Yesterday I drove out to Canmore, Alberta, to go for a ride with an ex work colleague who lives there.
Canmore is in the Canadian Rockies and is right beside Banff National Park.
It's normally about an hour or so from my house, but current road construction added about 20 minutes to the trip.
Here's a shot from my car from about 40 Km from Canmore:
And another one, a little bit closer.
About to set off - my friend Steven is on his non ebike - a Specialized Stumpjumper of unknown vintage.
It's downhill from his house to town and the trails we were going to ride, so the first 6 or 7 Km were easy but very picturesque. Lots of single track through the trees before we came out to the gravel path beside teh Bow.
We went across that bridge and up to the right where the Telecommunication tower was.
Up there is an area known as the
Canmore Nordic Centre - it was an easy climb on my Fathom but I had to wait for Steven a number of times.
He's pretty fit, but it is a good climb via switchbacks.
We are halfway up and took a little detour to a lookout location.
From the top, we rode around the normally teeming Nordic Centre (Covid has had an impact) and then started down a
MTB downhill trail. We think we were on a trail named
Soft Yoghurt but we got off it where it connected to Devonian Drop.
I'd not ridden these kinds of trails in many a year, and I was rather tentative at first, but warmed to the occasion until we both agreed that it was beyond our skill levels (it was Blue but seemed pretty difficult to us ) and traversed out to something simpler (Legacy Trail). When I was a skier, Black Diamond and 2xBlack diamond were 50%+ of my run choices, but not 30 years later on a new eMTB...
In this shot - I am NOT blocking the trail! It was shortly after where we connected with a Black diamond run - the fellow in the background selected that option.
Once at the bottom of the hill, with one minor mishap on a tight turn on the switchbacks (no harm - and Mirracycle mirrors are tough thankfully) we were back down at the Bow River.
We rode the trails East along the river, before heading back to his house for a refreshment before I went home.
Steven did try out my bike once we got back to his place - I think I may have converted another one!
MTB legs.
It was a fun day, with great company, in a stunning location and with superb weather.
Not a huge distance travelled on the bike but I'm starting to get the hang of a MTB again.
If we are lucky we get that in the afternoon!
