Dante, Kaden, and Dads 2025 GDMBR Adventure

 "Unquiting" seems like it should be a word. No pictures from me for these days. We rode at a snails pace the 15 miles into Elkford and I decided I was done. Although I had been able to eat some oatmeal that morning I was still dealing with some nausea and abdominal pain, and had zero energy. It was Thursday and I booked two nights at the Elkford Motor Lodge to recover some and to figure out how the heck to get three bicycles and three people from a 2,500 person town in the Canadian rockies to an airport.  I landed on a plan to use one of the biweekly BC transit shuttles to get the three of us and two of the bikes (all the bus could take) to Cranbrook Friday morning, where I'd be able to rent a car, pick up the remaining bike (which the motel desk clerk had agreed to store for two days), then drive to Vancouver for a flight to SFO. Fortunately, the BC transit person I spoke to on the phone gave me the wrong stop information and when we went to pick up the bus the next mor...

Elk Pass is an insanely steep pass at the southern end of Upper Kananaskis Lake. We started up it after a whole mile or so of warm up. I was not doing good and walked the vast majority of it, resting every few hundred feet. Kaden was an absolute barbarian and rode almost all of it. Given the steepness of it, his riding was no more than walking pace through. The terrain changed to rolling hills after that. Dante and Kaden had to stop and wait for me every quarter mile or so but didn't seem to mind. The wonderful scenery probably helped with that. Dante used the extra time to take a lot of photos. A few of my photos from the day follow.   We ended the day at Blue Lake Recreation Area Campground. It was in a beautiful setting but had a semi-primitive campground with nothing but a single picnic table and an outhouse. Unfortunately, it had no bear boxes, so we ended up putting all our food in odor proof bags, inside a bear bag, inside a plastic garbage bag, and onto the floor in the cor...

Day 2 (July 15) started off nice and ended kinda badly. The riding was pretty easy since we spent most of the day riding on a gravel highway that follows the east side of Spray Lake and Lower Kananaskis Lake. Because Kaden is a bit faster than me and Dante I was letting him get up to a quarter mile or so ahead of us but had to tell him to hang back with us after he didn't recognize a sketchy situation. There was a car moving slowly, in a start/stop manner, down the other side of the road, in the wrong direction. When Dante and I passed it I saw that there was a bear at the edge of the woods on the other side of the car. I pulled out my bottle of bear spray before passing it, just in case. Thankfully it had no interest in us or in the car following it. Pictures from the day follow. Leaving Spray Lakes Campground: Riding along Spray Lake and/or Lake Kananaskis: A unknown name small lake we ate lunch at: Just before Bolton campgrounds we encountered two more bears. A mother and cub we...

Dante, Kaden, and I left Banff after a breakfast at Chili's. I would have preferred a non-chain, local restaurant but it was one of the earliest places to open and was right next to our hotel. It was a very cloudy but dry start. It didn't stay that way though. It started raining about an hour into our ride and didn't let up all day. The gorgeous scenery made up for it though. It was an intentionally short day, which we ended at Spray Lakes West Campground. Some pictures and video appear below. Crossing one of the bridges in Banff: At the end of a parking lot near the Banff Fairmont, where the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route leaves town: About 20 minutes into our ride we got our first, and hopefully only, flat. I wasn't paying attention and rolled over a 3 inch or so rock, causing a pinch flat. Of the 6 wheels we could get a flat on my rear wheel is the last one I would want. My newest bike has belt drive instead of a chain and I still don't have the rear wheel rein...

Dante, Kaden, and I are about to start another biking adventure This time we we be riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route from Banff to either Whitefish, Mt or Helena, Mt depending on how we are feeling after the first half. This is the same route that I rode down to the Mexico border in 2022 (https://gdmbr22tg.blogspot.com/). Starting tomorrow you can follow our location here: Share.garmin.com/GDMBRDKD25 PW: GDMBRDKD2025! We don't plan to go fast or to cover any impressive distances each day, just to take our time and have fun. We plan to average 35 or so miles a day and to mostly camp out. Today we spent the day relaxing in Banff, doing some food shopping, and picking up some items we couldn't bring on the plane, like bear spray and camp stove fuel. We also reassembled and loaded up our bikes. A few pictures from our shuttle trip from Calgary and from today appear below.