Three “Fun” Bike Rides

Dad really likes to go mountain biking and when he does he usually manages to convince us to come with him. Occasionally this turns out well and we have fun, but since this trip started the majority of our outings results in disaster. I will tell you about three of those times. The first story happened when we were camping in Banff. We had biked into town and had an excellent time. We walked around, bought some candy and had an amazing lunch. But you aren’t here to listen to me talk about what an amazing life I have are you? No, you’re here to listen to me talk about my suffering, well hold your horses, I’m getting to that. Anyway, when we were done in town, Dad suggested we take a “shortcut” back to the campground. Gullible fools that we are we agreed. At first it wasn’t so bad. To get to the trail we had to bike up the road for a bit, which was quite easy because it was paved. Then we got to the trail. At first it wasn’t so bad. We had to walk our bikes down some stairs, but that is pretty common in mountain biking. Then we had to walk our bikes down a slope because it was too steep around a corner. Again no big deal, still pretty standard stuff. But there was just more and more very steep downhill where we had to walk our bikes. Then there was the uphill. We would have to walk our bikes up a hill, then walk them down the other side. We spent more time walking our bikes than riding them. Finally, after around two or three hours we made it back to the campground.

The second tale happened in Jasper. This time the hard part was getting in to town, instead of leaving like in Banff. It was admittedly slightly easier than in Banff as well, mainly due to the fact that we only had to get off a few times and only once for going down hill. The Canadian Park Service claimed that they maintained the trail, which was a complete lie. We had to stop many times for a fallen log on the trail and many other obstacles that wouldn’t have been there if it was even slightly maintained. It was so bad Mom even lost a can of bear spray! Definitely giving them a one star review.

Finally, our last story isn’t exactly mountain biking, but we biked and it was extremely unpleasant for all of us, so I’m including it. It starts right where we are camping right now, in Lake Louise. We were biking to the actual Lake Louise to visit one of the tea houses, Six Glacier Tea House if I remember correctly. There are only two tea houses around the lake and Mom and Dad had visited the other tea house on a trip before they were even married, so they were pretty excited to visit this one. Normally people drive to the trailhead, but Mom and Dad decided to bike because they knew that we would have to wake up super early to get a parking space, so we decided to bike for almost TWO MILES, UPHILL, ON THE SIDE OF A HIGHWAY! Needless to say it was not even a little enjoyable and the tea house was not worth the bike, hike or hype.