While both the dirt and paved road surfaces were immeasurably faster than the gravel path, the steep long hills of Eastern PEI provided their own unique challenges, both in the accents and the descents. Although the couchbike had two independent drive trains, each with 144 different gear combinations, the gear ratios were disproportionately skewed in the high range. While our high gear was more than double that of a standard mountain bike, our low gear was only 7% lower than normal. So we struggled and sometimes had to push up the hills. Rolling down the other side, we were never brave or rather crazy enough to let the couchbike reach its maximum speed. Once, we let the speedometer creep up to 44km/h, but a palpable fear of death persuaded me to put the brakes on before we went any faster.
Another time, on a dirt road, I was too afraid to apply the brakes. I should never have let us go that fast to begin with, but we had reached the point of no return. Because of the inconsistent dirt surface, I feared that braking hard could cause us to spinout. As the couch hurdled closer and closer to mach speed, all outside noises became muted. I could still here Eivind's last words. "I'm scared", he said.
"Don't be scared." I replied with a calmness that was belied by my posture in the couch. I had assumed a sort of starfish stance on the cushions, my legs and arms spread out wide in preparation for attack from all directions. No sooner had I spoke those soothing words, than our worst fears were realized. One wheel jammed and the couch spun into a donut. The world swirled around us. Strangely, at that point, everything felt very calm. This was one smooth donut.
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