I did manage some dinner and all my careful packing turned into a hotel disaster room as I couldn’t find anything. I used these vacuum sealed plastic bags to compress all my cloths but I didn’t put labels on the outside so I wound up going through everything. Note to self-spend some time over next few days sorting out this mess.

I went to bed thinking tomorrow will be a better day and indeed it was and then it wasn’t and then it was again.  I certainly felt much better when I got up. Breakfast was good but not free. My first task was to check up on the financial markets. O Canada – they don’t have CNBC or Fox business but there is a cool program of fish swimming in an aquarium and lots of coverage of American football. My first real task was to check up on my bike.

So I mosey on over to Rebound Cycles and get there before they open – didn’t adjust my watch or subtract an hour. However, the door was open and I peaked my head in and the gentleman said “Are you Chuck?” I said yes and then he said “we have a major problem with your bike!” He asks me in and shows me my bike on the stand and informs me that my wheel cap covers are missing. They went all through the box (I packed a lot of extras) but no wheel cap covers, a small but integrally important piece that the quick release axel goes through and also seems to keep out dust.

The bike guy from Rebound Cycles says, “I bet they are sitting on your mechanics desk back home.” Matt from Big Shark usually works on my bike and he never makes mistakes and is extremely thorough and conscientious. I tell the gentleman from Resound that I’d call Matt and see what he thinks. Of course Matt said that he never takes those off.

I went back to the hotel, called Matt and he and JC as well as Leif talked over the situation. The consensus was that Canadian Customs had decided to investigate / look for contraband in small bike crevices. Thankfully none was found but they neglected to replace the wheel covers. Rebound didn’t stock those items but said they would order and they would be here by Friday (next day). In the meantime, they gave me a loaner wheel to ride. I should say that quite a few hours passed before we reached this juncture. As usual, I was on pins and needles.

In the meantime, Patric (Patrick) , a rider from Switzerland messaged the group saying he was looking to ride when he arrived at the hotel. Now he said he wanted to ride at 10 pm but I figured it was 10 am or I was really out of my league. I messaged that I was willing to ride at 10 am (provided I had a functional bike.

I returned to Rebound Cycles in the early afternoon and indeed they had a loaner wheel ready and off I went trying to roughly follow the route we would be riding on the first full day. Inaturally got lost – actually was just 180 degrees off course but soon got properly situated. I rode towards Banff on what was a paved bike lane. On certain parts they have electrified grids that you can cycle over but walkers have to go through a gate. I assume it is to keep critters especially large critters off the highway. In the southwest we had cattle guards here we have bear guards.

Probably should mention that before I left the bike shop, I was asked “do you have bear spray? I replied “no yet”. Several customers in the store chimed in tgo say they never ride anywhere without their bear spray. The bear spray takes up one water bottle holder slot.

I can say that Canmore / Banff is beautiful and the scenery breathtaking. I rode in a valley surrounded by mountains on either side. Banff seems to be quite a bit larger than Canmore and definitely struck me as more of a tourist destination. My preference is Canmore. I could ride with traffic in Banff which was moving quite slow. The number of tourists on the sidewalk was reminiscent of a major sports event just concluding with the home team winning in the last few minutes.

The trailhead where the actual Tour Divde starts is just on the other side of Banff and I rode on it for about a mile but it looked like a big storm and I didn’t have rain gear so I decided to return the way I cam. The round trip was probably 35 miles or so. By the time I got back to Canmore, the sun was out again. For most of my stay here it has been in the 80’s but a lot cooler at night.

Tailwinds

Chuck