A young man from Lyon, France found himself taking a well-deserved rest in Williams Lake on March 9 and 10.
Edouard Klein, a 26-year-old looking for adventure was finding it on two wheels using pedal power.
Klein left Ushuaia, Argentina on Oct. 6, 2022, and has been riding his bicycle towards Alaska ever since.
Well, with some stops in between. He spent the two nights in Williams Lake to rest after coming from Whistler on the Duffy Lake Road, a tough route by bike which took him six days to complete. He wanted to rest before the long push to Quesnel and then Prince George.
The trip is his first bicycle tour, but the route is one he was inspired to do by a Dutch cyclist who wrote a book about the journey.
Klein plans to write his own book about his trip, with the goal of possibly inspiring others.
He is heading north before most cycle tourists take to the roads in Canada, but he waited in Vancouver for a month for the weather to improve and he only has so much time on his visa, so he will to head north while he can.
The young man has been loving the trip so far, and despite the colder conditions, had nothing but positive things to say about the route.
Over the 17 months of travel, he has had only two negative experiences he could easily recall. Once, people along the road in a country in South America warned him of robbers blocking the road ahead. He took their advice and got a ride around the blockade.
Another time, in Panama, he was shocked to find a snake in his coat, but he was staying with some firefighters, who immediately dispatched the animal.
He said the many amazing experiences far outnumber the scary ones, and he had some truly memorable moments along the way.
He was able to attend a 2022 World Cup soccer match between France and Argentina.
Once he came across an Indigenous blockade in Peru. Protesters had him sing some revolutionary songs before they let him pass on his bicycle.
He visited the world-famous salt flat Salar de Uyumi in Bolivia, which he described as “magical.”
So far he has been interviewed by reporters in Bellingham, Washington, in Nicaragua, in Mexico, and now in Williams Lake.
Klein is the first of many bicycle tourists who will make their way through Williams Lake over the course of the cycling season, and incredibly he’s not the first of this season.
Another cycle tourist he was in touch with has already passed through Williams Lake over a week ago heading north.
The lakecity is a major centre when you’re travelling at the pace of a bicycle. Those travelling to or from Bella Coola or heading north-south, stop to resupply and rest on their journeys.
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