What wass supposed to be a short day, from Golden to Lake Louise turns out to be a really long one. I slept in late and ate a good breakfast because I needed my stength for the climb (1600+m)
The rode out of Golden is tough going with a steep long hill right at the beginning. I hadn’t even gone 5km when I noticed my rear wheel was untrue and rubbing on the brake. This climb was hard enough already! I threw off all the panniers, flipped the bike over and trued it as best I could.
Mountain Goats that watched me change a tire.
After 10km I entered the construction zone that cause the massive landslide that shut it down earlier in the week. Being on a bike though, they never want me to stop with traffic and always wave me on through.
At the bottom of the steepest longest hill in the area a construction dude in a truck says to me “You can’t go up the hill” I was like, “Ya , I can do it no problem!”
“No, I mean there are machines above and they may send down debris. You are not allowed to ride up.” And with that we threw my bike in the back of the truck and droveto the top of the hill. I wasn’t complaining.
Now I don’t know if the altitude was beginning to play but I was beginning to feel like I would pass out and my heart was pounding in my chest like it wanted to jump out, however I reached the aptly named area of Field which is, ironically a flat field.
Truffle Pigs
I pulled into “Truffle Pigs” (http://www.trufflepigs.com/) and had a great Buffalo Burger and latte. I was about half way and had only another 10km or so until the summit. However because you are on a flat area when you do start climbing you have a very steep climb left! As I left field I noticed that the rear wheel was rubbing again. So I went through the process again of pulling off the panniers, flipping the bike over, truing the wheel. However this time I noticed the rim was beginning to bulge and crack where some of the spokes were. A sign of things to come I’m afraid.
On the way I captured a neat avalanche on film.
I was very upset since I paid a lot of money for this wheel, it has caused nothing but troubles (broken spokes, relacing, redishing), and now I was forced to buy a new one.
Kicking Horse Summit sucks. There is no sign, no monument, you don’t even know where the summit is, it just kind of peters off and you begin heading down hill. However, I reached my goal of the Alberta border and snapped some pics of myself. One down, nine to go.
Entering Alberta!
When I pulled into Lake Louise I went straight to Wilson’s bike shop where which nice guy, Rob helped me out. However it turnedout they didn’t have a nine speed wheel only a seven speed, however he was confident that I could make it to Banff or even Canmore and get it fixed.
So with that I headed to the Alpine club hostel and called it a day. Sort of. It was still early and after unloading my bike i figured I should go see the lake. I mean, it IS Lake Louise after all.
Well the lake was okay, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about but perhaps I’m a bit jaded. On the way down the heat from braking caused the metal in the rim to relax and crack further, the spoke ripped out of the rim and the wheel went so untrue it seized up. I needed to undo the rear brake just to get the bike rolling again! Seems I wasn’t going anywhere.
Stats:
Distance 93 km (Maps are always short by about 10%)
Average 15.2 km
Max 49.5 km