For the numerically inclined

Here's something for the number crunchers out there: All the summary data from the Garmin. Pardon the formatting. The time column is elapsed time for that day, not ride time which would have been more interesting. My highest speed on the entire trip came on the first descent on day 1. You may also notice that we climbed more than we descended. That's actually accurate. We missed a major downhill section during the rainout at the Montana border.

The columns are set up as follows:
distance, time, max speed, ascent, descent

Calgary to Kananaskis Camp
51.25, 5:29, 43.30, 2350, 1745

Kananaskis Camp to Longview
95.77, 7:56, 40.80, 5395, 5571

longview to Pincher Creek
84.36, 7:08, 33.50, 4030, 4383

Pincher Creek to St Mary (shortened)
44.87, 5:34, 36.50, 3862, 2218

St Mary to Kallispell (Going to the Sun Road)
83, 9:09, 32.20, 4308, 5841

Kallispell to Eureka
71.4, 5:35, 34.50, 2051, 2227

Eureka to Ft. Steele
64.29, 5:07, 37.00, 2463, 2443

Ft Steele to Windemere
67.96, 6:01, 34.60, 2174, 2054

Windemere to Golden
76.69, 6:07, 31.50, 2786, 2864

Rogers pass, golden to Revelstoke
95.71, 7:38, 43.00, 4687, 5837

Revelstoke to Kamloops
134, 10:43, 36.00, 4792, 5010

Kamloops to Blue Lake (2 days)
144.09, 10:54, 36.50, 5496, 4394

Blue Lake to Jasper (2 days)
132.72, 10:22, 33.20, 5070, 3870

Jasper to Icefields campground
88.64, 8:44, 41.10, 5616, 4367

Icefields to Banff
104.69, 8:53, 39.00, 6212, 6148

Banff to Calgary
81.83, 6:39, 35.00, 2789, 3739

Totals
Miles: 1421.27
ride time: 121:59 hours
Max Speed: 43.30 MPH
Total Climbing: 64081 feet
Total Descending: 62711 feet

The family reunion song

Six year old (yes, 6!) Kamille wanted to do something special as part of the family reunion. She came up with the idea of having a concert. So she and Laurie worked for a couple of days putting the show together. Kamille made tickets that she handed out to everyone. She wrote most of the words to the song, and she and Laurie put the arrangement together. This is just too cute for words. Click on the link below to see the song on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/tutone001#play/all/uploads-all/0/CdJRdVysM5Y

The Paul Family Reunion

I'll be wrapping up the Canada trip posts over the next few days, and making a video slide show, but in the meantime I thought I'd send out an update on the rest of my adventure. I flew out of Calgary on Friday and met Laurie in Cincinatti. Her family had an extended family reunion over the weekend at her cousin Cynthia's house.

Laurie's family is spread out all over the country, so this was the first time they'd had a group like this come together. About 40 people showed up, and they all made me feel like family. It's really interesting hearing an entire family's set of shared stories. Some highlights:

• Smoking stogies with Uncle Tony, an 85 year old WW2 veteran.
• Just hanging out with Uncle Tony and Aunt Lou. They've been married for 57 years. I think this one's going to last.
• Hearing about Fat Finger Pauly, No-Neck Vinnie, and Joey bag-o-donuts.
• The Family Reunion Song. I'll have a post about that and a link to the youtube video in a couple of days.
  
• Little girls. We have none in my family. God they're cute.
  
• "I'm talking and I can't shut up". Laurie had t-shirts printed up for the family members with this printed on the back.
  

Cornhole

I was introduced to a local game out in Cincinatti called Cornhole. It's apparently quite the local rage. There are cornhole tournaments with $10,000 prizes. The game essentially consists of throwing a cloth bag onto a board. If it goes in the cornhole that's 3 points. Anything on the board is 1 point. Each side throws 4 bags, the points are counted, and whoever has the most gets to count the difference. For instance if I got 4 points and the other team got 3 points, then I'd add one to my team's score. Game is 21.

This seems like the perfect game for drinking beer and smoking stogies. Cynthia's sons take it pretty seriously. At one point I was leading 5-3, so I had to give her son a little jazz. "You know, if you lose to a city boy from California you'll never hear the end of it." No surprise, I eventually lost.

Those of you with dirty minds will undoubtedly wonder why I'm not mentioning the obvious...Keep it clean people, keep it clean.

The toilet bowl

OK, it's not what you think. We rode a downhill section of road called the toilet bowl. Here's the view from the top of that section. The road drops off to the right and makes a steep, almost 360 degree turn. On a windless day it would make quite the roller-coaster ride.

We had winds howling in from the side so instead we got a lesson in bike handling skills. Biking afficianados would really appreciate this section of road. With the wind blasting and the bike making a large circle we had to handle wind coming from every side and constantly changing direction. Soon enough it was over. We regrouped down at the roadway below and did a big group WooHoo about how cool it was.

Final Google Earth files

Here are the last three days on Google Earth. There are several additional pictures that I didn't include in the blog.

Jasper to the Icefields Campground

Campground to Banff

Banff to Calgary

In addtion, here's the entire trip on Google Earth all in one place.

Day 1: Calgary to Kananaskis Campground

Day 2: Kananaskis Campground to Longview

Day 3: Longview to Pincher Creek

Day 4: Pincher Creek to St. Mary

Day 5: Glacier National Park, St. Mary to Kallispell

Day 7: Kallispell to Eureka, Mt. (no pictures)

Day 8: Eureka to Ft. Steele

Day 9: Ft. Steele to Windemere

Day 10: Windemere to Golden

Day 11: Rogers Pass, Golden to Revelstoke

Day 12: Revelstoke to Kamloops

Day 14 and 15: Kamloops to Clearwater to Blue River

Day 16 and 17: Blue River to Mt. Robson to Jasper

Day 19: Jasper to Icefields Campground

Day 20: Icefields Campground to Banff

Day 21: Banff to Calgary

One to a planet, once in a lifetime

Terry saved the best for last. We rode from Jasper to Banff along the Icefields parkway, covering 187 miles in two days and including two major mountain passes. To call the scenery spectacular just doesn't do it justice. The roadway runs through both of the national parks (Jasper and Banff), through valleys ringed with glacier capped mountains, and alongside rivers the color of turquoise. We climbed mountain passes that made our lungs ache and quads quiver. We descended mountain passes that made our spirits soar. And we did it for two solid days.

Our luck with the weather continued. Terry has been in this area many times and said he had never seen it this nice. We had tailwinds for most of both days and temperatures in the upper 80's. I suppose it's possible to have a better biking experience, but I'd be hard-pressed to figure out how. Like I said, once in a lifetime.

The Columbia Icefield

First off, I want everyone to know that we are all back safe and sound in Calgary. The blog posts are a little backed up from the lack of internet services along the way. I'll be catching up over the next few days.

The Jasper-to-Banff roadway has two iconic attractions: Lake Louise and the Columbia Icefield. As you might expect, the icefield is at the top of a major climb. The glacier creates its own wind patterns. The air is cold on top of the glacier. Since cold air falls (like warm air rises) , the winds come howling down the mountain. It creates some interesting riding experiences. At one point I was cruising along at 22 mph, barely even pedaling. Within a matter of seconds I was doing 6 mph and grinding away in low gear. It felt like I'd ridden into deep sand.

To be honest, when I got up to the Athabasca Glacier (pictured behind us) I wondered what the big deal was. It's nice and all, but it doesn't exactly look like a World Heritage Site (which it is). The visitors center had a very cool diarama that explained why this site is so important. What you see behind us is just a small tongue of the actual icefield. On top of the mountain it goes on for 40 square miles. Seven separate mountains are connected to the icefield. And here's one interesting factoid. The glacier sits atop a triple continental divide. Runoff from the glacier flows into three separate oceans: The Pacific, Arctic, and Atlantic.

These Ice Explorer buses are used for tours of the Athabasca Glacier. At $50 a ticket, and given our time limitations, we decided to pass.

fun with horsefiles

Any sensitive types or PETA members might want to skip this next post...

It's fascinating what you learn out here on the road. We picked up a little "farm technology" from Dean.

First off, horseflies are really nasty little varmints. They're sort of the polar bears of the fly world. I got bit on the shin bone. They actually bite! So they aren't worthy of any particular sympathy.

Anyway, Dean told us a little story. Horseflies are tough to kill. A good swat just stuns them. Give 'em a little time and they fly away. Now here's the interesting part. If you take a stunned horsefly and insert a blade of grass up its rectum it'll fly away. But it can only fly straight up.

Now hearing a story like that, and being in a campsite full of horseflies, we decided we had to try it out. Terry swatted the horsefly. Then Dean did his magic. Inserting a blade of grass into a horsefly's rectum is a bit of a surgical procedure. Well, the operation was a success, but the patient died. The fly just wriggled around on the ground until we put it out of its misery. Dean swears it's because Terry swatted the fly too hard. Personally, I think the problem occurred sometime during surgery. I guess we'll never know.

Greetings from Lake Louise

We've had an amazing, epic couple of days riding the icefield parkway. There are lots of stories to tell, but they'll have to wait for tomorrow after our return to calgary. In the meantime enjoy the view of Lake Louise.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

High fashion

Blue denim cowboy boots, red bandana, and a mohawk. Damn that's a good look!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Google Earth -- Kamloops to Jasper

Kamloops to Blue River (2 days)

Blue River to Jasper (2 days)

The road to Jasper

We're enjoying a rest day here in the town of Jasper, the civic center of Jasper National Park. It's a much needed rest day. I have a new saddle sore to match my previous one. The original is healing nicely, but by shifting my position in the saddle I managed to create a new one.

The wear-and-tear of three weeks on the road is showing. My cleats are shot. My bike squeaks in all sorts of odd ways. My skin in barely holding together. So a day off is much appreciated. We have three more riding days beginning tomorrow. The first two are both monster days, taking us out to the icefields, and then down to Banff.

We had a most delightful ride into town yesterday, only 55 miles, with a 20m mph tailwind the entire way. As we re-entered the mountains the scenery was once again otherworldly. There were sights that normally would warrant hopping off the bike for a picture, but on this ride barely registered.

Tomorrow's campground will be really remote, in all likelihood without internet, cell phone, electricity, or running water. I'll try to catch up again in Banff.

Mt. Robson

We had a rare and lucky treat on Saturday. Our final destination for the day was Mt. Robson Provincial Park. Much like the Matterhorn in Switzerland, Mt. Robson is almost perpetually enveloped in a layer of fog and clouds. Agnes has driven this road may times and had never actually seen the mountain. As we started our final descent of the day we got a rare a quite spectacular view of the mountain. Definitely a photo op.

We started from backwoods Blue River, and continued following the Thompson River. As we progressed upstream the river grew more and more intense, with actual whitewater sections viewable from the road. I took dozens of pictures, not all of them frame-worthy.

Some of them, well, maybe so.

Mount Terry Fox

Late in the day on Saturday we came across this rest stop, at the base of Mount Terry Fox. The mountain is named in honor of Terry Fox, a young man who's story inspired the nation of Canada. He suffered from bone cancer and had his leg amputated. After recovering, he decided to raise money for cancer research. He set out to run across the entire nation, covering a marathon a day, while running on his artificial leg. He raised millions of dollars in the process, but his journey was cut short when the cancer returned. He passed away in June of 1981, a month after being forced to abandon his quest. To this day there are Terry Fox Memorial runs held throughout Canada.

Diet Plans

I had high hopes for losing about 5 pounds while I was out here. You'd figure that three weeks of riding around the Rockies would be a good way to lose a little weight. It's just unfair that no matter how much I exercise I just can't seem to drop any weight. Damn slow metabolism! Anyone have any ideas on what I might be doing wrong?

Our Mascots

My apologies for the delay in updating the blog. We were without any electronic services for almost 2 full days. We rode into Jasper yesterday afternoon. I started to do an update yesterday and almost immediately had computer problems, so I lost all interest in anything electronic and just decided to enjoy the rest of the day. Anyway, everyone's doing well and I'll have a series of updates coming as the day progresses.

Xena and Phantom seem to take quite well to the great outdoors. This is about their normal state of agitation. Actually, laying down completely is their normal state. "What kind of dog is that?" is a pretty common question for us. They are Bouviers, which doesn't help much unless you're a dog lover.

We were stopped at the Last Spike rest stop a few days ago, the site of the completion of the trans-Canada railway. A busload of Japanese tourists showed up and a little girl saw Agnes walking the dogs. She thought they were baby bears! So of course she had to have her picture taken with them.

Phantom is 12, has arthritis and doesn't run around a whole lot. He will however eat anything that Terry tosses his way. Including peanut butter, which is quite fun to watch. Xena is 8, and has the occasional burst of energy. At the Pincher Creek campground she decided to run laps. Two full laps around our campsite at full speed. Then she was done. Having gotten that out of her system, she went back and laid down.

South Thompson River

Since leaving Kamloops two days ago we've been following the South Thompson River upstream. This is a large, meandering river. It seems to me that the pace of the river has changed the tempo of the riders. We've been much more relaxed the last couple of days. The 90+ degree temperatures could have a little something to do with it as well I suppose, but we all seem to be taking it a little easier. The picture on the right is Terry's water-pistol sneak attack.

We're making our way from Kamloops to Jasper over the course of 4 days. The roads are wonderful, with mostly sparse traffic and typically a full lane of shoulder to ride on. I've been riding mostly solo the last couple of days, just enjoying the scenery, taking photos whenever I feel like it, and riding at a pace that feels right. It's been quite wonderful actually. Here are Dean and Terry raiding yet another Saskatoon bush.





This area is sparsely populated, which makes the handful of local establishments work pretty hard to catch our attention. This particular place had Snoopy dogfighters on poles, along with an antiques store and a snack shop. We see the occasional sign for the oddball tourist trap. ("Grizzly Experience - takes one hour!"), but other than that there's not much civilization out here. Tonight's camp at Blue River has been tagged "Hillbilly Heaven". It's the only place we've stopped at that has no cell phone service. However, you can buy live bait at the campground office. So, net win for the regulars.

Pine Mountain Beetle

This part of British Columbia has been under attack from the Pine Mountain Beetle. It's affected large portions of the forests around here. You may have to blow up this photo to see the effects. (just click on the picture.)

The beetle attacks and kills the trees. Normally a cold winter will end the infestation, but the winters have been warm lately so the outbreak has spread.

As part of the forestry services efforts to control the spread of the disease they have started harvesting the infected trees. One of the interesting side effects of the disease is that the wood ends up with a bluish tint. The resin the trees produce interact with a fungi the beetle carries, causing the discoloration.

The next time you're in a lumberyard look for "denim wood". That is the wood that is harvested from these infected trees.

Hmmm, not what I wanted to hear

I've struggled all day with whether to include this in the blog, but in the end it's part of my story for this trip so I feel like I should include it. I found out last night that I got laid off from my job. That wasn't exactly the news I was expecting to hear out on the road, but life is what it is. I'd heard about the company layoff from a friend and decided to call my boss and see what's going on. He tried to hold off on telling me until I got back but I forced his hand. Better to know I suppose.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm going to ignore this news for the rest of the trip. This is likely the only opportunity I'll ever have to ride out here, and the real world will be waiting for me when I get back. I'm actually feeling pretty OK with things. My company has supported me and my family for 18 of the last 20 years, and I'm incredibly grateful for that. I've dodged the layoff bullet many times over the years, so at age 47 I'm pretty fortunate that this is the first time it's happened to me. There are lots of potential opportunities out there for me. I've never been unemployed before, so this will be a new experience. I've decided to continue blogging here about that experience after the vacation is over. Who knows, maybe I'll end up on Oprah!

My riding mates have been really supportive. By the end of the night we were actually able to joke about things. I told Terry that every time I ride with him I have to change careers!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Happy birthday Dean!

We celebrate in style around here!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

A note from Frank and Vickie

We got an email from Frank and Vickie yesterday that I thought I'd pass on. They've driven the remainder of our route. Sounds like they've had a great time, and that we will be having a great time as well!

Thanks guys!

-------

Hi Terry, Agnes, Phantom, Xena et al,

We motored through the rest of your route and are now in Bozeman with our daughter and her family. The scenery was spectacular to the Nth degree, and almost unreal for the 3 segments into Banff. Outstanding job of route selection!!!!

We've been following your progress on Tom's blog. Congratulations to everybody for topping Rogers Pass. Hope your rest day in Kamloops has gone well, and that everyone's batteries are recharged for the challenges ahead.

Thanks again for 8 great days of cycling and companionship.

Regards to all, cycle safely, and may tailwinds and good weather prevail.

Cheers,

Frank & Vickie

This week's Google Earth

Time to catch up with the Google Earth files. Here's the last few days of riding since the last rest day. I'm missing one day, Ft. Steele to Windemere. It's still on the Garmin but I'm having a little technical trouble.

Kallispell to Eureka, MT. (No pictures, just the route)

Eureka to Ft. Steel

Windemere to Golden

Rogers Pass: Golden to Revelstoke

Revelstoke to Kamloops (No pictures, just the route)

I'm moving to Canada !

Cherry Dr. Pepper flavored slurpees. That just sealed the deal.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Calgon, take me away!

Ahhhh... A hot shower. With water pressure. That lasts as long as I want. Followed by a hot bath. Nir-freakin-vana.

After 6 days on the road we arrived in Kamloops for our 2nd rest day. Everything I have is grimy and smelly, but we'll worry about that tomorrow. At least I'm finally clean and can stand the smell of myself.

I made a tactical decision to skip today's ride. It was scheduled to be 110 miles in to a headwind all day long. Although the scenery was nice, it didn't measure up to some of the areas we've already covered, and some that are still coming. So, I decided to ride in the van today. That gives my saddle sore almost 3 full days to heal up, and hopefully puts me in good shape to make it through the last 7 days of riding.

I'll try posting some picks tomorrow, but I'm still having internet access issues from my room. I'm typing this in the lobby of the hotel because it's the only place where the wireless connection seems to work. Oh, the joys of travelling...

Tomorrow should more accurately be called a "catch-up" day instead of a "rest day". I'll be doing laundry, visiting the bike shop, catching up on Google Earth stuff, doing bike maintenance, etc. We need a full day every once in awhile just to catch up on this stuff.

Kamloops strikes me as kind of a blue-collar sort of town. There are a large number of homeless and vagrants and other assorted scruffians. At the same time there are the usual coffee shops and restaurants and curio shops and whatnot located on the main drag. Vancouver is supposedly offering their homeless one-way bus tickets to get them out of town in advance of the coming Winter Olympics. Doesn't seem very sporting to the folks of Kamloops, but there you go.

Scenic Orgasm 2 -- Canada's Revenge

The Rogers Pass lived up to its reputation. We have a bunch of euphoric riders in camp tonight. If you were to design a bike ride you'd be hard-pressed to top today's experience. The Rogers Pass cuts through the middle of Canada's version of Glacier National Park. It's an engineering wonder in addition to being a scenic wonder.

We rode out this morning, looking at a 96 mile day and a lot of climbing. The weather reports from the previous night called for intermittent showers and a thunderstorm. At things turned out the conditions were perfect for climbing -- cool, overcast, and windless. The group seemed to be dragging this morning, but once we got riding the fatigue of the last few days seemed to fade away.

As the climb progressed up the hill the views grew ever more dramatic.I'm hard-pressed to pick only a couple to highlight the day. I noticed on my altimeter that we should be getting close to the summit, but we were miles away from the peak. We then began one of the most sublime descents of my biking life.

The canyon wall was closed in on the left side of the road, enveloped in a deep forest canopy. The river followed the right side, with magnificent glacier-capped peaks as far as the eye could see. I bombed down the descent, asphalt smooth as a pool table, at 40+ MPH. I briefly thought about slowing down and taking some pictures, but the experience was so exhilarating that I just decided to roll with it. I literally yelled out loud on 3 separate occasions, just from the pure joy of the experience. I can think of very few experiences in my life (hi sweetness!) that could match the sheer pleasure of this descent.

We then had 2000 feet to climb in a few miles to make it to the summit. The beauty of the place made the struggle a lot easier. In actuality the road probably never got to more than a 7% grade, although it went on for miles.











Towards the top we passed through a series of snow tunnels, set up to protect the road from avalanches in the wintertime.













Here's the view from very near the summit. It's not actually as cold as the picture would indicate.














And a couple more pictures from the descent.


Large cascading waterfall...



















Flowers and waterfall along the roadside...


















The river we followed...















More Mountain Views...

Gangland camping

The mosquitos are firmly in control of the Golden Municipal Campground. I got bit repeatedly yesterday. Any little venture off the gravel path was met with fierce retribution. After the umpteenth bite I managed to kill a few of the verminous little bastards, but that only seemed to piss them off. I knew I was in trouble when the mosquito gang leaders showed up, carrying pointy little knives and wearing tiny red bandanas on their little fuzzy heads.. I got the message at that point and retired to the safety of my tent, where they only outnumbered me about 20 - 1.

Golden B.C.

Another magnificent day of cycling today as we made our way north through the river valleys of British Columbia. It's been getting toasty in the afternoons, with temps climbing close to 90. We've been at it for several days now, and have two big back-to-back days coming up before the next rest day. I'm feeling about ready for a break now as it is, but we're all soldiering along.

The scenery definitely helps propel the legs though. The canyon walls gradually closed in on us as the day progressed. It reminded me a lot of Switzerland actually.

Finding a suitable lunch stop for the R.V. is one of many challenges that Agnes and the gals face each day. Today they pulled into the driveway of a house along the road. Rita used her feminine wiles and convinced the owner of the house to let us set up shop there for our lunch stop. They've picked some stunning locations for our breaks along the way. This particular location had wild saskatoon berries growing across the street. Terry looked like a cycling bear as he was raiding the bush.

Late in the day I was cycling alone and spotted an Osprey in its nest along side the road. It took off from the nest, made a big circle around the valley and came in for a landing as I stopped and watched in awe. What an incredible site.

Tomorrow's a monster day: 95 miles and two major climbs including Rogers Pass, one of the best known climbs in all of Canada. Should be quite a day.

Mother Nature's Revenge

The Animal Kingdom reaches to re-establish it's dominion, one bike helmet at a time...

Geology 101

class..Class…CLASS…SHUT UP!!!!

Ok, I guess that was an obscure reference. 10 points for the first person to identify it.

Anyway, the geology around here is fasciniating, made more so by Terry being in the oil business and Agnes being a retired geologist. I thought I’d share some little tidbits. Notice the high peak to the left, and how jagged it is? Now notice how relatively smooth the lower peaks are?

150,000 years ago a glacier came through this valley. You can tell how high up the mountain the glacier came by looking at where the crags start. All of the smoother sections were buried under ice. The jagged sections of the higher mountain were still exposed to the air.


These vertically striped cliff faces are called Hoodoo’s. They’re made of sandstone and occur during some process I don’t really understand. OK, I guess I better keep my day job. Anyway, they’re all over the place around here, and they’re famous enough that we rode past an outdoor concert called “Hoodstock”.





The Valley around here is actually the source water for the Columbia River Gorge. It’s also quite spectacular. We had a second marvelous day of riding with no rain, mild winds and warm temps. It actually hit 90 by the time we got finished. We might have finished a little earlier if we’d gotten a quicker start. Bike problems, saying our good-byes to Frank and Vickie, and just general slowness meant we didn’t get started until after 10:00. No worries though.














As I’m fond of saying, it ain’t an adventure until something F’s up. P0or Agnes got to the campsite today. After driving down a long gravel driveway she found out that they won’t accept 40 foot R.V.’s, they couldn’t handle 10 people, and oh by the way, the water wasn’t drinkable. OK, switch to Plan B. The gals eventually found a better site with easy access and a restaurant on site, so everything turned out fine. As you can see, Xena wasn’t too stressed out about the whole situation.