Kimberly Training Tour

Airport to Wycliffe Loop

May 17, 2022

In the past we have always done the Wycliffe to Airport loop in a counter clock wise direction. This gave you a short steep climb to the top of the Wycliffe Road with a long decent into Cranbrook. On the return leg to Kimberly a long steep decent into St Eugene and a long climb back to Kimberly.  On Barry’s suggestion, today we did the loop in a clockwise direction.  The long steep climb out of St Eugene to Cranbrook was into a vicious cold head wind.  Even though I was sweating by time we rolled in to Cranbrook I was shivering.  The turkey, bacon club in Timmies helped a lot. 

On the return trip the long climb up Wycliffe road was helped by the wind.  When we got to the top of Wycliffe Road, Ken and I elected to take a detour down a secondary back road which added about 7 kms to the route.  Barry headed down the steep downhill to the bike trail and home.  The secondary was quiet and a very nice road with no traffic.  We got on the bike trail much further down and headed home.  We could see ominous rain clouds hanging all around us and we were afraid that we were going to get it.  Luckily we made it back to the campground without a single drop.  Being caught in a cold rain with that wind would not have been any fun.  As it was I was shivering from the cold wind. 

We were scheduled to head home on Friday but the weather forecast looks rather threatening for the next few days so we may be cutting the tour short.  Including today’s 70.3 kms and 600 meters of climb we have managed to log 436 kms.   This is certainly a good addition to the training for this summer’s coast to coast ride.

Terry