Aug 20, 2017 Cranbrook – Kimberly – Ta Ta Creek – Fort Steele – Cranbrook

 

You know some days riding are just special and it is these days which go down in riding lore as one which stories are told.  Maybe in the middle ages the minstrels would have written songs about them.  We don’t have minstrels and instead we have the internet and blogs.

The day started off at 7:00 am with us crawling out of our tents into a rather chilly 46 F (8 C) morning.  As the sun was just up we figured it we might as well have a good breakfast.  Denny’s sounded good and the portions are huge.  There was no way I was finishing the Lumberjack Slam with bacon, sausage, ham, scrambled eggs, hash browns, sour dough toast , pancakes and coffee.   However I made a good stab at it. 

I had plotted the route on the Garmin however I couldn’t find the route on it as we had deviated from the route to go to Denny’s so we wandered about in an industrial area until we stopped a pick up truck and asked how to get to the Cranbrook to Kimberly bike trail.  Simple answer was turn right at the next intersection and pick it up just be for the railroad tracks.

Once on the pathway it was beautiful sailing along a perfectly paved, rails to trails route. This route is called the North Star trail and covers 15.5 miles (25 kms).  It is generally up hill to Kimberly however being an old rail line the grade never exceeded 3.5%.  This must have been pretty steep in the steam locomotive days.  We crossed an old trestle which had concrete sleepers laid over the ties making a perfect  cycling surface.  Once in Kimberly we spotted an  A&W and head straight in for a frosty  mug of root beer.  It just gets better and better.

Recharged an re-hydrated Ken and I headed off to Ta Ta Creek.  There is a little tail wind help so we are feeling pretty pumped.  The road has just been resurfaced and is absolutely perfectly smooth asphalt.  From Kimberly to Ta Ta Creek it is 20 miles (30.5 kms) and it is all downhill.  Over the distance you lose 2970 feet (905 m).  Once on the downhill we hardly turned a pedal over.  While I never kept any stats on what we averaged I am sure that is was north of 25 mph (40 Km/hr).  I do know that I hit a top speed to 40 mph (64 km/hr).  What a total blast.   I am not sure when we have had such a great ride.

The section down to Fort Steel was totally uneventful in comparison to the wild ride we just completed. It was approximately 20.5 miles and started off flat but soon turned into a bunch of mostly uphill rollers. We were starting to feel the miles so we stopped at the Fort Steele trading post and campground store where I enjoyed a 600 ml bottle of ice cold Grape Crush.  Now honestly when is the last time you sat down with a giant ice cold Grape Crush on hot day?  It was superb.

The last leg into Cranbrook had a bunch of larger climbs however we had only 11.25 miles (18 kms) to go so we put it in gear and head for home. 

Once in Cranbrook we stopped at the grocery store where Ken went in and picked up some supper.  Back at the campground Ken cooked supper which turned out to be Italian sausages on buns washed down with a fine bottled vintage courtesy of Sean and Bike Dreams.  An absolutely perfect finish to a marvellous day!

Terry