After reading Jan’s blog article about his recent trip back home to Belgium to visit his mom (and ride…and meet Philippe Gilbert), I got to thinking that I really shouldn’t put off seeing my own mère for another year, so, just like Jan, I looked for cycling opportunities to coincide with my trip back home in August. Thing is, there aren’t many sportives or famous cyclists in Gaspé, QC., so I decided to do a leg of my life-time plan of ‘cycling across Canada’ (I’ve only done one small portion of 600 km between Montreal and Toronto), which has been downgraded from ‘do it in one go’ to ‘do the good bits while I’m healthy and hope I’m too old by the time the Prairies come around’.

After posting a  plea on FB for some transport back from my hometown to Montreal, after the ride, my cousin asked a question on behalf of her daughter:

Why would you want to ride from Montreal to Gaspé?

I thought briefly about this, thinking an easy answer would pop up: it didn’t. ‘How’ would have been simple, even though I haven’t figured the logistics out yet. ‘Why’, however, threw me for a loop. My mind quickly concluded that to enter into such an answer with sincerity would be too long for Facebook and probably make my cousin think I’m stranger than she already does.

Of course answers came to me, like ‘for the challenge’ and ‘because it’s there’, but I didn’t want to ‘sound bite’ her, so I simply made a self-deprecating joke and left it at that.

But after waking up this morning with the thought still in my noggin, I knew I had to write something about it. I need to go for a ride this morning, so I can’t even begin to try and explain why I do the things I do – the story is too long and the origins most likely lost in the fog of my memory anyway. Of course I have some ideas about the answer and I am sure there were some key events/moments in my life that have nudged me onto the path that brought me here, looking at Google Maps and puncture-proof tires. But really, I have to get out for that ride…

So I’ll pose it to you, dear adventurous reader: why the hell do YOU do all those things your friends and family think are nuts?