With my wheel in tatters I headed down to Wilson’s Bike shop to see what they could do, or even if I could limp to Banff about 60km away. Rob, the nice guy from the day before went home and pulled a 9 speed wheel off his own bike and sold it to me for $100! I bought him and his staff a bunch of pastries at the local bakery to say thanks.
The road down from Lake Louise to Banff is like the one from Princeton to Keromeos. All downhill. It was nice and I was averaging 28.9km for the first hour! But then I got a flat. It was another sign I had angered the bike Gods somehow. I took off the panniers, flipped the bike over and removed the wheel, pulled out the tube and…shit. I only had a 1.5″ tube, not the 1.9″ I needed. Still I would persevere. I put that one in and while the ride became a little softer and slower I was still managing 22km an hour and so life was still good.
I was planning on stopping in Banff for lunch but instead I blew on by. It was only another 27km to Canmore my destination. When I pulled into Canmore I bought a couple of new tubes and swapped out the smaller tube. With the larger tube I was able to ride faster since the tire was harder.
However I was only going to the local youth hostel. When I got there, a few k out of town, I was informed because it was the long weekend it was full. Infact, all of Canmore was full! I was left with only one choice, pedal on.
I was hoping it would be all downhill from Canmore to Calgary, it is not. In fact there is one hill, not on the map that is 1400m! Higher than some of the passes I went through!
I was 2pm when I left Canmore and Had another 100km to go before Calgary. On the way down I got another flat tire. Cursing as I ripped the tube out I noticed a slight crack in rim. I guess it wasn’t such a good deal after all. The crack is on the inside and hasn’t shown anywhere else so I put some duct tape onthe spot to keep it from pinching the tube (which was causing the flats) and pushed on through a headwind and a never ending prairie.
Bye bye Rockies!
Prairie Dog!
It was 8 by the time I pulled into Calgary and I still needed to find Bonnie’s at the other end of town. Calgary is not a good city for cyclists and eventually I gave up and called Bonnie and Ian and asked them to pick me up. It was 9pm and I was exhausted. I had riden 200km. On the bike for almost 10 hours and with an average speed of 21.9km I had had enough.
So now I am safe in Calgary, legs recovering and planning the next phase.