Ride Summary

Distance: 90 miles / 145 km
Climbing: 4144 feet / 1263 meters
Descending: more!
Difficulty: Hard (lots of climbing + long ride)
Link to workout in Strava

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(Written on 24/25 Jun)

I learned a lot by doing two rides worth of distance and climbing in one day today. Fortunately no bad lessons like "you're not strong enough to do that!", but still, my nose was rubbed in "time to think about what I'd done". I think that while my body is up to the task, my enjoyment is lessened. The ride turned into more work, less joyful exploration and play. I stopped enjoying the miles as much as counting them down, I skipped things I might have stopped to check out on a shorter day. Much of my body started to hurt by the end of the ride, but some preemptive advil midafternoon along with consistent bonus electrolytes seemed to help me make it all the way to the intended destionation, without running out of energy even. I could almost certainly train with this kind of exertion in mind if I want to do it again in the future, but it was about double my usual and longer than any ride I've done in years, and of course I'm still carrying too much weight. So all of that wasn't ideal, but I am anyway glad I could rise to the occasion!

This was just the first half of the day

Another beautiful day among the mountains! Left as early as I could convince myself to in the cold, which was 7:45. Ate an especially hearty breakfast, oatmeal + fruits + pb&j tortilla + the remains of some jerky I'd bought. 3 hours later, after the biggest climb of the day, had an all I could eat buffet with an incredible glacier view out the window, before getting back on the bike to keep snacking across Canada.

This (seasonal?) waterfall is many times taller than Multnomah falls

The big climb was big but it was nice to get it done nearly first thing. That seems to be my preference - get the hard thing out of the way and then enjoy the rest of the day. At the top are some glaciers near the road, and Parks Canada have given the glaciers a frankly amazing visitor center with some guided tours, movies, and a starbucks (I guess Tim Horton's was outbid?) and 3 restaurants. Let's say it didn't look like that in my memories from 17 years ago! I think that unless you take a tour, one cannot even legally "stand on" the glacier these days - as we did back during texas 4000 (even that experience was discouraged, as you can see in this image where we are constrained by cones)...I think one can maybe walk up to it? We'll anyway find out more when I get back there with Lori and we think about some of the tours/etc.

During the climb and the downhill after, I passed a solid dozen cyclists, more than one touring, all coming the other way - but just waved. It was too cold and trafficky to cross the road to chat at that point. Or I / they were too tired? Some missed opportunities, I suppose.

Despite preparing for the long day, I still hadn't finally decided if I'd press on, until arriving at the campground where I was originally planning to stay the night, assuming I didn't "do the double". I sat there at a picnic table, had a snack and reapplied sunscreen, and finally decided to just go - it was 1pm and I had at least 8 hours of light to make 50 miles, mostly downhill. Thank goodness it was mostly downhill; I was certainly not full of energy although I also was never really out of stamina - perhaps because I started setting a timer to remind myself to eat more, drink more, and reapply sunscreen every hour for that long second half of the day? Not sure, but glad I had the foresight to focus on nutrition so I didn't bonk (or roast - sunscreen works)!

The weather was generally nice, but a bit blustery; sometimes it came as a headwind. The headwind rarely lasted for many miles, but long enough to make me actually hunker down in the drops of my handlebars for a bit which I otherwise basically never do, preferring to sit fairly upright. I also never really warmed up until well after I got off the summit where all the glacier stuff was despite tremendously exerting myself on the climb, so I wore pants and long sleeved shirt all day, and mostly that was fine! At one point I saw cloudy darkness ahead in a valley I had to ride through, and it started to sprinkle, so I did something I rarely do: put on my rain gear before it started raining! Usually I'm more of a "wait until I'm already soaked to think to try to keep dry" kinda guy, but today I decided it was a pretty sure thing - I'M A WEATHERMAN I KNOW CLOUDS NOW OK? Most of all, I wasn't already hot and sweaty, so unlike in many situations where I choose to get rained on instead of putting on the doesn't-breathe-at-all rain gear and getting super sweaty. Today, it wasn't a recipe for instant misery - yay! About 3 miles later it had sprinkled slightly, and a tremendous headwind had slowed me down while pushing the clouds overhead quickly and I was thankful for a head wind for maybe the first time ever. Since I found no place to lean my bike (highways in canada in general lack as much "stuff" next to the shoulder as we have in the US - signs, bollards, railings, even fences), but was starting to sweat inside the rain gear, so had to do something: laid my bike on the ground and peeled off the layer. Passing cars sure thought I was just stripping down but I had clothes under my rain gear - so, no free show for passing motorists!

Shortly after this, I spy an oncoming touring cyclist and he wants to stop and chat so he crosses the road and we chat for a few minutes. I immediately notice his homemade ear fairings - covers for his ears, attached to his helmet straps, to block out the wind and traffic noise. After complimenting him on them and introductions (he's Roy, from Edmonton, done a lot of touring and loves it) he commented that I was the only "properly loaded" person he had seen lately - he's not into the minimal bikepacking setups nor credit card touring. He likes his touring kit and being prepared and camping, goshdarnit! He was a nice/fun guy and appreciated that I loved touring in the same way he does: it's comfortable and feels productive but also is fun and fills the heart. Funny story: he also admitted to preemptively putting his rain gear on around when I did (recall he was approaching me so we were looking ahead to the same rain clouds - a heavy rain which did pass through before us, based on the wet ground). He joked - same joke I always make - that putting on rain gear preemptively...usually preempts the rain. He was also camping at the campground I had decided not to; would have made a friend there, had I stayed! (Looked like we would have had the campground to ourselves; no running water at that one and nobody else was around when I was there). We went our opposite ways; I was glad to have met him.

Love that style of mountain identifier (and yes I framed the picture so the mountain in the corner is the one on the sign!)

Second lunch at Sunwapta lodge was unremarkable, but it was nice not to have to make yet another PB&J tortilla. By this point I'd started setting hourly timers to remind myself to eat, so I did pretty good at nutrition for maybe the second time in my life (the first time, someone else who was good at it made me a regimen that wokred well during my one and only half ironman triathlon)? Usually I eat and drink a lot in the morning before I set out, and then skate through most of the day on that like a camel (and then am ravenous/hangry by the end), but that only stretches so far even on a good day. During this ride, even with my buffet lunch, I was not going to be able to make it all the way in good spirits. Today's snacks were:

• mocha from starbucks
• cookie, soda, yogurt at lodge
• sesame bars
• kind bar
• more sesame bars (these have good calories, some salt, and some protein and are at many quickie marts)

I noticed that as I went towards Jasper, the mountains crept away, slightly more towards the horizon and less right up next to you. It'll be interesting after I turn around, to go from this "mountains merely dominating the horizon, not right up in your face" back into the close-up mountain snuggle that the rest of the ride on the icefields parkway south, was. These towering giant peaks going straight up from where you are into the clouds and then you can see them above the clouds, too, somehow and wow! I'm not really capturing in word or image what that's like, but maybe I can google up something tomorrow during my day off. Aha, here you go (not my footage!)

I rolled into the town of Jasper about 10 hours after I set out. Figuring >2 hours of not-moving downtime (between lunch and other breaks), this was a good ride, for me (especially, loaded with more than 4,000 feet of climbing!). I did opt out of the singletrack trail into town, though - was too tired to handle a punchy climb at that point and singletrack in the hills is never without those! Rolled up to wrong hostel, stopped my mileage/ride tracker, and then confused the front desk lady when my reservation was not in her system! Then, re-routed to the fortunately fairly nearby correct hostel. Then, cleaned up, had dinner, chatted with Lori...and now for well-deserved sleep.