I’ve had a lot of questions about how three major current events might affect my trip. One thing they have in common is that they are all beyond my control. Here’s a really quick update:

1 Wild Fires: this is the big unknown, because the situation can change so quickly. The issue is all about air quality. As any cyclist will tell you, you tend to do quite a lot of deep breathing when you’re riding a bike. Right now, however, there are no new wildfires in the East and the air quality has improved a lot from where it was last week. Hopefully this trend will continue over the next fortnight. The EPA website in the US rates most of my route from Nova Scotia to halfway into North Carolina as ‘moderate’ at present, one level worse than ‘good’. The rest of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida are all ‘good’. Spare a thought for parts of British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec, where the air quality rating is two levels higher than that, at ‘unhealthy’.

2 Strikes: here’s the strike schedule for summer flight disruption at Heathrow Airport. The day I’m leaving from LHR, June 28th, is unfortunately a security staff strike day. Of course this is a worry, but from what I can gather it’s supposed to mainly affect flights to/from Terminals 5 & 3, and I leave from T2. Fingers crossed that I’ve understood that correctly! If you are also expecting to be flying from LHR this summer, I’ll have everything crossed that your journeys aren’t too badly affected.

3 El Niño: It’s now been confirmed that this is definitely an El Niño year. I’ve been worried that it would mean even higher temperatures and more storms along my route this summer, but perhaps oddly the opposite is expected. Lower-than-average summer temps and a “less active hurricane season for the US & Canada” (Weather Network) are predicted. They also say that the most significant risk in the northern hemisphere is that it can lead to brutal winter weather, and drought.

I can expect to see a lot of Sargassum seaweed on the beaches down south, especially in Florida. Many beaches have clear-up operations that try to control the problem, but that still leaves a lot of coastline that won’t get cleared. Sargassum seaweed in such large quantities can harm ocean life if left to rot, and also smell terrible. Luckily I always carry a few clothes pegs in my panniers. The strategy of just using a clothes peg, in my opinion, is right up there with many of the climate crisis solutions offered by our various elected leaders.

I shall be channelling John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons when coping with these three problems, as well as any new ones:

And lastly, Happy Birthday to the Bicycle! In 2017 we celebrated this day together in Canada, and it was the 200th anniversary back then. Which means we’re now at 206. Many happy returns.