It was going to be a long day we had the climb to the Icefields
and 146 kms to ride. So everyone was off to an early start and we were out of
the chute at 7:30 Am. I rode my bike
around to the RV dumps station to dump the motorhome and was just cleaning that
up when Ken C rode up to tell me that Ed had broken a pedal. Ed rides the Speed
Play pedals which have the little round circle to clip into. The little round circle had come off the
pedal as some sort of retainer had broken inside of it.
Ken C and I went to work on getting the old shoe cleat off
of Ed’s shoe as the screw heads were badly worn. A little encouragement with a
hammer loosened the clip screws however the bolt pattern was wrong so our
options to change Ed over to SPD clips where we had some spare parts was
frustrated. Ed’s only option was to head into Jasper and get fixed up at a bike
shop. Julie drove Ed into town and Ken
and I pedaled off.
At about the 45 km mark we were well into the big ramp up to
the summit when I saw this gigantic grin coming up behind me. It was Ed and
Julie. The bike shop had fixed Ed up with a new set of egg beater pedals and a
new set of shoes. So we were all off.
The Icefield Summit is right at the 95 kms mark and it was
at about the 65 km mark when we hit a huge head wind. It was so strong that the
best you could do was about 15 km/hr. So Ed, Ken C, and myself battled into the
wind together. It was brutal work. Winter has taken a terrible toll on the Parkway
road. It has become terribly cracked and broken. There are transverse cracks
every 5 feet, this made for a terribly rough ride. In fact I was quite disappointed
in the road condition from a few years ago when I rode it last.
After lunch in the summit parking lot we headed down the big
decent this takes you down the “toilet bowl”. The toilet bowl being this huge
spiral shaped switchback which has a lot
of super elevation on it. However the
high winds and terrible road surface prevented me from reaching any kind of
speeds. I think that the highest speed I was able to attain was 65 kms.
We were staying in the Crossing Resort at Saskatchewan
Crossing as the camping in the area does not have showers. Surly staff, dumpy rooms, and high prices
made the poor marks on Trip Advisor seem like high praise.
Terry
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