On making Calgary in time for lunch

I made Calgary City limits at 1:05 PM. Having left S and T’s house in Canmore, in 3 hours and 49 minutes of biking, I covered 92.69 kilometres, for an average of 24.3 km/h with a maximum of 65.8 and long periods of sustained speeds in mid thirties. None too shabby even if I say so myself. I had lunch at a second rate donair place. I had been joking about getting to Calgary by lunchtime, but I was surprised I managed it! Mind you, I did have a slight tailwind.

Following S and T’s advice, I had followed the 1A to the 1X at Seebee. This was quiet secondary highway, if that word can be applied to a road that passes a heliport and has a certain amount of heavy truck traffic! It did have a very good shoulder. The nearest thing to a hiccough was when I was nearing a plant entrance and a truck behind me was behaving as if it was planning to to enter. In my opinion, our speed vectors would have conflicted, so I signalled I was stopping and stopped well before to let him go ahead. He indeed turned in.

Just after crossing the Bow River at Seebee, I took a gravel road short cut as recommended by S and T. They have a good knowledge of the local bike routes from personal experience and from hosting many Warmshowers guests.

This brought me to Alberta Highway 1, a.k.a. the Trans-Canada Highway. This took me to Calgary in bright sunshine, chased by small rain showers.

From the donair place, I followed a semi-coherent network of bike paths along the Bow River. This involved stopping to check Google Maps on the iPhone every so often. Consequently, it was well after 3 when I arrived at the Hostel in the East Village area.

Good day, today. Final stats: time: 5.12.29, distance: 117.25, avg 22.5, max 65.8.0.

Oh. The plate tally is 7 provinces, and the NWT with a probable on the Yukon. 28 states with 3 probables. Switzerland plus another unidentified European Union other than the UK (the rear plate was white).

I wrote the bulk of this having supper in a place on Stephen Avenue which is semi-pedestrianised. As I walked out of the bar, I may have walked into the frame of a commercial for Co-Op grocery stores that was being filmed. A flunky came up to me and asked me to sign a waiver, in case I appeared in the shot!