Category Archives: Canada

bikepacking, bikes, Canada, friends, GPS, USA

Day One – Out of Canada (so soon?)

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A bit shocked having just come from winter and skiing, sleep was hard to come by in the August heat of the Rockies. Not in any particular rush, breakfast was leisurely and bikes were eventually packed and ready to go. Saying our thanks and goodbyes, we rolled into the centre of town. We promptly stayed for quite some time buying food, unexpectedly meeting friends (whom I knew from previous North American stays) and eating bagels.

This was the first adventure on my new bike. Only having ridden a hundred and thirty kilometres on it, I was keen to see how it would go. My hastily cobbled together luggage arrangement didn’t last long. We hadn’t even got out of town before a malfunction of my saddle bag stopped me in my tracks, a roadside repair was effected. It wasn’t to be the last time in the trip it was overloaded with food, but thankfully it was the last such mishap.

After waiting at a level crossing for a massive-by-NZ-standards, normal-by-North-American-standards train, we were on our way almost two hours after leaving the house. Definitely not in any rush – but we did want to cross the border and make Eureka that night, so that we did make the Whitefish Bike Retreat booking sometime over the approaching weekend.

This below is the route that we were to trace, clockwise, over the following twelve days. A combination of various defined routes, points to meet and spend time with friends, towns, remote backcountry gravel roads and some seal to link it altogether – it was excellent, as will become clear.

Taking a Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) alternate south out of town, we were soon past houses and riding gravel roads through forest. The highway was off on the other side of the Elk River, so our road was quiet – apart from the occasional train nearby. Trending downhill, there were still plenty of climbs to test our legs – neither of us having ridden loaded bikes any great distance for a while. We met our first other bikepackers of the trip – chat with all the interesting riders of their planned trips was good fun.

Crossing the Elk River (my head not in the space of cooling off in rivers, we missed a good stop) the lovely gravel ended and we were spat out at a gas station on a busy highway. It seemed time for ice cream and other rejuvenation. Further down the highway were meant to connect to back roads for the run to the border – but the main highway was too busy, so we turned off quickly for a quieter highway straight to the border. Mid-afternoon by this time, it had really heated up and a nagging hot wind slowed us on the mostly-but-for-two-notable-exceptions downhill to checkpoint.

We joined the actual GDMBR and soon hit the queues at the border crossing. Having cleared US immigration during transit in Los Angeles, the questions of our intentions were very mild. In fact, outlining our planned route the line of interrogation turned into jokes about hearing banjoes playing. Half-five and into Montana we were; first objective of the day complete, it was “only” about twenty kilometres to Eureka, food and a community campsite.

Gravel backroads took us off the highway, and provided plenty of rollers. Pace slowed, but eventually we got a tailwind and a significant downhill into town. Exhausted there was resting in a very small park, with its own menagerie of aggressive turkeys, before trying to find food. Pizza took an age, but then I would join a queue behind what seemed like a whole battalion of Californian wildfire-fighters (wild-firefighters seems a bit unruly; there’s probably a more correct name).

Down the road, right next to the Tobacco River, was the campground. With a few picnic tables and grass, it’s available by payment donation only and is near to the sorts of services those on the GDMBR need. Cycle tourists #4 through to #12 (?) were there for the night and more bikepacking chat ensued – sure was interesting hearing more and varied plans, and backgrounds. Poking around an adjacent compound of historic buildings scratched the itch to know slightly more of where we were. Strange American experience for the day was buying a sealed cup filled with frozen diary, putting it in some futuristic automated machine and out popped a thickshake – curious, so long as one wasn’t so inquisitive as to read the list of ingredients/chemicals.

The evening drew in and after a hot, long day – well, it was a hot night in a bivy bag punctuated by noisy traffic. Fantastic to be out biking in new places, tomorrow – wilderness!

bikepacking, bikes, Canada, friends, travel

Back to Canada

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One Friday I was fastening my ski boots for another great day on the slopes of Treble Cone (good snow, excellent views, fun skiing, variable visibility and crazy winds eventually closing the main chairlift) to wind up ten days’ holiday. The next moment I was trying to decipher a screenshot of a bikepacking loop in Canada and NW USA. A few minutes later I was mildly startled to receive an invite for said trip – the following week. Never wanting to turn down bike trip invites, there was no good reason to not go. That was how I found myself back in Canada the following Tuesday, madness!

In the intervening days, I managed to convince my boss to give me another two weeks leave (huzzah for saving annual leave), book last minute flights, arrange travel insurance, AirBnB, airport transfer, rearrange all manner of day-to-day life things, spend time with family, fly home, work two days, pack my bike, throw all manner of clothes and camping gear in my luggage. It’s difficult to plan and organise for a vacation when one is still on the previous one!

All the things got done, and late Tuesday evening I was in Calgary with a surprising amount of sleep had en route – I stayed overnight as it was late and I wanted more sleep. Next morning, I was on the Airporter heading for Canmore. I only spent one year living there (seven years ago), but it was a fantastic year of friendships, biking, skiing & even some work; Canmore will always be a special place to me. Still, it was odd to be suddenly heading back – especially as I’d not been past Australia in four years.

Arriving at Megan’s, greetings to fill the almost-two years over, a busy afternoon ensued before we hit the road to start the bike trip. I assembled my bike, and loaded borrowed luggage while Megan was working and running errands. I managed a nostalgic walk around town past where I used to walk, work, live, shop and eat. It was just a little odd, not to mention busy. Smoke from wildfires rolled in obscuring the mountains and raining ash on me. I loaded the van with bikes, Megan returned and we hit the road for the four hour drive to Fernie, BC.

New bike eagerly anticipating assembly for its first big adventure.

All ready to go find gravel, hills and not too many or too close bears.

Those iconic peaks again – Three Sisters

and Ha Ling

With kind hospitality from friends of Megan’s, beds were provided and, exhausted, I collapsed – after the flurry of the previous five days, riding bikes again in North America was a fast approaching reality.

Africa, around home, bikepacking, bikes, Canada, combe raiders, Europe, family, friends, London, MTB, national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, UK, USA

Five and a half years

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Well, my bike is packed up in its bag again, most of my possessions were collected yesterday for shipping back to New Zealand and, really, I’m a bit bored of packing. I leave London for NZ – five and a half years to the week after I left to see a little bit of the world – curious if I can settle back in a beautiful country far at the bottom of the globe. At the least, I should get a good summer of riding in. Over dinner with Trish at our favourite local Italian pizzeria the other night, there was plenty to reflect on – many excellent things, only two or three not so great happenings, all memorable.

So excuse me while I try to remember most of them and jot them down for posterity. Naturally I’ll start with the highlights in no particular order, as there are many.

As I delve into the archives, this is proving more difficult to narrow it down than I expected, …

My first port of call was the States – little did I know that would be the first of four visits and about six months in total in the country, it turns out the west is fantastic for scenery and mountain-biking.

A west-USA road-trip with plenty of mountain-biking was always a pipe-dream for when I was in my forties or fifties – thanks to living in Canada & the company of my aunt, Valerie, it became a reality much earlier.

The best biking holiday was my return to Moab last year – fantastic trails, great company & beautiful scenery – click on the photo above to watch the video Megan put together.

I also never intended to visit Africa four times, but somehow that happened. Each of the four safaris were quite different, but all excellent.

But the first one in the Masai Mara was the best.

Seeing the Pyramids on Christmas day was excellent – not very crowded either.

I only briefly went to Asia, on a visit to Turkey:


Gliding over the spectacular landscape of Cappadocia in a hot air balloon is indelibly in my memory.

Five weeks’ vacation almost five years ago in the Canadian Rockies saw me learn to ski, a bit, and then all of a sudden, living in Bow Valley for a year of mountain-biking in the summer and skiing in the winter.


Returning to the UK, I managed to settle into a job that I quite liked – that was, until the rather horrible drawn-out experience of plant closure & many redundancies. It was a good base for travels near & far while it lasted – the long, dry & hot summer of 2013 was especially good with many mountain-biking trips around the south-west. Always good to visit Taunton & also ride with my Somerset riding buddies, the Combe Raiders – whatever the weather.

That summer saw me enter a few biking events too – a six-hour solo (nice trail, but boring riding round & round the same thing for six hours), a couple of marathon events, & culminating in my first multi-day stage event.

That event, as you can probably tell from this photo taken while riding along, was in Africa.

Apart from the redundancy experience already mentioned, only two other notable low-points are worth bringing up. The mugging incident in San Diego the day after I left NZ is still the best if I ever have to tell one story from my travels. The ongoing shoulder dislocation saga was painful in a different way – but after four dislocations I had surgery and it’s been fine ever since.

With all the trips to North America & Africa, I perhaps didn’t see as much of Europe as I originally hoped. But I managed a fair few trips – with Italy being the most visited country, five times now I think. I also loved the time spent living in London wandering around all parts of the city & delving into the history. Due to the demise of work, my bikepacking tour of western Europe was brought forward to this year & shortened (& then shortened even more when I got sick of travelling alone in the August rain & mud).

Straddling the German-Belgian border somewhere.

One of the most pleasing & proud parts of the trip was crossing the Alps over Great Saint Bernard Pass – because my grandfather did the same on a bike sixty-five years ago.

Somehow I ended up spending four weeks living & working on a small vineyard in the north-west of Italy – eating a lot, hiking a bit, making new friends & thoroughly enjoying myself. Learning a second-language, Italian – thanks to work, was something I never thought I’d do – but it turned out I really enjoyed it.

Hiking near Monto Bianco.

Oh, almost forgot the whirlwind two-week trip back to NZ (the only one) for some friends’ wedding, and coincidentally my thirtieth birthday & many celebrations with friends & family all over the country. Hectic, but most enjoyable.

The visit also coincided with my shoulder being declared fit – so after six months of no biking, it was great to be active again – here skiing near Wanaka.

I’ll be back with these fine folks next week – hard to believe we’ll have our first Christmas all together since 2006.

That’ll do for unashamed self-indulgence – thanks to all the family & friends that made all this possible in many different ways (usually providing somewhere to sleep & plenty to eat). Biggest thanks goes to cousin Trish in London for repeatedly opening up her home to this often-vagabond – all this would not have been possible or lasted nearly as long otherwise.

Africa, bikes, Canada, city, event, friends, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, UK, USA

2013 – a lot more biking than the previous year

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After reading last year’s Christmas letter, I can see just how different 2013 has ended up being.  The main driver for that is that my shoulder is completely normal after last year’s surgery & rehab (so much so that when people occasionally ask after it, I’m always slightly taken aback).  That has meant that excessive travelling fell by the wayside as I spent much time biking.  Before much biking, there was last winter to get through – I escaped to Egypt for sun at Christmas last; Christmas morning at the pyramids was certainly unusual. A country still in a state of upheaval & flux, it was a fascinating trip.

I moved into a new role at work about a year ago, which meant quite a few months of learning plenty while still trying to tidy up things in my previous position.  Along with my car comprehensively failing its annual inspection & many problems with the replacement, what turned out to be some of the best concentrated biking I’ve had was a welcome change.

After a couple of days having a look around Chicago, I met Megan, Alex & their son, Finn, in Utah.  We went to mountain-bike mecca Moab and did little except camp, ride bikes (a lot) and eat. As on my last visit, the scenery was stunning and the riding exceptional. STOP PRESS – Megan has just made a rather fun video that makes me yearn for sun, rocky trails, & great riding – much more interesting than me prattling on about Moab.

The summer was bookended by two big trips biking – Moab being the first.  That meant that I travelled very little during the summer – but that worked out well as we actually had a cracking summer of weather in the UK & the riding was plentiful.  Preparing for a three-day stage race in September I entered a number of longer-distance events around the south-west UK & Wales.  This being about the only photo of I have me “racing” – on a strangely scorching Shropshire day:

The other bookend event for the summer was the three-day Rift Valley Odyssey in Kenya.  Partly an excuse to get back to Africa & visit Adrian and partly a nice big riding adventure to train for & achieve, I was pleased to return to Africa – it’s a fascinating place after all.  The summer of preparation did me well & the only real difficulty in the 5500 metres of climbing over three days and 260 kilometres was a bit of digestive trouble at the top of a huge, hot & humid climb halfway through Day Two – not sure if it was the heat, too much food or the anti-malarial tablets; anyway, I survived the remainder of the day on next to no food and recovered enough that the last day (eighty-odd kilometres) was easy.

I was too busy riding to get many photos, but I quite like these two taken while riding along:

The second week of the trip was spent in Tanzania with Adrian, Carmen & their two children.  As they’d only just moved there, it was a relaxed week as they settled in a bit more and I recovered from the big bike ride.  Adrian & I did grab the chance for an overnight trip to a relatively close national park – there were many more elephants around than I saw on my last safari four years ago; an excellent end to another fantastic trip visiting Adrian & Carm.

Many months before, it seemed a good idea to book a trip to New England in the fall – after a particularly busy return to work, it wasn’t seeming so smart.  Nonetheless, I was pretty sure that I’d enjoy a short road trip around the north-east of North America.  With little biking, beautiful autumnal colours, nice cities (Montreal & Boston particular favourites) and absolutely fabulous food it turned out to be a very relaxing trip which was well worth it.  Although the photos don’t really compare to Utah and Africa – here’s one of Ottawa:

Shortly after my return from Canada, all medium-term plans got thrown to the wind as it was revealed that the plant where I work would close next year.  It was a sudden, but not altogether surprising announcement; things are becoming clearer now & I’m looking forward to a 2014 that will be very different to what I was expecting.  As far as I can tell, I’ll have work for about half the year – during which I will frantically save & prepare for extensive time biking in places yet to be decided.  Mum, & probably Adele, plan on visiting for a cousin’s wedding in May – so I’m well looking forward to that.

Merry Christmas & may the new year be a great one for you.