A pedal hasn’t been pushed, a brake applied or a concertina button depressed and there’s already been a bit of a setback to The 7Cs before it even turns a wheel east toward Halifax.

Last week, Brody and Grant set out on a trial ride. The plan was to take the ferry over to Vancouver Island and visit Brody’s uncle on his mom’s side, Blair Mennegozzo, in Campbell River before returning via the Sunshine Coast. Tagging along was Brody’s fiddling friend Noriko with her tiny, tiny super-cute doggie Yumemi securely perched in a bag on the back of her bike.

The journey started well. The bonus was Blair and his wife Carmen were camping in Nanaimo. They were there to support their daughter Sumner at Vancouver Island University’s interior design program’s final show.

Rendezvousing with them was a matter of riding out to Horseshoe Bay (with a stop at Troll’s for fish and chips while Noriko cheated and took the bus) and then a leisurely ride – including a sun-soaked gelato stop on the downtown Nanaimo waterfront – to their campground site at the south end of the city. We had a nice night of pizza and kibitzing around the fire.

That fun and frivolity was followed by my first sleep in a tent in about four decades, something that will take this sexegenarian some getting used to. Rolling off an air mattress and then climbing out of a claustrophobic pup tent a few times a night to do you-know-what is rough on the old body.

The goal the next day was to get about halfway or a little more to Campbell River, some 160 km or more to the north. But just as a lunch break in Parksville came to an end, the clouds let loose and it began to rain. We forged ahead anyway. The precipitation was never that hard but I was a little water-logged by the time I rolled into Buckley Bay a little more than two hours later.

The weather, however, did clear up as I waited for Brody and Noriko to catch up. That was the good news. The bad news was there wasn’t a campground anywhere to be found. So we decided to push on the final 20-plus kilometres into Courtenay where I sprung for a motel room so we could dry out and freshen up with a shower.

Noriko was excited and extremely pleased with herself when she learned we’d ridden about 115 km that day. But after we got to Campbell River the next day (Saturday) all was not peachy keen. Brody admitted his right knee was bothering him and the long ride Friday probably contributed to the discomfort. We rested Sunday, and left Monday to return to Courtenay to take a ferry to the Sunshine Coast.

However, we only went 15 km before Brody called a halt to our little convoy, and called Uncle Blair. He was kind enough to pick us up in his pickup and take us to Departure Bay in time for the 12:30 p.m. ferry back to the Lower Mainland. Many thanks to another nephew, Daniel (Brody’s cousin), for taking a break from his UBC final exam studies to meet us at Horseshoe Bay with his monster truck and take Brody and his recumbent bike back to Burnaby while I rode home.

Brody has been resting the knee this week and keeping his fingers crossed he’ll be ready to roll soon.

I begin this epic journey on Saturday. It should take five days to join Clive just north of Kamloops in Little Fort next week. Clive is begining his journey from his home in Williams Lake. (We’re travelling via Jasper so we can visit with Cheryl and Blair’s brother Brian in suburban Edmonton. It’s also less hilly than going the Trans-Canada via the Rogers Pass.) Clive and I figure we should be able to ride 100 km a day or more all the way to Halifax.

For me, the Hope to Merritt section of the Coquihalla Highway with its steep hills will be the most challenging part not just of the early going but the whole trip.

Brody’s strategy was to take it slow and in small bites while I plowed ahead and he’d catch up with us on the Prairies. But Noriko has come to the rescue. She’s offered to give him a ride to the Coquihalla Summit so his knee will be spared the agony of climbing that hill and I’ll hook up with him there, hopefully on Monday.

For all three of us, though, it’s time to push some pedals.