Take What Life Gives You

Our Exquisitely Detailed Tour Plan

A three day ‘tour’ over ground we’ve covered countless times before should hardly rate a FB post, let alone a journal alongside all the other folks here doing proper tours. However, as we all know too well, the past 18 months have been far from normal, and three days in more or less our backyard is all we’ve got right now.

We’ll take it.

For starters, just last week Alberta, where Kirsten and I live, had the ignominious distinction of having the highest covid rates in North America. Go team go! Travel, and other, restrictions have started to bring the rates down now, and the vaccination campaign is well underway with ~60% of folks having received their first shot. This means there is a looming light that we can see at the end of the tunnel. But it ain’t here yet and we are pretty restricted in where we can, or should, go.

Next up, when the world started to really unravel last winter/spring, we took on a commitment as ‘puppy raisers’ for a Alberta/BC guide dog association.

We got this lovely little ball of fur last April and have been working diligently to train and socialize her according to the association’s guidelines and rules since then.

She has now grown into this!

As a guide dog in training, she’s able to travel everywhere with us wherever we can go. However, as noted above, at present this is almost no where, and we’re certainly not ready to drag her along in a trailer on a bike tour. We are also limited in who we can leave her with and for how long.

All this to get to the point that we can really only squeeze in a ‘local’ 3 day tour, and this is it!

I made our route in Pocket Earth (the mapping app we use on the road) and exported the GPX file to RWGPS. I can’t figure out how to get rid of all the POI markers in RWGPS, which equate to waypoints on our Pocket Earth route. It looks messy, but I think you can work out where we’re going.

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Although short at only 3 days, this tour will take in some of the most beautiful riding in all of Canada, including Highwood pass, the highest paved road in Canada. To make it even sweeter, the 55 km section over the pass is closed to all motor vehicle traffic until June 15th! It will just be us, the elk, bighorn sheep, maybe a bear or two, and since we will be going over the pass on a Tuesday, probably only 50 or so roadies rather than the hundreds that will be out riding on the weekend!

A few pic’s from our very similar 2019 ride that we did on our tandem. On this 2021 trip we are taking our singles as we’ve modified the route to include about 60 km’s of gravel forestry roads, better for the wild camping we will be doing. The weather forecast looks great, the camping gear and food is packed and the puppy is ‘on holiday’ for a few days with another puppy raiser. We’re ready to ride.

From our 2019 ride. We start off riding east out of the mountains and then head south through foothills ranching country before heading back west. Beautiful country and the weather was perfect for the first two days then. Hoping for more of the same.

Back into the mountains and climbing towards Highwood pass. Note the ominous change in weather.

At the pass, cold and wet! We’ve been here many times both touring and day riding when it’s been awesome. That wasn’t this time! Fingers crossed for 2021

If you’ve made it this far and are now eagerly awaiting daily updates, don’t hold your breath. From the time we leave until we get home, we are essentially off-line. This will be an after-the-fact blog, done in the comfort of our house. I’ll try to make it in-the-moment 😎! Check back in on Wednesday!

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