by Mike
Peter, Dan, and Make participated in Hell Week from Field this past Thursday through Monday. We had a successful weekend, although slight knee pain had me keeping things mellow for the last two days (not wanting to injure it). Dan managed Bow Summit from the north and south plus Takkakaw Falls on the last day, while Peter took a shorter recovery ride as he had to be home in time to meet folks at the airport.
We managed a bunch of climbing, doing Kickinghorse Pass (~12km climb) every morning, Bow Summit (~40km) at least once each, Moraine Lake (14km climb) twice each, Takkakaw Falls (~14km) at least once each and everyone did the Golden Triangle (clockwise) on Friday (4 long climbs, 320km total).
Conditions were fairly nice for riding: mixed sun and clouds with occasional rain. Winds were mostly from the West, with a nice tailwind from Radium to Golden on Friday and a calm, clear evening.
Clockwise worked well for the GT from Field: we were done most of the climbing around noon, had a tailwind to Golden and during the trip on the Trans Canada drivers had the sun behind them making us easier (hopefully) to see.
Also of note is the original Hwy 1A between near Lake Louise (the lake, not village) and the Lake O'Hara parking lot just west of the divide: it is closed to cars, but still ridable on a road bike (some of the culverts are getting pushed through the pavement by frost action making occasional large bumps) and it's a much-preferable alternative to Hwy #1 at that point -- the westbound shoulder on Hwy #1 especially is in horrible shape forcing one into the lane many times and there is construction (more twinning) just west of Lake Louise.