Riding Bow Valley Parkway

So on Sunday, I managed to get the oppurtunity to ride the Bow Valley Parkway just off highway 1, past Banff all the way to Lake Louise, well not quite, didn't go up to the lake but I stopped at the bakery, so that's almost the same thing..... right? Well anyhow I did this ride last year and I think I had probably had my bike for not all that long maybe about 2 months.  Of this time, about a month of it, it was out of commision due to an awesome crack in my seat stay that made me slightly hesitant to ride the bike.  After all of that got fixed though I was back riding and this I think was probably my longest ride so far last year.  I wasn't particularly good, actually I was probably rubbish at this point and thus the ride itself was quite difficult.  For those that haven't ridden Bow Valley Parkway, here is a profile of it, and you can take a look, it's literally in between lots of mountains and offers some great views to look at.
The Ride So that link there will actually take you to see all the cool stats about this ride that is the story of today's post.

So without further ado, lets get to it.  I went out with Jeff and Anna, both people that are on STC like me.  It was actually kind of a gloomy day because it started off raining, but thankfully it let up in time for us to go riding.  There were also fires that made for some awesomely smokey weird views.  The ride it self is pretty much all uphill all the way to Lake Louise, and for some reason that day I actually didn't feel bad on the bike, in fact I felt alright.  The ride itself starts off with a little bit of undulating hills, up down up down, up and down, till you hit the first of the real hills.  I think it was around this time that we saw a person up the road going at a fair lick.  Now Jeff is a climber there's no disputing that but since he's broken his second shifter, he's riding on a sweeet Argon 18 cross bike.  I thought there's no way he's going to attack up this hill, I mean we are going to catch her anyways.  But I think it was also around this time that logical thinking went out the window.  Jeff decides to light up the climb, I follow and as i'm following him up the only thing that's going through my head is man if we keep on trying to destroy each other on these climbs I'm not going to survive.  Thankfully we pass the female rider (she was wearing a Mt Ventou Jesery).  Rumor has it that there's a weekly race that goes up Mt Ventou, or Alpe D'Huez.  These are both ridiculous climbs.  Like Ventoux is something like 8 to 9 percent average (possibly more) up 21 k. Like I enjoy climbing, partially because I'm lightweight but I can't even begin to imagine racing up this, let alone every week. So really cool this lady had a Mt Ventoux jersey if she really did climb. 

Now an unfortunate thing that often happens when going out riding with other people is that you don't really work with the, you're beside them chatting with them, having a good ole time and....... wasting energy.  Thankfully on this day we did decide to work together, and I actually enjoyed pulling this day (this may have had something to do with my mis alligned shifters after my crash resulting in me thoroughly enjoying having my hands on the top of the bars.  I think our average speed going out there was about 27 and this was into a headwind.  I was determined to hit an average speed of 30 over the entire distance, but before that we had to head to the bakery at Lake Louise.

Laggan's Mountain Bakery and Deli makes some really really good pastry items.  I had this pizza bun last time that was deeeeeeeelllliiiiissshhhhhhhh.  We went later this time so it was a lot less choice but still some really great stuff.  I had this saskatoon berry square (which was really just like a saskatoon crumble)  Jeff had this english pinwheel something or other (I still don't know what it was)  Imagine something like a cinnamon bun, but a lot lighter, without the syrupy cinnamony mixture and replace it with just a light sugar and dried fruit.  It was pretty good.  Like any ride you have to draw between resting and catching to tail wind.

Determined to actually make the 30 km average, we pounded it back somewhere around 35 and up the entire way, it was actually pretty sweet and nothing was going to stop us, not even the tail wind turning into a headwind which always seems to be the case.  You will always have at least 1 headwind...... you will likely have a headwind on the way back too.  If you are lucky you will have headwind then a tailwind..... you will however NEVER get a tailwind both ways. 

I think that's enough rambling for this ride.  I've taken to doing six AM runs tommorow and if the weather holds out (Which I have a feeling it won't) will be a double day with the run in the morning and training with the team in the evening.

~Cheers