Biking guide to the Kootenay’s
Kootenay Biking Guide [PDF]
This 44 page publication showcases the Kootenay Rockies, a premiere cycling destination. It is the definitive guide to mountain, touring and road biking vacations in the region.
Comments(2)Biking: Suntop
This weekend we rode Suntop (click for photos, maps and stats). Or more accurately, down Suntop. Overall we descended over 4000 vertical feet. Fortunately we were able to ride up 3250 of that in a car (though we did end up climbing around 1800 feet overall).
Next weekend we’re headed to Whistler.
Epic Ride From Hell
Last weekend we went on our first epic ride. We thought we’d take it easy and do a 2 hour ride, 1400 feet of elevation at Taneum Ridge. Unfortunately we were misinformed and the ride was in fact 6 hours with 4300 feet of elevation. Berhnard has photos and maps of it online to prove it. It turned out there were many signs this was going to be the ride from hell. For instance, three people ran out of both water and food, we didn’t see any other mountain bikers, only motocross riders, like an Escher drawing there was no downhill, the entire ride was up, etc.
The Moment
Last night I took my new toy, an Ellsworth Moment, out for its first ride on Tiger Mountain (1100 vertical feet climb over 3 miles, then 8 miles of riding down and back around), the most popular local biking spot, and boy did I have fun. I can’t actually remember when I had so much fun on a bike before. The Moment had no problems climbing (and it of course helped that I’m in great shape) and rolled over everything in it’s way without a hiccup (as compared to a ride I did a week weeks ago on the Blizzard where I got pretty frustrated with my lack of performance).
It was just an absolute pleasure to ride, I couldn’t stop smiling all throughout the ride yesterday. In fact, I was so excited I organized another ride to Tiger tonight. Though of course, now that it’s the next day, I’m feeling pretty tired.
But of course, it’s sad to hang up my old 1999 Blizzard.
It’s too soon to part with it so I’ll hang it on the wall and maybe consider selling it next spring.
And a big thanks to my friend JF at Gords for recommending and selling me such a sweet ride!
Update: I forgot to note that if you check out their 2006 Catalog you’ll see they hand build the bikes here in Washingston State at an environmentally friendly facility featuring solar panels, non-forest building materials and geothermal heating. Very cool.
San Juan Hut System
This sounds like a great trip to do next summer, Telluride to Moab via the San Juan Hut System:
San Juan Hut Systems operates a 206-mile mountain bike route from Telluride, Colorado to Moab, Utah. Each hut is approximately 35 miles apart and is fully equipped. This route follows dirt roads from the high alpine tundra of the San Juan Mountains to the desert slickrock and canyon country of Utah.
Technical single track is available.
Biked to work
I biked to work for the first time today. The ride is about 10 miles and you have to hop on the bus for part of it to get across Lake Washington (I can’t believe they didn’t build a sidewalk on the bridge).
Road bikes rule
After stopping by the local bike shop to make sure my bike was fitting me correctly I ripped around the neighborhood. And I couldn’t believe how much fun it was. I seriously regret not trying this sport out sooner! It really is a blast, especially here in Seattle with all the ups and downs.
Road bike
Friday night I bought a used 56″ Specialized Allez Elite Triple (model year unknown) via Craigslist. It’s got an aluminum frame, carbon fork & seatpost and Shimano 105 components. I’m looking forward to ripping around Seattle on it this summer!
Now I just need to pick up some SPD pedals for it and I’m set (I’m baffled that there are two SPD systems, one for mountain bikes and one for road bikes. So in the interest of minimizing the number of shoes I have I’m just going to go with SPD for both my bikes, instead of SPD for my MTB and SPD-SL for my roadbike).