Invigorated by two terrific days on the road to start The 7Cs, I was eager to have Brody catch up to me from his night up on the mountain and then rock and roll toward Kamloops on Highway 5A.

With his wonky knee I didn’t expect to go all the way to The Loops because I wanted to hang with him all the way to Little Fort to meet up with Clive. Turned out I hung with Brody all day all right. All day in Merritt.

He felt the knee needed more rest. I decided I might as well stick around the western-themed town because it should only take me two days to rendezvous with Clive on Wednesday. It also gave me an opportunity to get some much needed camping experience with an experienced hand nearby.

The Coquihalla shoulder gravel pits ate up the rear tire of Brody’s recumbent bike. So he wanted to find a bike shop to pick up a used replacement because he was uncertain if the one he had would get him to Kamloops. We found a place on the Internet called Breathe Bikes, but we couldn’t find it. We went to the address on the web and couldn’t see it.

So he headed to the Nicola Valley Aquatic Centre in the hopes the water would help his knee – and where he could get a cheap shower!

Well, the uninhibited and friendly guy our Brody is, had no qualms about starting up a conversation with another centre patron and he told him the bike shop was in the back lane. Hallelujah!

It was tucked into a garage. Not a gas station garage. It was a regular suburban home garage. After some digging around the owner and Brody found an old kid’s bike with the right tire size. The cost was only $5 if Brody wanted to take it off and install it on his own bike himself. No problem.

Then we headed to a park Brody spotted as a possible place to pitch our tent. He fixed up his bike some more and fixed some lunch for himself with some near little gizmos and gadgets to make a hot pasta, vegetable soup (see above). Resourceful guy.

While he was doing that, I shed my shoes and took my lily-white feet with the cyclist tan lines for a walk in the dandelion-filled grass.

Even though there was likely some city bylaws calling camping in the park beside a fast-running creek swollen with spring runoff a no-no Brody was totally comfortable with the concept of what he called ‘dirt-bagging.’ Me, being the old fogey I am, call it illegal camping.

While I ran off and watched some ball games, Brody found out from another new-found friend there was a campground in town with nice washroom, showers and, most importantly, WiFi. I was more than willing to pay the $20 fee even though I could sense Brody would have loved to dirt bagged like he did the night before high up on the Coquihalla.

While I move on Brody says he’ll rest another day in Merritt and then try to take on the trip in bite-sized pieces, 20-30 kilometres a day to start with. He believes it will take him a couple of provinces to catch up to Clive and I. The word is from other cyclists, knee injuries like his get stronger as the trip progresses. Here’s hoping that’s correct because it wouldn’t be the same trip without him.