May 12 - just south of Comox

We are camped in an old woman's yard

I wiped out going downhill at 30km/h
my knuckles bleed
my side stings with road rash

spinach for iron tonight
fighting the tired blood
(can men be anaemic? - I want to know)

I am near exhausted
crashed down from adrenaline kick

Derek kind made dinner
I needed that
and I am happy
to be outside
in a tent

Gabriola Island

I am now on sunny Gabriola Island which has been great! We arrived on Monday night with Johnny's friend Jeremy joined us for a few days pf riding Which was a nice treat. He ended up being a big help as Johnny's knee has been a giving him a little trouble and Jeremy ended up taking the trailer for the day. Johnny seems to be doing better and has lightened his load until we get to Vancouver. Jeremy treated us to a lovely B&B called the Hummingbird, it was a little piece of paradise. Tonight is the house concert which promises to be really good, I will be looking out onto the ocean while performing. We are now heading into our first stint of solid biking and gigging, should be intense.

I will add more soon with pictures but the computer I'm on won't let me upload the pictures. I have been practicing this morning in a nice little shack that looks out onto the bay, life is really good.

Derek

So it Begins

I arrived in Powell River on May 8th after a wonderful train ride across the country. I was surprised at some of the landscape as I came across, beauty in places I was not expecting. Northern Ontario goes on forever but I always found myself peering out the window looking for animals and to see the littles traces of history, small towns, all telegraph wires slowly falling over. I met some really kind people on my journey. Keith is the the one playing guitar in the picture and Julia is playing fiddle. The dome cars are a great place to hang out, play tunes, play cards or just gaze out at the view. It will be nice to get together with Keith again on Salt Spring Island.

A hight-light was meeting Dorthea, and 80 something year old woman who had taken the train to Toronto just to see two Operas she had always wanted to see. We had a wonderful conversation over dinner while weaving our way through the mountains. It was inspiring to meet someone older who is so full of life and wanting to keep seeing the world no matter her age, I hope I continue to do the same as I grow old. I hope to see her at our show in Victoria.

Going through the mountains by train was a true joy. I find mountains are too imposing and full of splendor for words, they must be experienced. This is the view pulling into the station in Jasper!

Johnny and I have been getting all the final details together and head out on the road today, trailers and all. We are both feeling a little tense about what lies ahead with all the weight we are carrying and all the hills and mountains coming our way soon.

The show last night was a humble beginning to this monster event, a tiny place that has a great vibe and an audience that was with us the whole time. I get the feeling they will be following us as we cross, wanting to know how our jitters work themselves out.

Ok time to put some kilometers in our legs...

Derek

May 12 - Powell River - Kit's Home

And so it begins...

We spent yesterday running around like headless chickens, putting boxes of excess gear in the mail to be sent home, doing radio interviews with Jump Community Radio in Powell River and the CBC in Ottawa, practicing for hours and playing a show.

The show, at Local Loco's Music & Arts Cafe, was a modest beginning to a monstrous tour. We played to about half a dozen kind, supportive, good listeners. The timing was unfortunate because many of the employees of the cafe, and many regular patrons, were at a Fairies and Fools costume rave nearby. I don't really mind, though - both Derek and I needed to get some rust off and ease into touring. Here's a photo of us before the show:


So, last night was playing and today is cycling. If Derek has the challenge of discovering the gruel of playing every second night, then I think I get the short end of the stick discovering the gruel of cycling nearly every day with a heavily laden trailer behind me to power up hills with only my legs. I have not felt like such a weakling in years. My legs are fighting to get up hills as I huff and puff. I am beginning to wish I wasn't so poor while I was in Nelson, as training at the gym would've been a good idea.

We get on the 5:15pm ferry tonight out of Powell River, and will likely cycle an hour or so down the coast of Vancouver Island before looking for a place to camp for the night. Wish us luck! I, at least, I think, will need it!

May 3 - Poems en route from Vancouver, BC to Powell River, BC (3/5/07)

Staring at the Buildings in Downtown Vancouver

I actually feel an ache
at the sight of these buildings

every one
a dilemma

so much destruction
to hold our numbers
make room for our parasitic breeding


I hate them
and they are necessary

knock one down
and thousands die

(I was confused when the twin towers fell -
joy at the collapse of the buildings
grief at the loss of life)

sympathy for
and pride in your species
is hard
when you feel the mess we've made
as an ache
while observing our "progress"


Observing the Mountains, Sea and Sky

I try to imagine
what forged these mounds of rock
jutting out of the ocean

I can't

I can't see the plates
the ancient movements
the dawning fires
meteor crashes
ages upon ages of erosion
growth and death
and growth and death

but I can see their age
the forging time has brought upon them
the reasons we admire them
and desiring to be surrounded by something greater
something beautiful
misguidedly put our mark on them
ride them
climb them
and die on them

we are young
insecure
teenagers - perhaps only kids
in time

we want to be grown-up
want to be treated so
but can't be trusted with the responsibility
of not allowing the house we grew up in
to be trashed

we haven't learned the knowledge of the earth yet


Is Honour Really So Rare Today?

I gave the bus driver the dollar I owed him
he said it was the first time
somebody did

This made me feel good, yet bad
is honour so rare today?

Of all the people who have bought
a fifty-one dollar ticket
and received a ten back from him
with a request that they make change on the ferry
and give him a dollar when they reboarded
surely I am on the poorer end of the spectrum

Yet I remembered
I could afford it

Is honour really so rare today?


Remembering Philosophic Conversations with Jeremy

The joy of the wanderer
is variety
many loves
reunions
moments

I am thankful
for fresh loves
found in new faces

I am always thankful
to have not lost too many friends
to have chances to reconnect

I am thankful for generosity
love old and new
when it is definitely needed

The sorrow of the wanderer
is departing
these loves
reunions
and moments


Coelho, from The Alchemist

He knew that shepherds, like seamen and like traveling salesmen, always found a town where there was someone who could make them forget the joys of carefree wandering.


On Being a Traveler

We wade through oceans, looking for oysters, finding a few here and there, and ultimately hoping one contains a pearl that we can hold onto.

"The green way to tour — cycle across Canada" (Ottawa Citizen, 01 May 2007, Page C8)

The green way to tour — cycle across Canada

LYNN SAXBERG

Winter, spring, summer or fall, you hardly ever see Derek Olive without his bicycle helmet. The 31year- old musician moved to Ottawa from Montreal two years ago, and already has fond memories of biking alongside the Rideau Canal — while others were skating on the ice.

A passionate environmentalist, the singer- songwriter- guitarist commutes by bicycle, year round, to his job as a guitar and banjo instructor at the Ottawa Folklore Centre. Sure enough, his helmet is on the table when we meet for a healthy lunch at the Wild Oat eatery in the Glebe.

Chat with Olive for a few minutes and you’ll hear about his music, as well as his longdistance bicycle adventures in Eastern Europe, Mexico and the Atlantic Provinces. He obviously loves cycling, which he sees as one way to lessen his impact on the planet.

Olive and fellow Ottawa musician Johnny Eden are about to embark on a tour that will put their concern for the environment into action. The pair plans to spend four months cycling between concert dates across the country.

They meet up next week in Powell River, B. C. to start the 6,500- kilometre journey they’re calling Musicycle. Eden is already out west.

What’s driving them? Eden’s website lists a few reasons, including the environment, the Canadian experience, exercise and well- being, and the urge “ for an extraordinary life.” In Olive’s case, a large part of it is environmental guilt.

“ I love playing music and I love the musician’s life,” he says, “ but the environmental aspect is something I’ve been involved in for a long time as well, and really wanted to figure out a way to tour as a musician that I didn’t feel guilty about.

“ That’s really what down to.”

Olive, who records and performs his own acoustic guitarbased jazzy folk music, was contemplating the idea of touring by bicycle when he happened to meet Eden, a singersongwriter- guitarist who roams the country, often by Greyhound bus. He had the same idea; it made sense to join forces.

Olive has plenty of experi-

it came ence in planning bicycle trips, and didn’t mind approaching potential sponsors, while Eden has booked many of his own tours. His wandering spirit has earned him billing as “ the last troubadour.”

Eden did an impressive job assembling the Musicycle itinerary, lining up more than 60 concerts in cafés, pubs, living rooms, art galleries, community halls and other venues across the country. They pedal through 17 stops in B. C., another dozen or so between Black Diamond, Alta., and Winnipeg. A dozen more through Northern Ontario, followed by eight in Eastern Ontario ( and West Quebec). A handful through Quebec, and then a dozen dates in the Maritimes.

The grande finale is scheduled for Petite Riviere, N. S. on Sept. 8.

Olive deserves credit, too, for the sponsors he’s managed to round up. Hull- based bicycle manufacturer Eclipse is supplying the two- wheelers, VIA Rail is comping a train ticket to B. C. ( for Olive, departing Friday), Mountain Equipment CoOp has thrown in some camping gear and John Pearse is supplying guitar strings. Instruments and gear will be transported on Yak trailers towed behind the bikes.

The final details...

So many things to do these days before I set off for Vancouver. I am looking forward to the train ride to relax a little before the first show in Powell River, it is a little daunting seeing the distance I am going to be riding for the next 4 months unfold before me slowly on the train.

The list of good things going on is so long I don't even know where to start, but how about on the musical side. I picked up my new guitar last week which was a great joy! Here is a picture of Richard Paxton and I, the guitar builder, at Sand Dunes Park with my new guitar.

I picked up Johnny's and my bikes last week as well! My old touring bike had so many Km on it that it needed to be retired. The first ride that I got to do on my new bike was to meet Lynne Saxburg of the Ottawa Citizen, to top it off it was in the rain! I hope this isn't a bad sign of weather to come... I'm just on my way to pick up the Citizen to check out the article, more about it later.