We managed to get on the road by 9am this morning, after a sleep punctuated by train whistles and severe wind gusts. Had a nice tail wind on Highway 1A and made excellent time to Cochrane. Our average speed was 24km/h over 55 km, which is most definitely a record. There was almost no traffic heading our direction, which made for a nice, peaceful ride, and it was interesting to watch the landscape even out as we got further away from the Rockies. It was with a certain wistfulness that we said farewell to the mountains. They were both bitter and sweet...(only day 13 and I’m already repeating myself)...Along the way, we derived great pleasure reading the signs for the different places we were passing by: Wildcat Hills, Ghost Lake, Devil’s Head Ranch, and Deadman’s Flats, to name only a few. We also, amazingly, ran into those Velo-Quebec folks who we had last seen speeding by us outside of Revelstoke. We were surprised to find we’d been keeping up with their schedule, despite all the weight we’re carrying.
Having gone past Canmore the day before, we had a relatively short day getting to Calgary. Also, because Calgary is such a massive, sprawling thing, it wasn’t long at all before we hit the city limits and saw the skyscrapers rise up in the distance. It was pretty cool to see our first big city since leaving Vancouver, and know that we had biked all the way to get here. The ride into town was a bit harrowing, but we managed to find our hosts, Judy and Paul, at their lovely home just north of the city centre. They fed us a delicious dinner and set us up with everything we’ll need (mainly this computer) for our rest day here. We also dropped our bikes off at the shop to get them tuned up a bit – more as 
a pre-emptive measure than anything else. Welcome to Calgary. Feeling good. Right on schedule. Rock and roll.
Stats:
Av. Spd.: 20.8km/h
Mx.Spd: 49.3km/h
Most compelling evidence that the prairies aren’t flat: “Big Hill” in Cochrane, AB – felt about like Burnaby Mountain. Didn’t see that one coming (actually we did).
Best commemorative plaque: This one! What a crazy plaque! It barely tells you anything, but it sounds awesome! What happened here? Certainly this plaque doesn’t tell you.
I googled them for you!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=1282872
About 10 km west of Cochrane on Hwy. 1A sits a memorial cairn that sits as a tribute to an American student (Quentin Chace) committed to joining the war even ahead of his country and his Royal Canadian Air Force training instructor (Alfred Reginbal) from Saskatchewan.
The pair were killed while on a training flight that crashed into the Bow River valley in February, 1941.