The Golden Triangle, or the "GT" for those "in the know" is a 3-day, 317km cycle trip in the Rocky Mountains. This May, I almost did the Golden Triangle. Actually, what I did was more like the musical instrument triangle like they have in symphonies and grade 9 band: a triangle with one section missing from it. A few months earlier, my boyfriend, Brent, suggested that we do the Golden Triangle. My response, naturally, was, "hmmm… perhaps I should buy a bicycle and learn how to ride it". I am a hiker, not a cyclist, but I was willing to give Brent’s vile activity a chance since he seemed to like it so much (he SO owes me cross-country skiing!). As the date drew nearer and the weekends of lip service piled up, I started to get nervous about preparing for the trip, so in February I bought my first bicycle and on March 16th, I actually took the bike outside and rode for a whopping 18km. The next several weeks involved intensive training in which I fell over with my feet clipped in, rode distance, rode up hills, rode fast, rode on highways, rode when it was cold, rode when it was warm (depending on your definition of "warm"), rode the day after snow shoeing, and rode the day after riding.
Since Brent lives in Edmonton and is a member of the Edmonton Bicycle and Touring Club (EBTC), we went with them instead of the Elbow Valley Cycle Club (EVCC) from Calgary. It had nothing to do with staying in hotels instead of tenting, and it had nothing to do with consistent reports from the experienced GT set that the EBTC direction (counter-clockwise) is easier than the EVCC direction (clockwise). Honest.
On Day 1 I felt ready! I had trained my you-know-what off and felt strong and confident. Skies were blue and the mountains were glorious. Being no dummy, I promptly made friends with Al, the support and snack van driver. We headed west from Castle Junction toward Golden, taking the Bow Valley Parkway, which is a very pleasant ride. Pulling in to Lake Louise 27km later, I raced to the snack van and grabbed a slice of orange, which turned out to be the best thing I’d ever eaten in my life! Next, I grabbed a homemade cookie, and lo, it was the best thing I’d ever eaten in my life! After the brief refuel stop, we got back on the road and continued to Golden. All 109km of it in one day, including climbing Kicking Horse Pass. Woo-hoo’ing down the other side of Kicking Horse Pass to Field I thanked goodness that I would not be faced with climbing that on the third day like our friends in the EVCC. The rest of the day was pretty much all downhill, including one steep sketchy stretch of chewed up shoulder not conducive to cycling at high speeds. Thankfully the drivers seemed generally happy and relaxed and we arrived in Golden unscathed.
Day 2, traveling from Golden to Radium, is on a smaller highway with far fewer transport trucks to scare the you-know-what out of you. Every advantage comes with a disadvantage, though, and the trade-off was the road condition: the shoulder was in poor shape and the road was a slow-going pebbly surface. We knew we would be crossing paths with the EVCC group and kept our eyes open to greet our friends. Amazingly, we spotted all of them in the 300+ EVCC riders that day.
Day 3 is the scary one: lots of climbing and an inauspicious weather forecast. I almost couldn’t sit back down on the bike seat in the morning, and as I tried to pedal out of the hotel parking lot, I wondered if I’d even make it as far as the base of Sinclair Pass. Somehow I got going, and when the incline came, I put on my "Grrr Face" and started climbing. Sinclair Pass out of Radium is a climb of 678m over 13.6km. I stopped to rest four times, but I had "mean" to spare and made it all the way! That morning, an experienced rider was warning everyone about the very last section – the Vermillion Pass descent. Brent had already told me about this– the shoulder is chewed up to the point that it is dangerous to try to cycle it and the recommendation is to take the lane on the highway and let the traffic wait behind you. I started to fret about that last section. I was almost out of "mean" by that point, "Grrr Face" nowhere to be seen, and was very tired and fatigued. Add to that the fact that, in spite of the training, I was still quite an inexperienced, green rider.
As we continued, I became more concerned, especially since the friendly, relaxed drivers of Saturday had become impatient, intolerant demons shooting "out of my way" daggers from their glowing red eyes. Some of them even made a point of trying to run us off the road, and at the very least, scare the beejeebers out of us. I mentioned my concern to Brent and he said that if I was nervous about doing the last section I should give it a miss. As I started to come to terms with ending my ride early… sissying out, as it were, I also started to bonk. I had come to the end of my "mean" reserve, which had been the only thing keeping me going that day. After about five kilometers of watching me drag my sorry butt up the gradual climb characterizing the middle of the day, Brent said the sweetest words I’ve ever heard: "I won’t be disappointed if you want to stop after the lunch break".
After lunch, we got in the van and rode the rest of the way, helping Al with the remaining rest/snack stop. As a nasty headwind chose that time to rear its soul-sucking head, and as I saw the downhill side of Vermillion Pass, I quickly got over my disappointment at quitting early and was just happy for the other cyclists who made it down safely.
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