After a week of lazing around in Calgary, being fed some amazing food, and just enjoying some wonderful hospitality, it was time to get onto the bike again and continue the trek east.
One of the real challenges of the trip so far is 'what is a reasonable distance to ride in one day'. The first stage through the Rockies was difficult because it was so hard to get any idea of how hard the riding would be, or what the implications of pushing a fully loaded touring bike uphill would look like.
The same is true of this stage. Now we are out on the prairies, the Calgary Badlands, what would a full days riding look like, what is a reasonable distance?
You're probably getting the idea. Add to the somewhat interesting flatness a 25 kph tail wind, and you can get quite a long way down the road fairly quickly, as it turns out.
Today's target destination was Bassano, about 135 km from Calgary down Highway 1, and that seemed like a reasonable 'first day back on the bike' after a week off. Stopping after a little over 2 hours I was kind of amused to find that I had already covered 65km .. which is kind of fast for a juggernaut like the rig I am pushing. By 2:30pm I was rolling into Bassano and looking for somewhere to stop.
I had already arranged accommodation for the night through www.warmshowers.org, a cool community of cyclists that offer their homes to others for a clean up, and possibly a bed - or at least a patch of grass for a tent. To be a member you first have to commit to hosting other cyclists at your home ... which seems like a lot of fun to us.
So, here I am, parked up next to a kids playground ... laptop out for blogging ... and waiting until my hosts get home at 6pm.
The ride today was great. I probably pushed a little more than I usually would, but the shoulder was wide and clean and the road gently undulating, rather than flat. Traffic was light, and the weather just perfect. 18-20C with light cloud - and a tail wind. It doesn't get much better than that.
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