MAPLE SYRUP

It’s 4am and I’m wide awake in a rudely uncomfortable chair, wedged between the animated snoring of an older bloke from the isolated tip of the Coromandel and the relentless armrest of the middle aisle. But despite the intricacies of my current position, I’m content. These are the least of my worries, because at the end of this leg I will be in the Land of Maple Syrup—the home of the Chainsaw Massacre, Stevie Smith, and my home for the next 10 days—all in the name of riding bikes. It’s a place that has sat long, hard and not so patiently on my bucket list, as I imagine it has for a lot of mountain bikers. Canada is a curious place. On the surface it’s a beautiful melting pot of rivers and mountains, streams and bears, but as a neighbour to the behemoth of the US, it naturally inherits many of its traits. Cars are big, roads are big, food is big, bears are big—but that’s half the charm. The contrast