220 km from Fernie to Turner Valley in 24 hours.
I crossed over the Crowsnest Pass yesterday around lunchtime and caught a mega tailwind on the other side of the pass.
I flew down the eastern flank of the Rockies, stopping for the customary photo ops at the summit and Alberta border, and made a pit stop into Coleman to visit my great aunt Carol.
After a re-energizing lunch and some catching up, I checked out potential stopping points for the night and settled on Chain Lakes, 100 km distant. I had been doing easy days for a bit and the tailwind seemed to be holding so I decided it was time to crush a long day and get into Calgary by Saturday night.
Descending out of the foothills was insane! Between the wind and the downhill I averaged about 50 km/hr betwee. Coleman and Lundbreck. It was like riding a motorcycle, but if a motorcycle was slightly unbalanced and had 1.5 inch wide tires.
At the turnoff to Highway 22, Cowboy Trail, I stopped for a second to reflect on the last 4 weeks of riding and admire the wind-swept prairie. I made some awesome time for a while across the prairie, until I hit the section of highway that must have been planned by a visiting engineer from BC...
The road cut east and immediately took me up what would eventually be a 20 km hill. By the time I ground my way up to Chain Lakes, it was 8:30 pm so I quickly set up camp and made a quick pot of soup.
I knew that the weather was supposed to turn in the next two days and waking up several times during the night to rain falling on my tent did little to lift my optimism for the long day into Calgary.
Sure enough, I woke up to thick, overcast skies and a light drizzle.
However, by the time I boiled some water and got my brekkie on the go, the sun peeked out on me. Communicating with fam in the city, it seemed there was a discussion about whether to come pick me up. Since I was packed up by 8:30 and the Calgarians were still waking up, I hopped on the bike to at least do a few kilometers.
Through the morning I dodged and ran from rain showers with varying success. Eventually, the wind shifted to push me along and sweep the storms just ahead of me and I flew into Turner Valley by 11:30.
There I met my cousin and dad out of Calgary, had some lunch at the Chuckwagon and sampled some craft spirits and caught a ride into Calgary for the last 70 km to start my first set of rest days in three weeks.
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