Welcome to Greg Minnaar’s Tour of Terror. First stop: my shower.
Technically, he’s been making people shit themselves a little since he arrived at the bike shop two years ago. He didn’t have to try very hard either: he’d just stand there motionless, and people would jump. What talent. Apparently, he can also do backflips on a bike.
Last week, a colleague was about to eliminate him for once and all. As I was about to enter the break room, Greg took a nosedive in front of me from behind the doorway, jolting my heart.
“Wait. You’re getting rid of him? May I have him?” I asked as soon as I realized it was just Greg, and he was on his way into the dumpster.
The roomie had gone up island and was scheduled to return on Wednesday afternoon, just after I was to leave for my own trip up island. Greg seemed like an ideal choice to hold down the fort during the few hours that neither of us would be home. For maximum impact, I stuck Greg in the bathtub and closed the shower curtain.
A small part of me was concerned that the roomie wouldn’t respond well to my prank, but I’d also scrubbed the tiles and the bathtub, thus alleviating the potential backlash.
Why, yes, there is a strange man in our bathtub, but look at these sparkling tiles!
The true highlight of the week happened after I abandoned Greg: a second attempt to explore Gabriola Island, which Yann and I had initially endeavoured in 2022. Back then, Yann and I had been overly ambitious with our plan to explore the island by bike in just two days. Unlike the five other main Southern Gulf Islands, Gabriola is only accessible via the Nanaimo ferry terminal, 117km north of Victoria. The first time we headed to Gabriola, after the ferry deposited us just 700 meters from Descanso Bay campground, we found ourselves sapped of energy to explore further.
This time, we planned on staying an extra night. When I’d checked earlier in the week, the weather forecast looked splendid. However, by Tuesday—the day before our departure—the forecast had become a meteorological grab bag: rain, sun, wind, and even possible thunderstorms. It was also earlier in the week when an island-wide fire ban was issued, so there was no chance of rewarding ourselves with a cozy campfire at the end of the day.
With my Slovenia cycle tour quickly approaching, I took the erratic weather forecast as an opportunity to figure out what sort of clothes I might need. I packed every sort of layer imaginable, turning the contents of one of my panniers into a dorky capsule wardrobe. As it turned out, the weather indeed offered many opportunities for me to mix and match.
Weirdly, when we reached Duncan, I noticed a lot of nondescript signs stapled to utility poles that read “FIREWORKS”. The implication that fireworks are available for purchase is there, yet it doesn’t explicitly say so. I can only assume the ambiguity itself is the loophole.
The sun poked out of the clouds to offer some warmth once we hit Chemainus. Here I am modelling the simple long sleeve jersey/bib shorts combo. We stopped here briefly to scope the decay of the long-abandoned Artist’s Village housing co-op.
Here’s Yann modelling his tee and bib shorts combo before a vestige of said Artist’s Village:
There was a bit of rain and lots of sweating at the beginning of our ride, and the brief sunshine we did get wasn’t enough to evaporate the moisture from our cycling duds. Six hours of riding in damp bibs was a deeply upsetting experience for my poor buns.
I am known among my cycling buddies for my climbing ability, yet on several climbs, Yann glanced back to find me lagging a few meters behind him. Despite downsizing my chainring just a week earlier, I was not accustomed to pedalling a loaded bike up these hills. Unlike when riding an unladen road bike, my upper body was getting a workout from the constant micro-corrections needed to steer a hefty bike uphill. Maybe I haven’t been giving my road bike enough credit for my climbing prowess.
Anyway, Yann and I stopped at a bakery in Cowichan Bay for a petit-déjeuner. We both opted for a pain au chocolat, a much-loved treat from our Montréal days. Since moving away from Montréal in 2019, Yann and I have yet to come across a pain au chocolat as good as what we could get at the dépanneur around the corner from our Rosemont apartment.
This one came close. I rated it an 8/10, while Yann, the pure laine, scored it a 7. Then, out of that paper bag came a déjà vu moment as Yann produced a shortbread cookie. I hadn’t told him about Alexa’s shortbread tribulation from the week before (Yann rarely reads this blog). I declined his offer to split the cookie, and it turned out to be the right decision.
Our other grub stop was at the Ladysmith 7 Eleven, where I picked up a bottle of White Grape Wave Powerade. Its French translation, Vague de Raisin Blanc, tickled Yann.“Vague Grape,” he snickered. I’d also grabbed an apple fritter to split with Yann from the self-serve plexiglass pastry case. While shortbread cookies are apparently a gamble, apple fritters rarely disappoint. I rated this apple fritter an 8/10. Yann’s rating was a mere, “Yeah, it’s surprisingly decent.”
One of the perks of a long-distance cycle tour like this is how your caloric expenditure skyrockets. On Wednesday, for example, I burned an estimated 4,178 calories. A standard 7 Eleven apple fritter is 330 to 570 calories. I could have smashed eight apple fritters down my gullet and still been in a calorie deficit. It’s no wonder Yann and I were still in starvation mode the day after we returned to Victoria.
En route to Nanaimo, we happened upon a toy lion with gum in its mane.
8 hours 49 minutes, 113.71km, and 1,147m of elevation later, Yann and I found ourselves back at what I believe to be the exact campsite where we pitched our tents in 2022
Day two featured almost 6 hours of exploring Gabriola. We kept things relatively chill, covering 51.45km and 777m of climbing in 3 hours and 16 minutes. In that time, I decided that Gabriola was like a smaller Saltspring Island, but with friendlier drivers as most cars would move all the way over to the incoming lane to pass us.
Several of the gravel paths we came across were preceded by a Government of Canada “No Trespassing” sign paired with a contradictory sign showing the yield triangle, suggesting that pedestrians, cyclists, and horseback riders were permitted. We chose to obey the latter sign. The trails were mostly singletrack and flanked by vegetation, which meant the worst thing that could happen to this wobbly rider was falling into a patch of stinging nettle.
It wasn’t time that prevented us from doing a proper circumnavigation of the island, but my chafed buns.
We were in our tents by 8:30pm. Neither of us meant to spend the next ten hours holed up in our respective tents, but we’d gotten too cozy to get out again. I finished reading Dune and fell asleep with visions of galactic cults and sandworms. I was up by 6am and hurriedly packed up before any rain could touch my gear.
We were off Gabriola by 9:30am and spent yet another day adding and shedding layers. We skipped the Cowichan Bay bakery, only stopping in the village to use the public washroom by the Cowichan Estuary Nature Centre. These washrooms have two opposing Google Maps reviews. The negative one left by one “Pat Hand” reads: Use at your own risk. Toilet flusher does not flush. Filthy floor. Hand drier doesn’t dry. The officials responsible should be fired.
I disagree. The hand dryer did more than dry our hands. I stretched the front of my bibs to blast my damp bits dry. Pleased with myself and my now-dry bibs, I shared this tip with Yann, who then did the same. Worth it. I should leave a raving review as “Dry Mound”.
After disembarking the Mill Bay ferry, we found ourselves competing for space on the road shoulder with a group of cyclists. We found ourselves debating whether to pull ahead of their group or stay behind. For etiquette’s sake, Yann picked up the pace, and for about five minutes, it appeared that we’d dodged the awkwardness of being absorbed by their group.
Soon enough, they caught up and went ahead of us. Honestly, I felt blessed to have been swallowed up in their slipstream. The faster I could go, the sooner I could hop in the shower: Greg or no Greg.
Not surprisingly, the roomie had moved Greg into my bedroom, sticking him behind the door in a futile attempt to spook me. He remains in there, but facing the wall so that I don’t have to deal with a dark man-shaped shadow when I turn the lights off.
This week, I’m headed to Vancouver; Greg’s next stop is TBD.
More pictures from the Gabriola trip:
