Canary on the Coalmine

I awoke, seemingly too early. Fortunately the ride meeting was more local than the Bowness norm, so after an all-uphill 12 minutes I was ready to remedy the situation at Phil & Sebastian. Today they were Biker friendly and actually quiet – hipsters must have still been in bed.

3 coffees and some chats later, Craig, Erik, Gary, Jay and myself were ready to set off on a southern mission, particularly Coalmine Rd. About 10 minutes after departure the ‘drugs’ (caffeine) started to hit, just in time for the Weaselhead area singletrack that we are getting so good at connecting via frozen lakes and rivers.

As we hit the south end of town, 2 things became very apparent: 1) it was VERY windy from the west. 2) I had now burned about 2/3rds of my caffeine reserve.

Since Coalmine Road lies halfway between Priddis and Bragg Creek, we decided to grit our teeth and paceline highway 22 due west to put the worst behind us. This sounded good in theory (my idea) but in reality meant ~18km of grinding, wobbling, 15km/h slog towards the end. During this time Jay decided he had just about enough, and turning around seemed like a good option. Much convincing (and some lying about the remaining distance) was needed to convince him the reward was worth it.

Coalmine Road is one of the hidden secrets of our area – mostly gravel in the summer, in winter it has perfect “winter pavement” and two of the steepest climbs I have ever ridden. We crested the climbs first, and were treated to rolling downhill and massive tailwind all the way back to Priddis. Foothills ranchland riding at its finest. Jay didn’t die in the process, and hopefully had an eye-opening into how much lies off the beaten path.

The way home seemed too short & fast to justify the effort. Everyone was in their big ring, and me in my… ring. Several challenges to the single-chainring’s effectiveness were made, and it can comfortably sustain >50Kph in the 36x11. But that also burned all my remaining matches – fortunately we took the “short” way back though town (and straight across the Glenmore reservoir) and the day held few objectives besides lying on the floor and eating potato chips.

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