Saturday, August 12, 2017

Aug 12, 2012 Canmore Ride Preparation






After a hearty breakfast in the hotel breakfast room we had a staff meeting.  This was a good opportunity to cover a lot of the things which are going to be needed for the tour and things which need to be finished before we start.  One of the things which came up and I was unaware of was that it is now required to carry bear spray when riding in the back country.   Seems to me that riding with a bell would be a much better policy.  The bears would hear you coming for miles off and be long gone before you got there as opposed to riding silently up surprising a bear and  then fumbling with a bear spray canister which has a very limited range. However I am sure that the vendors of bear spray would sooner sell $40 containers of spray than $5 bells.  
After the meeting Ken and I filled the water containers which took us close to two hours to drag all the containers out and over to the hose and drag all the water jugs back.  It may seem like that everyone is going to be well hydrated on the tour but it is really surprising how much water 23 cyclists and 6 staff can drink on a hot day. 
I received a note from my good friend Texas Ken is coming up to Calgary and would like to get together with Calgary Ken and myself tomorrow. I immediately phoned him back and arranged to meet him.  It will be good to see him as it has been way too long seen we have had a visit.
After lunch there wasn’t much to do so Ken C, Jim and I wandered over to the Canmore Show and Shine.  I was very pleasantly surprised at how many cars there were (close to 200), and the quality of cars.  There were quite a few rare examples of cars such as one of two 1966 Pontiac GTO convertibles in the flame orange which was not a “Judge” There was a Studebaker Avanti which was absolutely pristine. A genuine Cobra which was not a kit car.   The story of the show is that I was looking at this very nice bright emerald green Kamann Gia convertible.  As I was taking a picture of the car this lady appeared out of the crowd and started chiding me for admiring this car.  “Don’t look at this car.  Look at my car instead. “ she said.   “Look at me, now look down there and tell me which car is mine.”  One look at her and one look down the row and it was obvious.  She was dressed in matching yellow and crème to this stunning example of a Nash Metropolitan.   We walked around to admire her car, and it was a beauty. What a fun car show and made even more so by meeting one of the local car enthusiasts.
Terry

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