Battle Mountain – 2014 – Human Power Team

Battle Mountain – 2014

[av_heading tag=’h3′ padding=’10’ heading=’Battle Mountain – 2014′ color=” style=” custom_font=” size=” subheading_active=” subheading_size=’15’ custom_class=”][/av_heading]

[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Wednesday morning we did fly out of Schiphol to Vancouver. We had to Check in the Velox and 3 pieces of heavy luggage, at the counter they had to look up what to do with the bike. But we didn’t have to pay extra.

Now it was 2 hours of waiting before the plane left. Then 10 hours of sitting in a completely booked plane. But I must say we had a really good flight. Next was the Custums in Cananda there was a long line and after 45 minutes that was done also.

Now to the luggage bellt, the bike was already there and seemed to be undamaged, it did take another 20 minutes before the other luggage was there.

Now the fun started to try to navigate the bike true some narrow gates. But they did open a special gate for us and we where out fast.

The next problem was to find the car rental this was a walk off about 15 minutes.

I had booked the car in advance and did look if I could use it in the USA, what it did say I had to pay extra for it.

After 30 minutes of waiting the Minivan arrived we did have a good look at the price and couldn’t believe what it did say 2800 dollars (I had booked it for 1400 dollars)

We cancelled the car and walked up to some other companies,with the first 3 you also had to pay extra for the car, a few didn’t have any cars left, but the next one had a minivan.

I asked for the best price he told me 750 dollars (I new there where coming some taxes with it and other costs) after some negotiation we came to a total price of

1425 dollars this was included 2 drivers, full tank off gas, navigation we found out in the car and a really good looking almost new minivan.

This was after almost 20 hours a no sleep the first day in Canada started nicely.

Now we had to drive to our Hotel in the City center of Vancouver this was only 14 km. And after 30 minutes we were there but no parking spot.

We did find a parking house and for 16 dollars we could park the car there and walk to the Hotel that was only one block away.

Just around the corner we did see a nice restaurant and decided to eat there after we checked into the Hotel.

Ellen had a good night of sleep I almost couldn’t sleep.

The Next day we decided to drive to Portland and visit Teracycle.

After a few hours and a lot off traffic jams we arrived at the USA border.

Of course we had to fill in some forms and pay for them, now we could drive over the border.

Around 15.00 we arrived at Terracycle and just saw a a familiar face leaving, we weaved at him he waved back, but he didn’t connect that is was us.

We met the owner of Terracycle (Pat).

He had some new Chain idlers for us so, we still used the idlers given on the previous visit.(more then 5 years ago). We took the Velox out of the car and unpacked it for the first time after the flight. It had only a small crack at the rear wheel opening. Nothing that couldn’t be repaired easy.

I mounted the new idlers and also all parts that I did remove for the flight, the bike is now ready for the race (it is so easy if you have al the tools available) .

Pat did take us out for a meal at a libanees restaurant this was really nice but to much food.

Back at the shop of Pat we had to look for a Hotel we found one but it was still a 30 minutes drive where we arrived at 22.00 hour. I could sleep really well that night.

Next morning we had a American breakfast and left around 8.00 o clock driving to Crater Lake about 240 miles.

We arrived there around 12.00 after a nice drive true the mountains.

This lake is an old Volcano and is 10 km across and the deepest lake in the USA over 500 meters deep. This Lake is incredibly Blue.

Now we are staying in Klamathfalls and tomorrow we have a 6 hour drive to BM.

[/av_textblock]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply