Today I finished my bike ride and accomplished my goal of cycling from Vancouver to Calgary!
The last day of a bicycle tour is always very bittersweet. I packed up camp for the last time and took in the view of the mountains. For the first time in the last 10 days, I’ll be biking away from the mountains and headed towards a much flatter skyline.
There was strong tailwinds blowing from the west, which made for a great start to the morning. Robert and I decided to ride together to Cochrane, so we took advantage of the winds and cycled at about 40km/h while holding a casual conversation. It felt like karma for cycling over all of those steep mountain passes.
The winds continued to blow aggressively, but the route no longer took full advantage of it. We turned off the trans Canada and headed through Morley to connect to the 1A highway. Even though the strong tail winds now became strong side winds, cycling through Morley felt just as easy as riding on the highway because I was so psyched about what was ahead!
After passing through Morley, we finally connected with the 1A. The lack of shoulder on the road meant the riding would be a little more interesting than what I’m used to, but I didn’t care because Cochrane was so close I could see it!
The wind, in combination with my legs being used to more hills, made for very easy riding this morning. It was pretty surreal to be biking on the shoulder of a road I’ve driven thousands of times. When I left Cochrane after finishing high school I never would’ve imagined I’d be cycling down that road–especially having come from Vancouver. Back then I didn’t expect to grow up to be some weirdo who takes a vacation to cycle from Vancouver to Calgary.
Anyways, eventually Robert and I made it to the Cochrane town limits!! Cochrane’s grown so much since I left that they moved the sign out. It was weird to no longer know where the town even starts.