July 15, 2010North American Tour

Hey there, dear Altitude-blog readers!

My name is Rémi. I'm a French student that will soon be graduating from the École Polytechnique de Montréal. You're reading the first article in a long series...that will tell the story of my cycling adventure through North America. Yup, once I get that diploma, my career (anti-crisis) plan is to go ride a bike!

"What an absurd idea" you might be left thinking...well please note that I've been surrounded by bikes since my entire life : I wasn't a year old when I started playing with my parents' tire levers when we'd go on bike tours in Averyon. Today, I've grown a little and I have a deep thirst to see me some countryside. North America in particular! The North America where it rains, the North America where you get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere...and not the North America of airports, nor the souvenir shops of Old Montreal...

The trip isn't well planned yet: my departure is dependent on my graduation, not to mention administrative formalities... speaking of bothersome things, I've already got a setback: my tourist visa request to the United States was rejected! Apparently, I haven't shown enough strong bonds with a country other than the US. I'm not giving up though and I'll be presenting a new request as soon as I have something to assuage US Immigration's fears that I might stay there (Although frankly, they don't know what they're missing!)

I haven't planned everything out yet, but luckily, I have a good idea about where I'll be heading and the places I'll see. The plan is to go down the East coast until Key West (at the end of Florida), then head West until California. Once there, go up to Vancouver, cut East through Alberta, then South to Yellowstone (we'll see what we can do about the Rockies!) Finally, I'll go check out Mount Rushmore and I'll come back along the Great Lakes. Basically, I'm just doing Montreal to Laval, but via Boston, Miami, San Francisco, Vancouver, Chicago and Gatineau. Just a slight detour. You have the right to think I'm crazy.

The coming months, you'll be able to follow my preparations, my departure and trials tribulations adventures that will ensue. Write you later!

Rémi

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