Last Thursday (1 July) was Canada’s one-hundred & forty-third birthday & a public holiday – Canada Day (I was surprised to find that Canada, in that respect, is younger than NZ). I opted not to work, unfortunately Megan had to – so it was just Alex & I (from our house) that wandered a block or two down to the Rotarian’s Pancake Breakfast. There was a surprisingly large crowd down at Centennial Park at nine in the morning – as well as the pancakes, there were some fun-runs (an oxymoron if I ever saw one) going on & a few clowns wandering around. The Rotary Club must be well organised as they were pumping out the pancakes & had nifty little implements to dispense the batter on the grills.

I was surprised to see that they were serving beef patties with the pancakes & syrup – I’m used to pancakes & bacon & all sorts of other things, but meat patties? It turned out to be a pretty good combination & after seconds (not sure that four patties that early in the morning is a great idea, but the ride in the afternoon burned them off), we headed out to go & pick up a bed from the other side of town.

(I moved house last weekend, not far – it was great living with Megan & Alex since my arrival here, but it makes perfect sense for me to move out before the baby arrives & keeps me awake all night!) Dropping the bed back at Steve’s (my new flatmate) with the use of his rather shiny & rather large Dodge pick-up, we all headed back to Alex’s to watch the Canada Day Parade. For a small town, Canmore apparently has a pretty good parade. It must be, because wandering down the main street early in the morning the street was lined with chairs that people had put out to reserve a good spot!

Our street was on the parade route (being one back from main street has many advantages), so we manoeuvred the couch on to the balcony, cracked open some beers & sat in the sun amused by the antics of bogans across the road – we still haven’t worked out the equivalent Canadian word for ‘bogan’. The parade ended up being ninety minutes long & there were so many horses & Scottish pipe bands. Unlike the float parades I’m used to seeing, there weren’t any big flat deck trucks (due to the tight corners on the route, we imagine) – just pick-ups, vans & cars.

There were plenty of older guys hooning around in little planes & cars – an Imperial Stormtrooper even made an appearance. Here is also a nice big red shiny ladder unit from the local fire department.

The bogans’ water-bombing acts were still amusing us, especially when the bush fire brigade fought back a little & the youths at the next house but one started lobbing water bombs over the house (more of a cabin really) in between them.

Not feeling particularly motivated to struggle against the holiday traffic or go for an epic ride, we eventually settled on riding to Banff on the Rundle Riverside Trail & then getting a ride back with Megan after she finished work. This ride started off by heading up to the Nordic Center & riding down the main thoroughfare (Banff Avenue) to the end of the park & then continuing on the rather rough trail before hitting the golf course & Banff eventually. Leaving the Nordic Center the trail deteriorated rapidly & was ridiculously rooty & therefore bumpy. The long downhill was great fun & then we were mostly beside the Bow River battling the roots.

Somewhere along here Alex managed to drop his chain & then wrap it around the cranks a bit & then jam it between the rings & the suspension pivots. It was proving difficult to extricate, until I found a fork in my Camelbak that worked a treat – the fork must have been in there for a couple of days, & proved more useful than just a lunch eating utensil. Avoiding stray golf balls we were soon at the falls below Banff Springs – not nearly as impressive as the Huka Falls – but with just as many Asian tourists.

Riding through Banff, Alex & I managed to get separated in the madness – we met again near the start of their parade. It turned out the times for the parades must have been staggered for good reason as we saw a lot of the same people doing the same thing.

One difference that we saw was the inclusion of a Brewster Icefield (Glacier) Bus that had difficultly getting around the corner on to Banff Avenue.

I got my token Canada flag & we were off to meet Megan & go home. The last part of Canada Day festivities for me was the small fireworks display – not nearly as grand as the July 4 displays I saw in San Diego last year, but the setting of the mountains & the sound echoing off them was pretty neat. As it is just past the longest day, the display didn’t start until almost 10.40.

As I mentioned, I moved house over the weekend – not too onerous a task considering I don’t have a lot of possessions with me. The weekend’s big ride was to go back to Minnewanka (Alex & I rode & got quite wet there four weeks ago) & get to the end of the lake. It was quite a cloudy start to Saturday & by the time I watched the Germans thrash the Argentinians & Alex bled his rear brakes again it was 11 o’clock when we left the car park. The big (& only real) climb was much easier in the dry & we met very few walkers at the start of the trail. It was supposed to be thirty-five kilometres to the end (& thirty-five back obviously), but we made good time & the turnaround point ended up being ten kilometres less than we expected. We had lunch at the turnaround point – after climbing over a lot of driftwood. The last part of the trail before lunch was a lot of clambering & carrying of bikes over some rocks; but also around here the summer flowers had started to proliferate the undergrowth (Alex put a bit off effort in to identifying some of those that we saw).

The sun even graced with its presence on the way back, which was nice. Once we got back to the Warden’s Hut (where we turned around last time) we started to see a lot more riders – our fitness must be improving as we weren’t passed all day & did get to pass quite a few others.

As you may have guessed from the title – it rained most of last week (Mon. – Thurs.). This meant that I had plenty of time, finally, in the evenings to get stuck in to reading The Count of Monte Cristo. I got it out of the library quite a few weeks ago & all 1250 pages have been mostly sitting around unopened. It’s quite good so far – about a quarter of the way through – but not quite as action-packed as the Three Musketeers (same author). But now the sun is out a bit more, it’ll be ages before I finish it.

The All Whites’ first game at the FIFA World Cup was on Tuesday morning, so I was up at 5.30 to watch it before work – it was just as well I didn’t leave at 7.10 as I usually do. All those who watched the whole game were rewarded by that very exciting equaliser. Also of note last week, was the visitor we had at two o’clock on Saturday morning. I was woken by a banging noise coming from the laundry – after it didn’t stop, I decided I had better get up & check it out. Alex also had the same idea & we were a little mystified by the noise coming out of the drier (which we haven’t used yet). The noise was explained when a ferret poked its head around the corner of the washer. As the laundry is in the middle of the building, we were struggling to work out how it had got inside. All was revealed when we harried it outside & it promptly when through a small hole in the wall & walked back up the duct to the drier to thrash around some more & then reappear. It was really friendly & tame, so Megan & Alex made a little bed for it & it slept in the bathroom the rest of the night. We quite enjoyed its company (very well behaved for a ferret – no biting or hissing) for most of Saturday, until we finally tracked down its owners – friends of friends living a couple of blocks away. By then I was awake & hungry, so I stayed up & watched the All Blacks thrash Wales in the second half at Carisbrook.

Quite tired on Saturday morning, so it was spent watching football & cleaning my bike (got rid of the horrible grinding noise from my bottom bracket when it was under load – very dusty in there, strange considering I only greased it a month previous). Alex & I headed back to K-Country for another ride that afternoon. We were going to do Baldy Pass – on the opposite side of Barrier Lake to where we rode last weekend. We climbed up a forestry road for about ninety minutes – it wasn’t too steep (except a little singletrack at the top of the pass), but we did have to clamber under & over a lot of fallen trees. This part of the ride wasn’t at all scenic – recent logging had opened up the view a bit, but also left a lot of debris.

Stopping briefly at the top of the pass for a rest & a bit more geocaching, it wasn’t long before we were heading down through some nice sharp, loose rocks.

The trail down then turned into another great test of roots & rocks & not-falling-off-the-side. It was technical enough for the first part, there was never really any place to let go & blast down – but eventually it started flowing & I could get some speed up & still remain in control. As we got close to the creek bed it flattened out a lot & was good pedalling fun. For our nice climb, we got a good twenty minutes of bliss before hitting the road & riding back to the car. On the other side of Barrier Lake, you can see Jewel Pass, which we so enjoyed last weekend, & to the right of that Barrier Mountain – which was a decent climb well rewarded by more great downhill.

Saturday evening was a barbecue for James’s thirtieth birthday. A good night with plenty of good company, food (Zara’s crab sauce was incredible & didn’t last long), beer & cake. I was well full by the end of it – I skipped the bars, as I wanted to get up & watch the All Whites-Italy game on Sunday morning. It was well worth getting up for – who would have thought we would be 1-0 up so early & then manage to hold off waves of attack for the last sixty or so minutes. I popped in to Calgary for some new tyres & on my return, Alex & I biked three-quarters of the way up to Whiteman’s Gap to try out another downhill trail – the Reclaimer (which just reminds me of moving coal & PC around & in to the Ironplant). Here’s a video of the trail, obviously taken early spring as there is still quite a bit of snow lying around. We got a bit more downhill out of it for our thirty minutes of climbing – as we were a bit slower going down. Those first two rocky corners were a bit tricky as they are steeper than they look (in fact, most of the trail is steeper than it looks on a helmet cam), but after that it was all ridable for me. From the end of the trail, we cut over to the Nordic Center for a few more trails (making up as we went along), before hitting our favourite way down from the Nordic Center to town. I was pleased to actually clear a tabletop or two, my doubles need a bit more work though. The hairy corner just above a pond was a lot less tricky after a race on the trail last weekend helped to smooth it out a bit.

The warm sunny weekend continued all through Sunday & pleasingly Alex had found a ride for us in Kananaskis Country. We started just off the Transcanada near Exshaw at the Heart Mountain parking lot. We roughly followed along not far from the highway (within in hearing distance, but not sight) under Mt McGillivray (thought you might appreciate that, Neil), crossed the Heart Creek & continued for another couple of kilometres. This part was a pretty narrow hiking/biking trail & was overall pretty flat – but a nice mellow downhill with lots of perpendicular roots to drop off.

Quite soon we were climbing a nicely gravelled, gradual climb up towards Quaite Campsite. By now we were passing a lot of mountain runners coming the opposite direction & some climbers walking up to a crag that we spotted shortly after. There was a big party of school-aged kids at the campsite, setting off for the day. Not long after the campsite, Alex started hunting for the first geocache (basically a worldwide treasure hunt using GPS) of the day. From here the trail got a bit narrower, a lot steeper & rockier. It was mostly middle-ring rideable though & after a another couple of kilometres we were at junction & seemingly the high-point for this part of the ride. The old skinny fire road changed to a much narrower hiking/biking trail down to Barrier Lake. This part was a sweet downhill – there were heaps of roots & rocks to make things interesting. But it was never steep, rocky or slippery enough to be too much to handle. We passed many hikers coming up the other way (& a few bikers going down) – it would seem this area is popular for day-hikers starting the opposite side of the pass to that which we started from. We spent a fair bit of time looking for various geocaches around here too – some we found, some we didn’t.

Somewhere through here we went through Jewell Pass – but it was never completely clear where exactly. Before long the trail flattened out a little & started to go around the edge of a hill & the trees & view opened up a bit.

It wasn’t too much longer & we were down beside the lake (& another geocache):

Now we just had to get back up to that junction that was at the top of the hill (it turned out, that it wasn’t the top). Mostly it was a gradual switched-backed climb on a fireroad where the biggest obstacle was the scores of Calgarian day-walkers out for a pretty pleasant walk in the sunshine. It got pretty steep near the end & then plateaued for a little bit – this part turned out to be a very popular lunch spot – the view may give some indication why.

The last part of our climbing for the day was a hard slog that progressed from the easiest gear on the bike to pushing & then to carrying on one’s shoulder up a rockface. The fact that we passed two women carrying drums should have started alarm bells ringing. The lookout was teeming with people & for good reason.

The biggest crowd at the lookout was all the hippies with drums making a lot of (awful) noise & stinking the place out with some sort of incense (that might well have had a bit weed in it – it stunk). Needless to say, we didn’t hang around long. Walking a little of the shingle trail down from the lookout (mainly because it was skinny & fast & there were a lot of hikers coming up the other way) we passed quite a few of the hikers that we had passed earlier going through Jewell Pass. Back on the bikes & away from the traffic & hippies, the downhill was spectacular – not too steep & lots more roots & twists & turns to keep one on the ball. I was smiling so much that it looked like I was there “to kill Batman” (two TV episodes I’ve watched recently have referenced the Joker’s facial appearance – The Griffin Equivalency of The Big Bang Theory & the Friendface episode of The IT Crowd – both very funny shows). Our hands needed resting every so often as the handlebars were bouncing around so much. Returning to the junction that took us to Jewell Pass, we knew it was all down a fire road towards the highway. The first section was nicely rocky & I took it a bit faster than I normally would & flew down. Just as I thought I would hit a rock & get a puncture, I hit a rock & got a puncture (“Before I could say – ‘Don’t tread on a mine’, she trod on a mine.” – Blackadder Goes Forth [my favourite of the four series] – Major Star). I took my time replacing the tube – I was in time credit with Alex after all the geocaching. The rest of the blast down to the highway was smoother & I enjoyed jumping off the water channels (small ditches across the trail).

Here a few photos from the last fifteen minutes’ ride back to the car. The last shows what sunny Sunday afternoons in the area are like – beautiful clear sky, lakes, trees, mountains & the holiday traffic & day trippers in their RVs & on their motorbikes.

We were gone for four hours, only did the twenty-six kilometres – but got a great taste of K-Country riding. I must buy a guidebook & find more great back country rides to do around here.

Not long after we got home, Ben – a young guy from Devon (UK) arrived for the night. He is touring across Canada from west to east & had arranged to stay at Megan & Alex’s place through warmshowers – which is a bit like couch-surfing, but for cyclists. Good to hear some of his stories…