Back on the bike

Calgary

I am back on the bike!

 I rode yesterday in the rain and wind and survived.  There is a very long hill coming up out of Cochrane Alberta just before getting to Calgary and I made it with no ill effects.   My lungs did not betray me.  I have to admit that felt good.

The problem was that the Bow Valley Trail (or highway 1A) that goes from Banff to Calgary turns into the Crowchild trail when it gets into Calgary.   Now, I don’t know who this Crowchild is but my guess is that he is a juvenile delinquent.  One should not ride down this road in a car, much less a bicycle.   The road has myriad on-ramps and off-ramps and the shoulder disappears without notice and now you are in the middle of the road with large Albertan SUV’s on either side of you.

This is where my heart rate peaked.

These large Albertan SUV’s are aimed (notice I said aimed, not driven) by large Albertan drivers who have yet to figure out which way the brim of their ball-caps should point much less how to make a 2 tonne chunk of metal go where it is supposed to go.  Their attitude to cyclists is similar to the wolf’s attitude towards rabbits.   Not so good if you are the rabbit or the cyclist. 

I survived.

 But only by getting off my bike and running with it up an on-ramp to the safety of a sidewalk.   I had to have a little lay-down after that.   When I recovered and started riding my bike again I realized that I had no idea where I was.   Nothing unusual there.  I got out phone and pulled up the handy-dandy GPS App to find my way to my sister’s place.   The deranged GPS wanted me to go back on the Crowchild trail.   HAH!  Not in this lifetime!

Telen to the rescue!  She was at my sister’s place already and she told me to stop my silly crying, find a place to sit down and she would come and get me.  So I sat outside a Starbucks with a coffee and waited.   Such a sight I must have been.  Dripping wet with a bike helmet on and a coffee in my hand huddled under a tiny square of green umbrella outside a Starbucks in the pouring rain.   I think, that day, I single-handedly discouraged hundreds people from taking up cycling.  Telen found me with the help of my brother-in-law and brought me out of the wind and rain.  I swear the woman has wings and a halo!

In spite of my protestations I really did enjoy the ride yesterday.  It felt so good to be back on the bike and seeing the scenery from a cyclist’s point of view.   The weather could have been better, but this is Canada, and weather is something we have in abundance.

Telen at Lake Louise

The Bow River at Banff - nice place to sit and enjoy the fine weather