a horse with no ...: Chris and the Home Depot ...

While preparing for this trip we read many blogs and books written by riders (not bikers) who had done something similar. Often the real adventure did not start for these riders until something went wrong, they get lost, something breaks and so on, this usually makes for better reading but also seems to increase the 'adventure' angle of the trip. Well ... read on.

Yep .. he is talking to a Harley rider

So, we spent the last night in Quebec and decided to head towards Ottawa, riding around Montreal and the F1 race. Often we will miss the big cities but decided today, Sunday, it would be an easy ride. Hitting the 417 in downtown Ottawa we found ourselves stuck in road works, as we began to move I noticed my front brakes catching, we pulled over to the side and then found that one of the two bolts which hold the front right break caliper on was gone and the disc had started to eat the caliper. We made a quick fix and re-joined the traffic using the back brake. We began scanning for bike/car dealers, found one off the motorway but it was closed. We got directions to an out of town shopping area and found the Home Depot (Band Q or Mitre10). As I was in the shop finding out they had nothing to help, a local rider called Chris rode up to Michael and began talking. Soon we were following him back to his house to meet his family, eat very well, sleep, wash clothes and then be driven around by his son Dan the following day to get the missing part.

Joan, Andrew, Louise, Chris and MPS

We met Chris's wife Joan, her Mum Louise, their sons Dan and Andrew and their partners Emily and Natasha. They all worked in a mix of IT and health care, had property around the world and a collection of small dogs. We can't thank these great people enough, they opened their house and family Sunday to two sweaty riders, provided a warm welcome and lots of great advice. Many thanks, a true highlight of the trip so far, it will be difficult to beat.