Category: bikes

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bikes canada general

I love the High Rockies trail

The High Rockies trail is absolutely wonderful. So far it’s just been constructed from Goat Creek to Buller Creek, although the other half is in progress this summer and is due to link through to Elk Pass when complete.

It’s part of the Trans Canada Trail, which is pushing for completion of a full trail link across the country in time for Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations next year.

Eventually the idea is that the High Rockies Trail will be a destination long-distance trail for our part of the world. There will be camping facilities for thru-hikers. There might be shuttle buses and that kind of thing. And there will definitely be a lot more people out there enjoying the ever-excellent Kananaskis Country.

But in the meantime, we have a great trail that is currently unsigned, unadvertised, and really fun to ride.

So fun to ride that I somehow ended up riding it three times in a week. That may have been overdoing things a little – or maybe not!

It’s a wide, machine built trail. Not wide enough that you could ride side-by-side, but wide enough that passing others isn’t really an issue. And although it’s wide and easy riding, there are still some steep or rough sections that are harder than you might be expecting.

There’s plenty of climbing – but that means plenty of fun descending. And it rides really well in both direction (although for slightly more downhill, head north).

The most scenic section is the few kilometres north of Buller. That’s where you’re out in the open, crossing scree and talus fields.

Most of the rest of the trail is in the forest – it’s still fun and beautiful, but most of the photos you see are from those few kilometres near Buller Creek.

Distance/climb:
Driftwood – Buller Creek (34km return, ~878m gain)
Canmore – Buller Creek (80km return, ~1760m gain)

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bikes canada general trip reports

Salty Dog – solo once more

For the last couple of years I’ve raced the Salty Dog* in a pair. This year I was worried about my knee, and rather than risking letting down a team mate, I decided to just sign up solo again.

I was really looking forward to the drive all the way back out to Salmon Arm after we just drove back from Squamish six days earlier (Note – I was not actually looking forward to this). But at least I had a road trip buddy! Kat and I were racing in the same category, as I had managed to convince her to sign up for the race without her actually realising what she was signing up for (she trusts me?)

We’d arrived in Salmon Arm, checked into the Podollan (because we were being fancy, and not camping for once), and were cleaning our bikes. And that was when I realised the back wheel was wiggling about in a way that didn’t seem good to me.

I borrowed a cluster tool from some of the other Salty Dog racers milling about the place, it failed to help, and Kat phoned up Skookum Cycles for me – they were technically closed, but would try and help me out if we could get there within five minutes. We threw the bike in the van and hurtled downtown.

The lovely bike mechanic dismantled my wheel, said something about some threads being a bit stripped, cleaned it out and re-assembled it, saying “It should be good for tomorrow, but you should get it fixed afterwards.” Phew!

The race summary basically goes: It was warm and dusty, I did seven laps. My rear wheel had been getting a bit loose, and I’d been re-tightening the thru-axle thingy every couple of laps. But on the sixth lap the lever on the thru-axle flew off and I couldn’t find it. I took the descent easy, then had another hunt for the lever on my seventh lap. I still couldn’t find it, and my rear wheel was starting to feel a bit off. My gears were skipping a little. I was remembering that time in Singletrack6 when my wheel actually fell off.

When I made it back to the tents, I took everything into account, and decided not to try for an eighth lap. I found out afterwards that I’d passed the leader in my category (Sport <40 women) at the top of my last lap, and clinched the victory on the descent. Woo! Meanwhile, Kat had polished off six laps in her first MTB race, ending up in third.

This really means that I’ll have to sign up in the Expert instead of Sport class next time I do something like this – although now I’ve finally mastered one-finger breaking, I’m closer to feeling like less of a fraud if I call myself an expert (now, to just master turning with my feet in the right place)

*Mountain bike race where you ride laps of an 11km course for six hours, commonly ridden by many Canmore folk as a season starter.

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bikes canada general trip reports

Squamish bike trip

A week long get away to ride bikes in Squamish, where the trails are many and the nachos are delicious (well, at least the nachos we were making for ourselves in our vacation rental were absolutely wonderful).

After riding in Kamloops on the way over, we started to hit up some of the local Squamish trails.

Sadly I wasn’t feeling super great all week – still recovering from being sick, maybe low on iron? Who knows. But everything felt way harder than it should have done.

Our only group photo, taken at the top of Rupert. It’s a super fun trail which I would have loved to ride again. One of the sad things about road trips is when you’re so busy trying all the trails you often only ever ride favourite trails the one time.

No-one fell in the swamp.

Or fell down the rocky descents (at least on this day).

There were gorgeous views, and scary slabs to ride. And fun slabs to ride.

Bike maintenance was performed in the yard, and we bled my brakes successfully, hurrah!

Half Nelson was one trail we did go back and ride a few times. It was nice to relax with some simple flowy fun after some of the more challenging trails.

It was definitely beautiful riding out there though.

And I may have joined an awesome redheaded green-themed sponsored racing team.

Angry Midgets was a fun trail, but flamingos and disco balls would make any trail great. I feel like there’s a great lack of flamingos and disco balls on most trails these days, and feel like something should be done to address this.

Our vacation rental was gloriously furnished. Who doesn’t love gilt furniture?

In related news, I’m anticipating release of my mountain biking themed glamour calendar in time for Christmas.

We also headed out to Pemberton for a day. Views were spectacular, but we weren’t won over. Maybe we just needed a rest day.

The uphill had many switchbacks. So many. Fine if you’re feeling switched on, not great if you’re feeling a bit tired and not entirely with it. I started to feel demoralised. And then the descent began.

It did not go entirely smoothly. But at least the ride up at Whistler afterwards was great, and the meal and beers at the Whistler Brew Pub afterwards was even better.

Last day had us back in Squamish. A couple of us decided to ride up to Elfin Lakes, on the basis of not looking at the trail report and assuming because it was warm there would be no snow. There was no snow for a few kilometres, then there was more and more snow.

Because we’re both stubborn, we kept going, even though there was no way the snow would clear as we got higher into the alpine. On the plus side, surfing your bike downhill through snow is actually pretty fun. Then it was a long descent on some terrible (Powersmart) and some great (Fred, Half Nelson) trails, to give us a 26km day with 900m of elevation gain, that really felt like it was much longer.

Fun times.

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bikes canada general hiking moosling

Saturday adventures

I went out to ride with Kat along the Lake Minnewanka trail, which was in great shape. Clear all the way to the warden’s cabin, with just one fallen tree.

A lazy start meant that we were out on the trail along with quite a few hikers and other bikes, although mostly on our return. We ran into some bird watchers too, and slowed down to spend some time trying to spot a bird that I cannot recall the name of.

Meanwhile the menfolk stomp up Ha Ling, which was also in great condition apart from the band of snow at the treeline.

This year brings another warm and early spring.

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bikes canada general moosling trip reports

A grand Moosling adventure II

The last time we tried this was June 20, 2015. It was at Finn’s suggestion back then, and that was how it happened this time around too. We were tossing up ideas about where to hike when he declared he wanted to ride to Banff to get icecream. Ok!

Back then he was on 14″ wheels, his Spawn Gremlin (the equivalent of the Spawn Furi these days). It’s a great little bike. But now he’s upgraded to the Spawn Savage 1.0, with 20″ wheels, gears, no suspension, nice and light. He’s working on trying to change the gears while riding, but that’s still a bit too tricky for him – instead he stops, and I help him.

We hit the road, and it was far easier than it used to be. The big wheels spin so much faster. A picnic and lego break at the Valleyview picnic area was our only stop, aside from that we just kept churning along. We rode and chatted, and he yelled at me when I tried to sing. The 25km took just three hours, which knocks an hour off his previous time. Ah, what fun to be able to ride together.

And shockingly, the whole thing finished up with icecream.