Category: bikes
The Kootenay Krusher is a bike race I’d vaguely considered riding, but decided I didn’t really want to spend the money on. It’s held at Nipika, near Invermere, BC (I’d never been there before, but had heard a lot about the summer and winter trails). Rather luckily, I ended up winning a free entry. And even more helpfully, the weather for the Organgrinder race (that was held the weekend before) was terrible, so I didn’t feel like I’d chosen the wrong race to ride. I had the Rundle’s Revenge coming up the weekend after, so I didn’t want to push too hard, but it seemed like the course didn’t have a lot of climbing, and I chose to do the 50km, and just ride at a comfortable pace and enjoy the scenery.
So we all headed down to Invermere, and on Sunday morning crawled out of the sofa bed (they don’t fit three very well when one is a wiggly toddler) and headed to the race. The Moosling was pretty keen to line up with me at the starting line, but sadly I just rode off on him when the horn blew.
True to what I’d heard, the course was a little rough in spots… but also smooth in spots… rocky in spots… along precipitous drops in spots… loose in spots… newly cut in spots… it’s a 25km lap, you get a little bit of everything. There was even a hike-a-bike over a bridge. It was even flatter than I was expecting though, and after the first 10km I only saw 3 or 4 people for every 10km of riding, so it was a pretty lonely course out there, and a little hard to stay motivated for racing. Particularly with the wonderful views available along some sections.
While I was out, the Moosling entered his own first bike race. Apparently he didn’t go too well – he quite happily lined up with all the other strider bikes, but when the horn blew he dropped his bike and ran to Papa for a hug. Eventually he rode some of the course at least, and scored a prize of sorts.
All-in-all, a nice relaxing kind of race, and a really fun place to hang out. I think I’ll be back to ride and ski the trails, but maybe not to do this race again.
The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing around Invermere, first at the Lussiere Hot Springs, and then with a short wander up Mount Swansea. There was a rocket (rocket-shaped tower) on top of Swansea that the Moosling was very impressed with, and quite keen to try and open the door so he could go to space, the Moon, or Mars – he wasn’t fussy.
Oh, and the end result from the Kootenay Krusher? I came second in my age group (just 4 minutes behind first!), and third overall woman.
The kind offer of a Moosling-sitter led to a cunning plan to check out some now-snow-free trails. We left the list of where we planned to go, and headed out the door.
A casual start up Quaite, and the awful steep rocky section didn’t seem so awful as I remember it being. Maybe not hammering up the start helps a little there. The trail was quiet, and we were starting in the morning cool. The descent down from Jewell Pass was a bit mucky in spots, but still fun, and no bears.
Riding across the boring fire trail sections to get to Mount Baldy, we started to hit the weekend crowds, out to hike the trails in this lovely weather. Unfortunately then the boring fire trail continued, as we climbed up to Baldy Pass. And it’s not even all climbing! The slightly tedious trail winds up and down before settling into a proper climb and some single track towards the pass.
After a brief pause for photos at the pass (for Alex to catch up, and for some photos), we headed down. Cautiously, as there were quite a few hikers out, plus one pile of avalanche debris to hike-a-bike over. Before long the trail had spat us out onto the road and we were heading back to Barrier Lake for a quick lunch stop.
Thankfully the hiking crowds had thinned a little by the time we were biking up Prairie View trail, which although wide and easy to pass on, is always a little painful. Apparently everyone was up having lunch at the summit, all the lookout points were absolutely swarming with people – who were fascinated by the fat tyres on Alex’s Moonlander, you can’t take him anywhere these days. We opted to continue on, and through a crowd of asian tourists (“Well done! Well done!” as I biked downhill past them), we finally made it to the Razor’s Edge turn off.
From there things started to go a little downhill (literally and figuratively), as Alex’s occasional leg cramps became pretty persistent, and he couldn’t really pedal much at all. I was completely unhelpful, with nothing to offer except suggestions that apparently pickle juice fixes cramps instantly. Not that we had any. The lack of flow didn’t do the trail any favours. Being quite technical, I find it hard to ride in a start-stop fashion, and ended up walking far too many sections that I possibly could have ridden. Nonetheless we did eventually make it back to the car in decent time, and have decided it’s a good little 50km loop close to home. We were both expecting the total elevation gain to be a little higher though, I could have sworn it felt like twice that amount!
Distance: 46km
Elevation gain: 1640m
Time: Around 5 hours
A return to Minnewanka with the Tout, because it’s a nice cruisy place for a family ride…. and this time it was actually sunny.
Distance: 30.5km
Elevation gain: 400m
It was around the time of the year when we start getting impatient to do longer rides. The trails in town are dry. Surely some of the trails further out of town are dry too? And so we set off up Skogan Pass, hoping the snow at the top would have cleared.
We didn’t get away super early, despite the threat of worsening weather in the afternoon. The scenic powerline trail was as scenic as ever, as we pedalled from downtown Canmore towards the Skogan Pass trailhead. The Tout Singletrailer has been making everything easier, even wide double track like this. The start of Skogan Pass was clear. Half-way was still totally fine. But then at that fateful bend to the south, just two kilometres from the summit, and the snow began.
After some silly antics to push the bikes through the snow, we gave in and walked. A kind grizzly had left tracks through the snow for us, so we didn’t have to do our own post-holing. Vicious sharp crystals in the snow tore at our legs though, rubbing them raw, red and angry.
At the pass it started to snow, so we briefly admired the view and then started the trek back downhill. The snow turned to rain, and for a while things got quite miserable , but the weather improved as we reached the bottom of the trail to the pass, and the sun started to dry out our soaking wet clothes. Once we hit Canmore the weather was downright lovely again.
Distance: 45km
Elevation gain: 1100m