to cobourg on the first day we thought this to be a bit extreme considering we would likely have to make some adjustments along the way and the trip through the busy city would be quite slow.
also...it took us forever to pack and we left at 5:30 pm....surprised?

It took us a few hours to get out the city with only minor glitches (bags falling off of bikes and a few wrong turns).
We took a few breaks, one by a lovely park full of garbage in toronto, and made our way to the twin rivers drive through rouge park.
Overall only a few stretches seemed to be unfriendly to cyclist. We chose to ride on some sidewalks in those cases (hence the bags falling off).

Twin rivers was a beautiful ride where we felt our first adrenaline rush down some nice hills, 43 kmh!!! (downhill means uphill soon!)

We arrived at a friends home in pickering shortly after 9, a bit later then expected but safe and sound and 48kms into our trip.
Dawn's family was so generous with their time and their space and really put a smile on our faces after the first day of adventuring.
the only minor inconveniance was the dogs tendancy to take our socks and cylcing gloves and run around the house with them.

Thank you so much to the Rupert/Pierson family for hosting us.

Day 1: Success!!!!

-Sean