Off I go!
 

Tomorrow moring I fly to Vancouver for my first real tour. Friday afternoon me and my riding partner are meeting to ensure we have everything we need, then first thing saturday morning taking the Crowsnest highway through the Rockies.

We only have so much holidays from work, so we're expecting 100km a day, arriving in Lethbridge 1250 km later (bus home from there). We're taking the detour up to Nelson and back onto the Crowsnest, as we have a real bed to sleep at Nelson.

Living in the Prairies I don't know what biking an actually hill is like, but we think 100km is conservative number. Home is another 650km from Lethbridge, so if we can do more than 100km/day we might have enough time to risk going all the way.

We'll carry enough food for two days, but the road is crawling with towns, so it shouldn't be a problem buying more stuff.

The only concern is the following...

http://envweb.env.gov.ab.ca/env/fore...tcreek1_lg.jpg
The fire is still out of control, but its getting better and the highway hasn't been closed. With the amount of smoke we may have to buy some smoke masks for a few days.
http://envweb.env.gov.ab.ca/env/fore...ate_aug14.html

I hope to be back with pictures in a couple weeks!

Have a great trip, carry lots of water and a fire extinguisher!

Dude, I hope that fire is gone quickly. I've ridden in that sort of thing (last year) and it isn't much fun.

salvaico - good luck - hope the winds blowing the right way for you...

chris - have you changed your picture? I recognise the quote...werent you an ape?

I was an ape until not so long ago. Now I'm a nugget. See this thread:

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?threadid=35154

gstuff - I like the new moniker (name)....I might change mine by deed poll now meself

And I'm back! So the trip was caught a bit short - My riding partner was in Toronto at 4pm on Thursday the 14th to catch his flight to Toronto. The blackout made him 4 days late. I just rode around Vancouver during that time and boy thats a great place to ride.

So we did Vancouver to Nelson, BC. 675km in 6 days. All but one night was spent in campgrounds, that one night was in the rough beside a beautiful creek.

Here is a picture of me and our bikes at Osooyos pass: http://ctimail.dnsalias.org/bike.jpg

Here is a general picture of the rockies with the haze from the smoke: http://ctimail.dnsalias.org/haze.jpg The smoke wasn't that bad luckily for us.

We almost ran out of water a few times, as so many creek beds are dry and one campsite had bad water. However I let my friend worry, so I was fine :-)

It was a wonderful first tour and I'm looking forward to our next one; we're thinking april/may