A Ride along Canals

I woke up early to temperatures slightly above freezing. Pretty typical for Calgary in the fall. It seems regardless of how hot the day is the nights are always cold. Put on all my cycling gear and hopped on the Rocky Solo CXR to meet Rick for a ride from the shop. The most important thing to know about Rick is that he knows the path system in Calgary better then any other single person I have met. So we head out take a few turns and wind ourselves onto the canal pathway. We decided that since we are a)using gears and b)using CX bikes we should experience some dirt and end up taking what I assume is mainly used by walkers and mountain bikers as the trail was thin, muddy and very off camber. All this being said it was a ton of fun even if my feet got soaked by the underbrush.



Once through that we made our way again on as much gravel trails as possible out of the city and onto the canal pathway south along the canal to Chestermire. It amazes me how simple it is to be on a maintained bike path and yet be out of the city. For most of the ride I enjoyed farm land, a lack of noise and no site of the city behind me. The ride took us longer then expected as we had to dismount frequently to cross roads since we were riding along a gravel road that was fenced off. It was completely worth it and we were rewarded with a short lunch at Boston Pizza in Chestermire. Once lunch was over we headed back into a head win that turned out to be more of a cross wind that didn't bother us to much. The overall beauty of the ride was refreshing even if it did remind me that I haven't really biked more then a half hour since TR and defiantly need to start.