Day 12 – Ripping Down to Cowtown

Sailing

Yesterday’s strong winds hadn’t ceased. My immediate thoughts were whether I’d be fighting it, or whether it’d be a huge boost.

Only way to find out was to pull out the compass. To my great satisfaction, it was blowing from the West!

Before I could get too excited, I still needed to deal with the tent, which was on the verge of going airborne. Surely enough, it did get some good air, and grabbing onto it made me wonder if I was about to go parasailing.

Ok, now that was done, I made my way back to Hwy 1 to head towards Calgary. That was, after a good carb loaded breakfast of course!

Out For a Rip

The stretch down the highway was ridiculous, thanks to the powerful tailwind. My normal speed would’ve been just under 20km/h but I was definitely maintaining somewhere between 30km/h and 40km/h. What should’ve been a 4 hour ride became a 2.5 hour ride.

It really felt like getting the golden mushroom from MarioKart.

If this can continue throughout the prairies, I’ll be so set. But that is way too good to be true.

Exploring Downtown + Pitstop at MEC

Back to the city life! I did not miss those busy highways. I also noticed that as the myth indicates, (some) Albertans do not particularly love sharing their highways with cyclists. Pretty sure I got honked at couple times just for existing.

But thanks to my record speeds, and with my friend Evan having his work shift extended, it was a perfect time to go cruise through downtown.

(Side note, Evan was coming off of a 12 hour shift, literally overlooking an open heart surgery (he’s an anesthesiologist), and he was apologizing to me for being late! Like c’mon! Evan, you’re actually the nicest guy.)

I made a right turn off of the highway and ended up on an amazing bike route going down the river, and taking me to the city.

From there, I zigzagged my way around, checking out the pedestrian streets in the city centre, the Calgary tower, and happened to find MEC, which I did have on my list of to-dos.

I went in to see if there was any kind of warranty on that pannier that had the clip section completely crack down the middle, and the top handle snap. They were awesome and swapped out the whole thing, no questions asked. I even somehow made $8 off of it since they returned the PST tax hahah, what a deal! (Pour mes lecteurs Français; chaque province ont des taxes différentes. Par exemple, on pay 12% en taxes sur nos achat en Colombie-Britannique comparé à 5% en Alberta.)

Best BBQ in Town with Evan and Steven

After arriving at Evan’s, taking my much-needed warm shower, and first shave of the trip, we, along with Steven, made our way to this incredible BBQ restaurant that he had picked out, “Hayden Block”, where he generously treated us to this absolute feast.

He was not joking around when he told me they had the best brisket. In fact everything we had ordered was food perfection.

Vancouver 100% needs an Albertan BBQ spot like this!

After catching up, and crushing this amazing meal, we took the electric longboard + bike down to the neighbourhood ice cream shop. Once again, delicious.

Daily Stats

• Route: Bow Valley, AB —> Calgary, AB
• Distance: 88km
• Elevation Gain: 505m