Day 3 - Malahat to Duncan BC

Day 3 of Cross-Canada Tour

53 km / 33 miles

565 m / 1850 feet Total Ascent

After a good night's sleep and a big breakfast to help me recover from yesterday's difficult trail riding experience, I stuck to the paved roads and covered 53 km (33 miles) from Malahat and Shawnigan Lake up to Duncan BC.

The power had been out in the Malahat area for almost 24 hours after an oversized load took down the power lines and shut down the Trans-Canada Highway the day before.  The highway was back open but subject to rolling closures as crews worked to restore power.

Most of the businesses in the area were shut down because they were without electricity.  Fortunately, the Malahat Chalet next to the Moon Water Lodge had an emergency generator for their kitchen, so I was able to enjoy a really nice brunch with an incredible view.

I also got to enjoy some homemade juice thanks to Lily and Alex and their roadside juice stand.  So much better than lemonade.

Overall, the ride went pretty smoothly today.  It wasn't much fun riding along the shoulder of the busy Trans-Canada Highway but that was the only option for a portion of today's ride.  As soon as I had a quieter alternative, I got off the TCH and followed secondary roads.

I passed through Cowichan Bay in the early evening and enjoyed sunset over one of the nearby rivers before stopping for the night in Duncan BC.  

I managed to find a motel with ground floor rooms and direct access from the parking lot so I could get my trike and equipment safely inside.  Unfortunately, the doors were narrower than the trike so I had to remove the front wheels to get the trike into the room.  I am getting tired of all the disassembly and reassembly that I have to do to get the trike where I need it.

Day Two – Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

Langford, BC to Malahat, BC

Sooke Hills Wilderness Trail

Distance travelled – 15km.

It is only the second day of my cycling tour and it didn’t take me long to get in over my head.

I will mostly be cycling on paved roads for this cross-Canada tour, but I will sometimes be on bike paths or gravel trails.  I use a couple of different GPS apps for bicycle routing to help me plan my routes.  On this day, both apps suggested staying off the busy Trans-Canada Highway and taking a bike trail instead.

The Sooke Hills Wilderness Trail is popular with cyclists and gets glowing reviews.  It looked like a great way to avoid traffic and enjoy some nature.  I broke camp around dawn and set out around 6:00 am to start my ride.  I figured that I could get some nice trail riding in early and then stop for breakfast somewhere in the Malahat or Shawnigan Lake area.  Things did not go according to plan.

It is definitely a beautiful trail, but it is entirely inappropriate for a fully loaded touring trike and trailer.  I was too wide and too heavy.  The path was too steep and had too much loose gravel.  It was a disastrous combination.

The hills were so steep that I frequently had to dismount and walk the trike up steep grades.  If I tried cycling up the hills and got stopped halfway up, it was difficult to get off the trike without it sliding back down the hill.  Getting out of the seat takes the weight off the front tires which have the parking brakes.  With no weight on these wheels, the tires had insufficient traction in the loose gravel and the trike would start sliding downhill despite the brakes being locked – sometimes dragging me along with it.  I was beginning to feel like the mythical Sisyphus rolling his boulder up a hill.

On the steepest hills, I couldn’t even walk the trike and trailer up because I couldn’t get enough traction with my shoes in the loose gravel to overcome the sheer weight of all my equipment.  At these hills, I had to disconnect the trailer from the trike and walk it up separately.  The combined weight of the trike, trailer, and all my gear is about 130 kg / 300 lbs.  With me riding on it, I am pedaling a total of 200 kg / 450 lbs.

I tried riding up hills with the trailer and bags removed to reduce weight, but could not get enough traction and the rear wheel would spin out in the gravel.  I also had to remove the trailer and bags to navigate a narrow suspension bridge.  I probably should have turned around and gone back to a paved road at that point but I continued on.

There is a theory, often quoted in relation to investments, known as the “sunk cost fallacy”.  Basically, we have a tendency to continue a behaviour due to the amount of resources (time, money, effort) previously invested even if the current costs outweigh the benefit.  It is a form of loss aversion.  So, for example, someone might continue pouring money into repairs on an old vehicle (rather than selling or scrapping it) because they have already spent so much that it would seem like lost money to give up now.  Or an investor might hold on to a stock as the price continues dropping because they invested more than what it is currently worth and don’t want to take a loss.  They will irrationally continue holding the stock and hoping for a rebound even when all indications are that the price will continue to slide and the unrealized losses continue to grow.

There were several points during my ride when I should have strongly considered turning around and going back to a paved road.  Every time I had that thought, the sunk cost fallacy would override my logic.  I would think, “I can’t turn back now.  I have already gone so far and passed so many obstacles.  Surely it can’t be that much further before I get back on a paved road.  Going back would be more effort than continuing forward.”  But it was much further, and there would be more obstacles.  The further I went and the longer it took, the more daunting the idea of turning back became.

I spent an entire day on that trail. I could have hiked it in a fraction of the time.  Dragging a heavy trike up a hill and then trudging back down to retrieve the trailer was tedious and exhausting.  There were also several points where I had to partially disassemble the trike to get past an obstacle. 

I didn’t have a proper meal all day.  I thought it would only be a couple of hours ride before I could stop for breakfast and buy some groceries.  Instead, I spent all day expending a great deal of energy with only water, protein bars, and some dried mangoes to sustain me.

Although I started the day with almost 8 litres (2 gallons) of water, I was rationing it by mid-afternoon.  By the time I got back to a paved road around 5:00 pm, I had become so weak and dehydrated that I couldn’t continue riding.  I was in pretty rough shape. 

I was very fortunate that some other cyclists came along and gave me water.  I didn’t catch all of their names, except for Derek who gave me a whole bottle of Gatorade to help replenish my electrolytes.  A short time later, some first responders happened to show up and one of them was a medic.  They checked my vitals and gave me some food and more Gatorade.  It took about an hour for the food, water, and electrolytes to kick in before I felt better.  The first responders really went above and beyond anything that I could have expected.  One of them lived nearby and let me store my trike in his garage overnight while one of the others drove me to a nearby motel to recuperate.  I owe a huge thank you to Adrian, Paul, Wil, Jesse, and Ryan, as well as the cyclists who stopped to help me before that.

Unfortunately, there was a major power outage in Malahat due to a truck knocking down the power lines over the Trans-Canada Highway.  The motel had no electricity and no water, but the highway was closed so getting anywhere else would have been difficult.  At least I had a comfortable bed and some food in my stomach.  That might be something that a person would often take for granted, but not me and not on this particular day.

Mile Zero – Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

My National Ride of Hope for cancer research begins from Victoria - the capital city of the province of British Columbia.  Located near the southern end of Vancouver Island, it is the western terminus of the 8,000 km long (5,000 mile) Trans-Canada Highway.  Fittingly, for the purposes of my trip, there is a Terry Fox Memorial adjacent to the Mile Zero sign at the start of the road.  All donations for my ride go directly to the Terry Fox Foundation.

Donate Here

I will be spending some time riding on the Trans-Canada Highway (it is the only option in some places), but will spend a significant portion of the trip on quieter roads, trails (including sections of the Trans-Canada Trail), and cycling paths.

I had beautiful weather and a beautiful city for the start of my cycling journey.  I spent much of the day making final tweaks and adjustments to the trike and trailer, and making some final purchases of items that I didn’t want to pack on the plane.  It was a rather late start by the time I got rolling so I only travelled about 30km today.

Victoria has lots of dedicated bike lanes and there were plenty of cyclists making use of them. I even saw a few trikes.  There are also a number of recreational paths that cyclists can use.  I used a section of the Galloping Goose Trail as I headed west out of the city.

The hills weren’t bad until I reached the Langford area and I began to have serious concerns about how much weight I am hauling.  Every touring cyclist knows that you have to pack light and learn to minimize.  That being said, I don’t have anything with me that isn’t going to get used.  I might have to make some compromises to shed some weight.  Anything up to a 5% grade was manageable.  Above that, it slowed me to a crawl.  Anything over a 10% grade, I treated like intervals.  Ride 40 or 50 metres, stop for a brief rest break, ride another 40 or 50 metres, etc.  It was very slow progress in those sections – slower than walking pace for sure.  I definitely miss my upright bike when climbing hills.  Even without standing on the pedals, I can generate more power and speed in an upright riding position than a recumbent one.  But things being as they are after my surgery, recumbent is my best option right now until things have healed better.

I pushed on through the evening until I was running out of daylight and then found a secluded spot to camp for the night.

The Odyssey – Let the Trials Begin

 I was recently reading The Odyssey by Homer with my book club. (Hello to all my friends at The Readwell Podcast Book Club ).  It had been planned in our reading schedule over a year ago, and it was a happy coincidence that the movie would be coming out right about the time we finished reading the book.

There is a section near the beginning (in Book 5 of 24) where Odysseus is given the option of remaining with the nymph Calypso on her secluded island, living a life of ease and with the promise of immortality and eternal youth, or leaving the island to make the journey home to his family and native land.  He is warned that if he chooses to return home, he will face significant obstacles and dangers.  Having already lived through many hardships, Odysseus is not intimidated by the challenges ahead.  He responds by saying, “… let the trials begin.”  

(There is significant variation in the wording depending on the translation of Homer’s Odyssey that you are reading.  I have seen spirited interpretations like “let this adventure follow”, and rather mundane ones like “so let this go with the rest”.  I prefer “let the trials begin”.)

It is in much that same spirit that I am embarking on my cycling trip across the country.  I have no illusions that it will be easy.  To the contrary, I know it will be hard.  There will be the expected challenges (steep hills, strong winds, foul weather) and the random unexpected ones like mechanical breakdowns.  You know they are going to happen, but you don't know what will break, or when, or where.

Heck, the trials started before I even left home.  Trying to gather together all the equipment and supplies needed for the trip, trying to figure out how to pack it, struggling with mating the trailer to the trike (something that should have been dead simple but it wasn’t because one had metric fittings and the other had SAE).  

Packing things up in a way that met the size and weight requirements for the airline involved rather significant dismantling of the trike and trailer, and the consequent reassembly in Victoria.  I diligently packed, repacked, and repacked again until I had everything safely stowed in three boxes and a hockey bag.  Everything seemed to be within spec, but it is rather hard to weigh a large box on a bathroom scale.  I got to the airport and found that I was 2.9 lbs overweight on one box.  I had to open two of the boxes and redistribute at least 3, but not more than 5, pounds from one box to the other.  With a little work, I managed to get both boxes one pound under the 70 lb limit.  (The total weight of my four checked items and my carry-on items was 257 lbs.  Yikes!  My equipment outweighs me by a pretty hefty margin.)

So, then I diligently taped the boxes back up to make them secure and headed over to the oversize baggage drop-off.  The security guy took one look at me and said, “Those boxes are too big for the scanner.  You need to open them up and unpack the contents onto these tables for inspection.”  Good grief!  There was no arguing.  Everything got unpacked and repacked again.  I have never used so much packing tape in one day before.

I was hoping that was the end of my frustrations with the flying part of the trip, but it was not to be.  I got automated emails when each of my four checked items passed security and went through baggage processing, four more updates when the items were loaded on the plane, but only three messages when they were unloaded in Victoria, BC.  Somehow, one of the checked items went missing between Toronto and Victoria.  I don’t know if it never got loaded on the plane or if they failed to unload it, but it was missing for about 12 hours before the airline found it and sent it on an indirect journey to reach me.

And which checked item went missing?  The trike, of course.  If it had been any other box, I could have spent the next day assembling the trike while waiting for the missing gear to arrive.  But without the trike itself, there was nothing to do but wait.

(Uh-oh!  I'm too wide for the hotel room door.)

So, the airline trials are behind me and the road trials are ahead of me.  To be perfectly honest, I’m not really in the kind of shape I should be in to pedal a fully loaded trike and trailer through the mountains.  My cardiovascular fitness is fine, but my leg strength is not where it ought to be for this kind of challenge.  But getting into that kind of shape would have taken weeks or months of training and Canadian summers offer only a brief window of opportunity for this kind of trip.  Also, as a long-haul truck driver I don’t have a lot of free time for exercise.

So, I will be training by just doing it.  The initial stages will be the most physically challenging, and not just because I need to build up my leg strength.  Cross-Canada cycling trips are almost always done from west to east to take advantage of the prevailing winds from the west.  That means starting in British Columbia and that means mountains.  Those steep mountain grades will likely be the “make it or break it” obstacles.

I won’t be logging a lot of kilometres per day until I can build up some more strength and get over those mountains.  Once I cross over the Rockies, my daily mileage should improve substantially.

Let the trials begin!

(Here's proof that three-wheeled vehicles are inherently prone to tipping over, especially when loaded in a way that makes them top heavy.  Luckily that one was a load speed incident in the grass.  No injuries and no damage.  It wasn't my first tip-over and it likely won't be my last.)

Who is Terry Fox?

Who is Terry Fox?  If you are Canadian, you already know the answer to that question.  If you are from another country, you might not be familiar with the name.

So, who is Terry Fox and why am I cycling across the country to raise funds for The Terry Fox Foundation?  Terry Fox is a national hero in Canada and has been my personal hero for my entire life.  I say that he "is" a national hero despite the fact that he died 45 years ago.  He left such an enduring legacy that it seems unfitting to relegate his hero status to the past tense.

Terry Fox was a young man from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia who lost a leg to cancer at the age of eighteen.  After enduring his own hardships and seeing the suffering of other patients (including children), he set out to raise funds for cancer research to improve the outcomes of cancer patients in the future.  In the spring of 1980, Terry started his Marathon of Hope - a solo cross-country run across Canada.  I was seven years old when Terry started that run, and I remember being absolutely astounded at the immensity of the challenge.  It boggled my mind that someone would even propose doing it.  I became a distance runner in high school, competing in the longer track events and in cross-country races.  I never ran a marathon.  The distance (26 miles or 42 km) is daunting.  Terry Fox was not only proposing to run a marathon, but to run one every day, 7 days a week, for half a year - and to do all that with an artificial leg.  This wasn't like the modern artificial limbs or prosthetic devices that we see athletes using today.  It was very basic by comparison.  Take a look at any video of Terry Fox and you can instantly see how awkward and ungainly it was to try to run with an artificial limb of that design.  

Photo credit: By Jeremy Gilbert - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3354942

Running any distance like that must have been tedious, painful and difficult for Terry.  But he did it anyway.  Mile after mile, town after town, day after day, for thousands of kilometres. He captured the heart of the nation and raised far more money than he could have ever expected.  I was transfixed by his journey.  

When I was a kid, dinner time in our house was 6:00 pm and that meant the whole family - no excuses, no absences, and certainly no television or other devices or distractions.  But once I became aware of his journey, I insisted on being allowed to watch the first few minutes of the six o'clock news before dinner to see the latest update on Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope.

Terry made it about halfway across Canada on his Marathon of Hope before falling ill and being forced to abandon the journey in September.  Cancer had spread to his lungs.  He only had a few more months left to live.  But he challenged the country to continue in his name, and Canada rose to that challenge.  The Terry Fox Run is held annually in September in communities across Canada and around the globe. It is the largest single-day cancer research fundraiser in the world.  I have been participating since I was a child.  To date, the Terry Fox Foundation has raised more than a billion dollars to fund cancer research projects across Canada and around the world.

I still participate in the Terry Fox Run each year, but this summer I wanted to do something bigger and more meaningful.  I still remember last year's run.  I was on the road, as I am typically am working as a long-haul trucker.  I couldn't be home for my town's Terry Fox Run, so I did my own solo 10 mile run in Washington DC.  Two days later, I got a phone call from my doctor informing me that I had cancer.  When I got back home, I faced a whole series of scans and tests to determine the extent of the disease and plan a strategy for dealing with it.  The diagnosis was Stage 3 prostate cancer.  I had radical prostatectomy surgery in December to remove my prostate (and some other bits and pieces).  So far, my follow-up tests have been good and I am currently cancer free.  That doesn't mean that I am perfectly healthy.  There are issues that I have to deal with now following the surgery that make life more difficult, but the main thing is that I am still alive and for the most part able to function normally.

I believe that I am sufficiently healthy and capable of cycling across Canada this summer in support of the Terry Fox Ride of Hope.  I am doing this ride solo as part of the foundation's "Ride Your Way' program.  My ride will take at least 2 months and span at least 8,000 km (5,000 miles).

My personal cancer outcome is better than it would have been for someone with a similar diagnosis back in 1980.  A lot of medical advances have taken place over the years since Terry Fox ran his Marathon of Hope.  Situations that used to be considered a death sentence aren't necessarily fatal now.  And the cases that are terminal often have longer timelines and better quality of life than was previously possible.  That didn't happen by accident; it happened because researchers have devoted themselves to finding better treatments.  That research doesn't come without a cost.  In the spirit of Terry Fox, I want to raise money to keep those research projects funded so that future generations will have even better outcomes than what is possible today.

We all know someone, perhaps multiple people, who have been affected by cancer.  For the people you loved and admired that had to face a battle with cancer, please consider donating to my ride.

My ride donation page:   https://ride.terryfox.ca/page/darragh

More of Terry Fox’s Story:   https://terryfox.org/terrys-story/#marathon-of-hope

Brief 1 minute video profile of Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope:
https://youtu.be/H2F9LbF_pF0?si=elWeRkoVhK-DBaEC

 

Taking a photo break during my 2025 Terry Fox Run in Washington D.C. 

2024 Terry Fox Run.  I was out on tour at the time but was able to sneak home for a few hours between stops for my town's run.

The kids were a little young for a 10km run back in 2017, so we biked it as a family that year.

The Terry Fox memorial in St. John's, Newfoundland in 2024.

How to Donate

All donations for my ride are made directly to The Terry Fox Foundation, a registered Canadian charity with an A rating from charityintelligence.ca.   None of the donation money is used to pay any of my expenses related to this trip.  Your donations will be going to cancer research, not to me.

My ride donation page can be found at:

https://ride.terryfox.ca/page/darragh

Look for the red "Donate" button on that page (see screenshot below).

For my supporters from outside Canada, please be aware that the donation link above processes donations in Canadian dollars and issues Canadian tax receipts.  You can still contribute from outside Canada, but your donation will be converted to your home currency by your credit card company and you might not be able to use the tax receipt in your country.  

So, for example, if you donate $100 at the page linked above and you live in the USA, your CAD $100 donation will be about USD $70 (depending on the exchange rate that day).  The conversion will be done automatically by your credit card provider and you will likely be subject to a currency exchange surcharge of about 2% to 3% by Visa or Mastercard.

As an alternative, it is possible to make a USD donation to the Terry Fox Foundation's partner organization in the USA and received a US tax receipt that would be valid for deduction on an IRS tax return.  To do this, mail a cheque to:

Friends of Terry Fox US

5900 Balcones Drive # 26587

Austin, TX 78731 

US donations won't automatically be attributed to my ride, so please send me a message and let me know the amount contributed to Friends of Terry Fox US.  You can email me at info@dnrh.org and I will forward the information to the Terry Fox Foundation in Canada so that they can adjust my tally of total funds raised.

Thank you to everyone who is able to support me, and remember to look after your own health.

My National Ride of Hope - transition from truck to trike

My name is Darragh.  I am a 52 year old truck driver and owner-operator from Ontario, Canada.  Last autumn, I was diagnosed with stage 3 prostate cancer.  After a successful surgery in December 2025, I am currently cancer free.  This summer, I am parking the truck and climbing onto a recumbent trike to cycle across Canada and help raise funds for cancer research.  

My ride is in Support of the Terry Fox Foundation and the Terry Fox Ride of Hope (Ride Your Way option).  Terry Fox has always been my hero, ever since I was 7 years old when I watch him on the news during his Marathon of Hope.  He is an enduring symbol of determination, perseverance, and selflessness.  I am proud to be doing this ride in honour of Terry Fox and everyone else who has faced a cancer challenge.  The medical advances that have taken place since Terry's epic run have been phenomenal, but there is so much more work to do.

The ride from Victoria, British Columbia to St. John's, Newfoundland will be about 8,000 km long (5,000 miles) and take about 2 months.  I will be riding a combination of roads and trails, often opting for the scenic option over the most direct route.

The initial stages of my ride through the mountains on Canada's west coast will be particularly challenging.  I'm not really in ideal physical condition yet following my surgery, but summer is the only time to make this kind of trip.  I'm still getting used to the recumbent trike which stresses different muscles than a traditional upright bicycle.  With the added weight of the trailer and all my gear, the combined mass of all of my equipment weighs more than me.  Hauling all that weight on level ground isn't too bad, but climbing hills and steep mountain grades will be tough.

We all know people who have been impacted by cancer - family, friends, co-workers.  I hope you will consider making a donation to help fund cancer research.  More research will help improve outcomes for future cancer patients.  All donations for my ride are made directly to The Terry Fox Foundation, a registered Canadian charity with an A rating from charityintelligence.ca

Donation link:       https://ride.terryfox.ca/page/darragh

For my supporters from outside Canada, please be aware that the donation link above processes donations in Canadian dollars and issues Canadian tax receipts.  You can still contribute from outside Canada, but your donation will be converted to your home currency by your credit card company and you might not be able to use the tax receipt in your country.  

As an alternative, it is possible to make a USD donation to the Terry Fox Foundation's partner organization in the USA and received a US tax receipt that would be valid for deduction on an IRS tax return.  To do this, mail a cheque to:

Friends of Terry Fox US

5900 Balcones Drive # 26587

Austin, TX 78731 

US donations won't automatically be attributed to my ride, so please send me a message and let me know the amount contributed to Friends of Terry Fox US.  You can email me at info@dnrh.org and I will forward the information to the Terry Fox Foundation in Canada so that they can adjust my tally of total funds raised.

Thank you to everyone who is able to support me, and remember to look after your own health.