I’ll start today with just about the only photo I have from during the ride today – right at the start when we were loading up the trucks ready for departure, this is a typical departure scene as we all try to load up our bags, fill up water bottles, pump up the tires and do any last minute bike adjustments.
Quite why I didn’t take more photos I don’t know! People kept telling me that if I thought the scenery was good, just wait till we got to the Rockies. In Cranbrook we had arrived at the side of the Rockies and were to head north out of Cranbrook for 140 km. A substantial distance but not one marred by any significant climbs. Today we had great tail winds again and we quickly left Cranbrook behind heading out to long flat and quiet roads.
Having loooked back at the photos, and whilst writing this, I’m quite concious that I only mention a few of the other riders names. This has just to do with our relative positions on the road so I have less stories about them. Everyone on this ride was amazing and in hindsight I’m slightly sorry I didn’t spend more time with some of the others – hopefully next year!
The morning brought amazing scenery as I headed due North with the Rockies to the right of me the whole morning. This was to prove a great stretch of road, with little in the way of traffic, just me and the bike. The GPS plots for the day show climbed and descended around a 200 metre range – a piece of cake compared to previous days!!
Lunch was at around half way point after which I had overtaken Chris who was absoutely flying today. Our route took us along side the magnificient Columbia Lake (I think that is head of the Columbia river but could be wrong). There was then this magnificent stone cliff face, the name of which evades me, but I have included a photo below, taken by Jan as I failed to take any decent pics today en-route as I was concentrating too much on the cycling.
Just after this Chris caught up with me and we decided to ride in formation and attempt to catch John and Heather ahead of me, which we eventually did. I reallly like formation riding, you have to push when you are at the head of the formation and then you get a noticeable break when you go back into the tow of the person in front. We did catch up with them and went past but I quickly realised in the fun of this afternoon’s riding I had completely mis-managed the drinks and the energy supply, so I was quickly tiring. This was not helped by some last minute small climbs into Radium. Nonetheless today was a good day, fantastic scenery, fast pace, just great.
Today we were staying in another motel with a large forecourt enabling us all to sit round and discuss the days endeavours. Some people ventured up to check out the hot-springs. As we were on a tight schedule to cover the distance in the time we had it was difficult to spend much time in many of the places we stayed and so it was a bit of a shame not to see more of some of the places we stayed. Radium is situated in a valley and surrounded by the Rocky mountains, an incredible sight! My camera really does not do justice.
Raising money for cystic fibrosis by cycling 