Bikes are packed and ready to roll. Now I just need to do one last job for work and I can hit the road this afternoon heading for Roosville, MT.  We’ll start riding back tomorrow AM and If all goes well I should be posting some trip photos by next weekend.

Enjoy the sunshine!

I’m in the midst of the final packing and bike preparation to ride the CDN Great Divide Route on my Pugsley with my buddy Kurt.  We were stoked to do this ride as we’ve heard it’s some of the nicest riding along the whole GDR route from Banff to the Mexican border. Doing a bit of surfing today I found out that the Adventure Cycling Association [ACA] is thinking of revising the lower part of the CDN GDR route to make it more dirt and less paved roads/civilization.  That sounded cool so we started looking at the new route and decided to give it a shot.

You can see in the map above that the current GDR route is on the right and the new revised GDR route is the red/blue/orange portion to the left - they join back up at Sparwood, BC.  The new route is about 188kms long vs. the 120kms of the current route it replaces.  For the extra ~70kms price tag you get a much more remote ride, less paved roads, more animals and less cars.  That sounds great!…=-)

The only snag is that there is a 1.5km section of singletrack we need to find to join two portion of the route togther.  We are not sure how well marked this section is and if we don’t find it we could spend a lot of time bushwhacking.

Recently the Tour Divide GDR race used the new route and folks seem to be quite happy with it.  If all goes well it looks like it will become the offical CDN GDR route when the ACA prints new CDN GDR maps.  Read about the new route on the Tour Divide Blog.

I better get back to packing and checking over my bike!

Since we are talking about racks for a Pugsley I figured I’d post another great Surly Nice Rack idea.  Martin [owner of the Fatbike Alaska Blog] posted a great tip on MTBR.com showing how to cut down a rear Surly Nice Rack to fit on the front of a Pugsley.

You can read about all the details on MTBR.com here.

The Surly Pugsley is a wierd bike.  Because they front wheel is actually a 135mm wide rear wheel and the whole bike has a drivetrain offset to the right 17mm fitting rack is a bit tricky.  I’ve had good luck using two Old Man Mountain Cold Springs rear racks.  OMM racks are very versatile and lend themselves to odd ball applications - not to mention they are great racks.

However, it’s good to have options and I came across this cool Pugsley posted at MTBR.com by Pigeonfarmboy. He used front and rear Surly Nice racks which are amazingly burly.  It took a bit of fiddling to get the front on one, but it works nicely [pun intended!].

You can read his post on MTBR.com here for more details.

I found this cool tour report of a couple who rode their fat tire bikes [1 Surly Pugsley & 1 custom fatty] along the coast between Hope and Homer in Alaska.  This remote 160 mile tour showcases the Pugsley’s ability to do a whole lot more than be just a snow bike in the winter.

Kurt and I had been planning on heading to Europe in July first to bike and then we decided we’d do some kite boarding.  As the trip got closer the effects of the poor economy started to become more real and our budget started to shrink.  We came to the conclusion it made more sense to save the airfare and do stuff closer to home where we would be able to camp and cook for ourselves.

One trip I’ve been interested in for a while is riding the Canadian portion of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.  Which runs from Banff 355kms down to the border with Montana.  I think we’ll start at the south end and ride back home just because it makes the logistics of getting a ride to the start easier.

The route roughly follows the continental divide on gravel roads, double track and some single track.  We’ll be camping along the way and have to carry our gear and food with us.  Looking at the bikes we have our Pugsleys seemed like the obvious choice. I’ve posted about using a Pugsley as a touring bike and figured this would be a good test for the concept.

Riding your bike to get across town is great, but sometimes you are in a rush, your destination is too far, it’s pouring rain, etc…  If you need to go somewhere that is near the C-Train line it would be handy to ride to the C-Train, jump on and then ride from the closest stop to where you need to go.  It can be that easy - well almost!

Weekdays

You can take a bike on he C-Train except for 0630-0900hrs and 1500-1800hrs.  That’s great as long as you aren’t trying to commute to work.

Two ways to get around the rush hour bike ban:

• use a folding bike and put it in a bag so you can carry it on like a piece of luggage.  What bike?…=-)
• many C-Train stations have bike lockers that you can rent.  I used to walk or skateboard to the C-Train station near me then I’d ride the C-Train as close to my office as I could go.  I had a bike I kept at this station in a bike locker and I rode it the last 25kms to work.  At the end of the day I reversed the process.  It actually worked pretty well.  You could even have a  bike locker at each end and use two less expensive bikes for your commute.

Weekends

You can take your bike on the C-Train at any time on the weekend.  Which makes attending events and visiting friends by bike easy.

C-Train Tips

• you can only have a bike at the end of the train cars not the middle and only two bikes at each end max.
• if you have a long ride on the C-Train bring along a bungee cord or webbing strap to attach your bike to the end of the car.  This way you can sit down rather than having to stand up and hold your bike for 35mins.
• there is no extra charge for taking a bike on the C-Train.
• Calgary Transit’s Official Webpage about bikes on the C-Train.

One of my favourite bike rides is the 50km long Bow Valley Parkway between Banff and Lake Louise.  It’s very scenic and although you do have to share the road with some cars the parkway is a lot more chilled out than the hectic Trans-Canada Highway that runs parallel to it.

I grabbed the BBC 2-4 cross bike for this mission.  It’s fast and comfortable for a long ride in the mountains.  I was happy to have the triple chain ring up front for a couple of the steeper climbs.

I think I’m pretty much sold on a cross bike for non-competitive road bike use.  I really like the clearance for wide tires and fenders, better brakes and braze-ons for a rack/fenders.  I know I’m giving up a few pounds on a true road bike, but these accessories make the bike much more usable for a variety of bike missions.

We stopped at Laggan’s Bakery in Lake Louise for some drinks & snacks before turning around for the ride back to Banff.  Somehow we managed a headwind both ways!  It seems we have angered the wind gods as this has happened more than once to us this year.