What do 4 Cliff Bars, 1 Harvest PowerBar , 2 Bagels some Crasins and a whole lot of Gatorade get you?.....

It gets you a little over 6 hours in the saddle and almost 155 km traveled. :)

Tammy, my Massage Therapist who is training hard for IMCDA, asked me a few days ago if I'd be interested in coming along for her long bike today. Her target distance, 160km! The longest I've ever ridden in my entire life.. and I mean ever was a few weeks ago when I pedaled 96km in almost 4 hrs 15 min. It took me a few days to recover from that ride too!

Reguardless, I jumped at the opportunity to really push myself past that "100km" barrier and beyond... way beyond!! I was venturing into the unknown and to be honest I was a little bit concerned how my legs and body would hold up over such a long distance. This was going to take my training to an entirely different level. This was going to give me a glimpse of what it will take to compete in an Ironman.

We met up at Starbucks around 9am. Duane and Jim were going to ride with us out to Cochrane then head back into Calgary. Wimps!! It was a beautiful morning but windy, very windy and it took fricking ages to make it out to Cochrane. Avs was ~ 20km/h because of the strong headwind.

Duane, Jim and Tammy about to set off!



Once we fought our way through the wind to Cochrane, the two stooges turned for home and Tammy and I pointed our bikes South to set forth to Bragg Creek.

Just outside of Cochrane I hear this HISSSSSS coming from my rear wheel.. OMFG I got a flat!!! My first flat since returning to riding this year. My first flat in almost 10 years!! Umm... do I remember how to change a flat? Luckily I took a bike maintenance workshop at Bow Cycle in February!

My post flat fixing glory LOL.


Ok that wasn't too bad, I can now fix a flat!

We made our way to Bragg Creek and made a small pit stop to refill/remix our water bottles and sport drinks. Time to press on to Elbow Falls in K-Country.

I must say this was my favourite part of our ride. We were out in the middle of no where riding towards the beautiful Rockies. It's like the road was our own private play ground and we were on permanent recess!

I had never been out this way on a bike before so this was a real treat! There is something really special about riding down a new stretch of road and taking in the scenery.

Speaking of scenery here's a token tourist pic at the entrance to Kananaskis Country... in some ways I felt like a tourist today!


All in all it was one of the most amazing days of riding I've ever experienced. I am very glad to have shared such a wonderful day, "playing on the bike", with my good friend Tammy.

Thanks Tammy!! I'll get a few pics of you yet!!