Tom Gilligan is a retired psychologist. The death of his father precipitated a change in his career from marketing to psychology, a change that required many years as a full-time mature student attending various universities in Canada. During that time, he became separated from his two children. This memoir tells the tale of his solo journey across Canada on a used bicycle to rejoin them. He lives on an island off the west coast of British Columbia with his wife and a large dog. He has published articles in professional journals and written many psychological reports about others: this is the first time that he has told his own story but it won’t be the last.

This is what he had to say about himself:

I was born in England 1941. I was a keen cyclist in my youth and rode my amazing “Hobbs Barbican”, fixed gear, lightweight bike, everywhere. I was a solo rider and never joined any kind of organisation. I simply saw my bike as a means of transportation, exercise and joyful experience. At age 20 my bike riding days ended when I emigrated to Australia, and then emigrated to Canada, where I now live. It took 25 years before I rode a bike again but when it happened, I certainly made up for lost time.

In 1985, I was 44 years old, living in Vancouver on the West Coast of Canada and separated from my two children, who were living in Toronto, over 4600 kilometres to the East. I had limited funds and no income coming in, but I wanted to rejoin them. I knew that I could ride a bike and had been a boy scout, and with that in mind, I bought a used bike (A Raleigh Touring bike) off the notice board of the local supermarket and a tent. And then I cycled from Vancouver to Toronto to be with my two children.

I remember that the roads were relatively empty, compared to now. It was a very isolated and intense experience in those pre digital days …no cell phones, internet, computers, chargers and most of my friends thought that I was mad to have devised such a scheme. But I made it, cycling and camping along the way, by simply following the TransCanada Highway. It took 44 days, including 6 rest days. I kept a journal (that I still have today) and made notes of things that happened and the profound effect that this bike journey had on my life.

And now, at 83 years of age, as my greater journey begins to enter its final stages, I remembered that bike riding experience and have written a book for my children and grandchildren to know something of my life and what it was like to ride across Canada on a bike, when it was a relatively unknown thing for anyone of sane mind to be doing