June 13 2010:
Finally a day without hills! It was my last day before a rest from riding and my very last day in the mountains. In some ways, it was a bitter-sweet moment; the scenery of the Rockies and the triumph of cresting yet another pass versus the distance I can finally put behind me and no more days of utter exhaustion. But have I spoken too soon? The ride to Calgary was a fast one but also a very, very hot one. I could feel the air change as I came out of the foothills and hit the beginning of the plains. Even when the wind was blowing, there was hardly any relief from the heat. If that was a reflection of the exposure yet to come then I made need to figure out a way to carry more water. And more sunscreen!
The great part of the road was the speed I was able to build. On the flats I noticed that I could average 35 km/h! What a wonderful break from the 7.5 km/h uphill battles that were a part of every day in the mountains.
Besides riding today has been great for making contacts. I received a phone call from Melanie of the Brain Injury Association of Alberta. She wanted to welcome me to Alberta and make sure that I had a chance to meet a board member named Shelly to receive their donation. I was so surprised at their generosity and hospitality. It turns out that the BIAA takes a very active role in brain injury awareness and focuses much of their efforts on making contact with the public. Consiquently, the BIAA was very happy to hear of the brainStormRIDE and were very eager to help.
I’ll be staying here in Calgary tonight and tomorrow with the Sutcliffe family, who have generously offered to provide accommodation for me. The rest is going to be great, and I’m hoping that I can spend some time with my extended family here in Calgary. I am anxious to get back on track with my kilometers but I do need to remember that in order to keep going strong I will need to rest at some point. For now, it’s hard to think about the distance I’ve covered when I’m so focused on the distance I still need to cover. I guess that in order to not feel like I’ve missed out on the trip I need to stay in the moment and make sure I’m enjoying the journey. In Kelowna I met a guy at the bike shop there who told me that the only way to do a ride like I’m on is to “be zen” about it all. I’ve found myself repeating that over and over when I start worrying about the kilometers or the weather. I guess I’ll keep trying to be zen.
June 12, 2010
Brad has made it to Canmore Alberta. We have not gotten a log from him yet but we know he is staying with Stan and Kathleen Niemiec and their sons Sheldon and Zachary, long time friends, at their beautiful Chickadee Pines & Mountain Bed and Breakfast. http://chickadeepines.ca/
From Brad:
Today was the first day that I can literally say there was not a cloud in the sky! It was perfect weather, a great ride through the Banff Parkway, and has ended with a fantastic evening spent with the Neimiecs (our long-time friends) in Canmore. Today was also the day that I broke the one thousand kilometre mark! I was so excited to see those four digits. It was a real accomplishment for me, both physically and mentally. Physically, riding a thousand kilometres through the Rocky Mountains in only 11 days of riding is something that I could never have dreamed possible. Mentally, it means that I have made real progress in this ride, that I’ve overcome my beginner’s jitters, and that the most challenging elements of the ride are behind. It’s actually a bit bitter-sweet in some ways. I love being able to ride through the breathtaking scenery of the mountains, but the physical toll is huge in this terrain. I have no idea what lies ahead for terrain or for the people that I will meet, but after a day like today it’s hard not to be positive about it all.
June 11, 2010
After a day like yesterday the last thing I wanted to do was get up and ride again. Neither my legs or my saddle-sores felt like they could take another day, even if it was a regular length 85 km. But, despite a late start, my body soon found the rhythm again and I began the climb out of Golden through Kicking Horse Pass. The weather was on my side today and it was a comfortable and scenic road crossing and re-crossing and Kicking Horse River. I was rewarded for my climb with a beautiful, freshly paved downhill that brought me to my top speed for the trip: 65.7 km/h. Not bad for the boat I’m riding!
Yoho National Park had to be the highlight of the day, and also of the trip. It was a gorgeous ride through a valley system with the sheer rockies on one side and the river delta on the other. It made the kilometres just melt away into one postcard picture after another. Near the end of the day, just before the Alberta border, I ran into my first cross country soloist. Ben, from the UK, is riding his bike across the country for Help for Heroes, a charity created to help support veterans. “Why Canada?” I asked. “Because riding across the UK isn’t very impressive,” he said. That seems as good a reason as any, I guess. So I got to have a little company on the road for the first time. Unfortunately, the high passes left us a little breathless for prolonged conversation but the company was great. Our schedules don’t seem to mesh
very well but we will be riding to Canmore together tomorrow. After that we’ll be going our separate ways but it will be great to see how he does and to keep in touch with him as we cross the country.
June 10th
This entry comes one day late for a good reason. Yesterday was the single greatest distance covered in a day both on the ride and by me personally. I left Revelstoke knowing that I was in for a long day because Roger’s Pass stood between me and the next stop. What stop that would be I wasn’t sure but a look on Google told me I would have a few options around the 100km mark. A long day in the mountains for sure, but the only other option was Golden, another 45km out.
My run through Roger’s Pass had to be timed well since Revelstoke was forecast to have thundershowers in the evening while Golden was to have thundershowers in the morning. Between the two I figured there was a thin strip of decent weather that I could stay in. After the mountain experience I gained in the trip from Hope to Westbank I knew the best way to get through the mountains was to gear down, keep breathing, and wait it out. I also knew not to push it when it was flat even if I was feeling confident. There could always be a hill around the next corner that could do you in.
As it turned out, Rogers Pass wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, and in retrospect it wasn’t even as bad as the Coquahala. Not to say that I wasn’t looking forward to the little town Donald that was next on the map, but at the top of the pass I certainly felt good enough to keep going. That was when the trouble started.
Despite seeing Donald on my map, all the road signs referred only to Golden. A strange discrepancy but I also found some much smaller places that I could pull into. Maybe they were too small to be on the road signs? Well, I looked and looked for Donald and in the end the best I found was a forestry helipad called Donald. Hmm, what to do now? Donald was a bust, but maybe one of those other marks? I still had a little bit of gas and the road was reasonable now that I was out of the mountains. So, onwards.
Now, at this point in the day 45 km turns from half a day’s ride into four hours worth of riding, if I don’t stop. After picking up an hour because of mountain time, I was pushing 7pm and still there was no sign of anywhere to pull off and camp (legally or otherwise). With the road signs still reading 20 km to Golden, I hardened my resolve and tried to cut the potential 2hr ride down as close to 1 hour as possible. It seemed that there was only an endless stream of fast-food signs that comprised Golden. What if there was no town at all? What if I had pushed too hard to be able to reach somewhere safe before dark? At that point I was literally urging myself on, and I could only imagine what I looked like to motorists. I kept cursing the fact that I always had one more kilometre left. Why couldn’t I just collapse and justify a cab ride into town? But no, I knew I wouldn’t let myself get away with that, so on and on I rode. Finally, finally a motel, a room, a shower, a bed. And sleep.
