Montreal pair takes hard road to Cancun

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Published: March 20, 2003

CANCUN, Mexico – Delegates attending the recent Canadian Special Crops Association meeting in Mexico had the usual litany of travel complaints – long flights, airport delays, cramped seating.

That grumbling was quickly tossed aside as news filtered out about what Guy and Francois Raymond went through to get to the 17th annual convention.

It took the Montreal residents 42 days to arrive.

Instead of jetting to Mexico, the brothers pedaled across portions of three countries. They mounted their bicycles on Jan. 18, a day temperatures had dipped to Ð40 C with wind chill.

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“It was so cold we had to bike for an hour and then stop for half an hour because we were completely frozen,” said Guy, who co-owns a container stuffing facility in Montreal with his brother.

Francois completed the entire 6,500 kilometre trek but Guy “only” biked for 4,000 km because an old knee injury filled with blood in the early stages of the journey and it became too painful to continue.

He flew back to Montreal and had minor surgery on the knee, draining off the pocket of fluid.

“The doctor gave me some kind of pills and said, ‘with that, you won’t even feel your knee.’ And that’s what I did, I biked the last 21 days with pills.”

Guy took a plane to Dallas and then biked to the Mexican border, where he joined up with Francois for what remained of the trip to Cancun.

That final leg provided the most vivid memories for both adventurers.

Guy recalls an eight-hour, non-stop ascent of a mountain near Veracruz. At the peak, the cyclists were rewarded for their hard work with a breathtaking view of orange orchards as far as they could see.

“The funny thing was it took us eight hours to go up, 20 minutes to go down,” said Guy.

At first the Canadians had trepidations about biking in Mexico, concerned about running into banditos. But all they encountered were hospitable people who fed them amazing local dishes.

The worst that could be said of their hosts is that they sometimes treated the brothers as a curiosity, said Guy.

“We went to one village where they had never seen people with blue eyes before. Kids were coming up and saying, ‘oh my God.’ “

When the brothers arrived at their hotel in Cancun on March 1, the temperature was 70 degrees C warmer than when they started out.

They got to the hotel one hour before their wives arrived from the airport by taxi to start a two-week vacation.

About the author

Sean Pratt

Sean Pratt

Reporter/Analyst

Sean Pratt has been working at The Western Producer since 1993 after graduating from the University of Regina’s School of Journalism. Sean also has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Saskatchewan and worked in a bank for a few years before switching careers. Sean primarily writes markets and policy stories about the grain industry and has attended more than 100 conferences over the past three decades. He has received awards from the Canadian Farm Writers Federation, North American Agricultural Journalists and the American Agricultural Editors Association.

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