Categories
bikes canada general

one and a half hours of very little adrenaline and a nice cup of tea

Friday was supposed to be a climbing day, but a sick climbing partner meant that instead I lazed around the house for hours, then eventually took my bike out for a ride to the Nordic Centre, where all the madness of the 24 hours of Adrenaline was just beginning.

 

My bike narrowly avoids falling off the cliff as it admires the view out across the Bow River and Canmore from near the Nordic Centre
 

It’s too easy sometimes to be overcome by inertia and stay in the house, but as soon as you leave you wonder what on earth you were doing sitting inside, and then have trouble making yourself turn around for home. Half the cars round town seemed to have 2 or 3 bikes strapped to them, and the Nordic Centre was rapidly becoming covered in bikes, tents and shade shelters. It would have been tempting to enter the event, but for the fact it was also the World Solo 24 hour Championships, team entry cost $750, and it tends to sell out within a couple of days anyway – I just wasn’t fanatical or fit enough. I miss all the more casual MTB enduro events round in Australia though, and the dirt crits in Melbourne. It’s a pity there aren’t more bike events around here (or are there, and I just haven’t been able to find out about them?).

Categories
canada general

the paint pots

 

Ochre beds by the Paint Pots in Kootenay National Park that were used for their colour by both Aboriginal groups and Europeans, before being retired to National Park status.

 

Categories
canada general

summer in the rockies

Daisies down Highway 93, near the border of Banff and Kootenay National Parks
 

Mum is here at the moment, so we’ve been touristing around through all the National Parks that surround us here in Canmore.

 

The falls at Marble Canyon
 

Categories
canada climbing general

after-work cragging at grassi lakes

Grassi Lakes – it lurks on the edge of town, with its soft grades and its buckety holds and its tendency to always be ok to climb at even if it’s threatening to rain. The outdoor gym crag of Canmore, with shiny ring bolts on sport climbing routes as easy as 5.5 (and up to 5.12a, but I may have had to check the guidebook for that number), nicely set up stairs and flat areas to stand on, and a lovely view. There’s even the kiddy wall section of Gardener’s Wall, where precocious children can learn to lead climb on bolts 1 metre apart. Realistically this is more commonly used by scared fully-grown lead climbers who have to struggle to avoid Z-clipping at every clip.

 

Wet from the rain shower, Ha Ling Peak glistens in the setting sun (as seen from the Graceland area of Grassi Peaks)
 

And there’s a good view.

Categories
bikes canada general

riding home from sunshine

I’d meant to do this for a while, but just not gotten around to it – the ride home from work. Theoretically I should be riding there as well, but it’s a 42km (26mi) ride including a nice 7km hill climb tacked on the end. So instead I took the easy way out, and ferried my bike into work this morning in one of the work trucks.

 


 

The coast down hill I was expecting for the first 7km turned out to include two of the three biggest hill climbs of the whole ride – that’s what you get for making assumptions about a road you’ve never biked before. But from then on it was off the road and onto trails – soggy horse trails at first, then the wide packed hiking/trail-riding trails out towards the Cave and Basin at Banff. Through the back ways of Banff, past the golf course, and onto the single trail on the east side of Mount Rundle. At which point I started wishing I had a dualie instead of the trusty hardtail, as the trail had a consistent mix of pine tree roots and rocks. I rode along dreaming of the smooth trails of the Gravity 12 hour near Myrtleford back in Australia – ahhh, the land of no pine trees, where all single trail is perfectly smooth (at least in my daydreams).

 


 

So I rode along doing my best to cushion the bumps, and yelling sporadically to keep the bears away. I have a bruised tailbone now.