Day 8 GearUp4CF- Cranbrook to Invermere

breakfast at the 'Hot Spot'

Today the gods smiled on us perhaps to make up for yesterday's miserable weather and and as much as I did not enjoy yesterday all was forgiven today. Even though we woke up to cloudy skies and the promise of some mountain weather with just a hint of precipitation in the air, it did not turn out that way. We rode our bikes to breakfast at the Hot Spot in Cranbrook  as it was on the way out of town but by the time we finished breakfast and suited up the weather started to improve. All day long we were shedding weather gear instead of adding it on.

team is ready!! 

Better yet, we had a terrific tailwind which did not let up all day. It made heroes out of us all even though there were plenty of low rolling grades to climb and we had over 750 metres of elevation gain on our Garmins by the time we finished. The bikeaholics as Walter Brennan describes them set a blistering pace and even the A group rode at a 34 pace. The seniors (50+)which encompass Paula and Jan from Prince Edward Island, John Fettes who recently turned 73, Joan Swain, our captain and 3 time rider, myself and Dale who was with us until he flatted out made excellent time and averaged over 29km/hour.

the hoodoos

There was almost no commercial traffic and the shoulders were wide although many people flatted out on wire bits. As Mary Poppins would say, it was practically perfect in every way. We arrive quite early and had a chance to clean bikes in the lot, sit in the sun, drink a few beer and even watch some of the Uruguay-Colombia game which luckily was was won 2-0 by Colombia as there was a huge family with many young kids at the hotel all dressed in their country's reds and yellows who sang Ole-Ole all game long.

John Sullivan and Jan were a little late in arriving in the vehicle as they took an accidental side trip to Fernie, right from Cranbrook, the only possible change of direction available all day. At 4:30 our Calgary contingent and their volunteers and daily members arrived. Andrea rode up the pass to meet them. Unlike us they had headwinds and inclement mountain weather. We will all ride to Banff together tomorrow. I think this is a wonderful idea to bring the two CF contingents from Calgary and Vancouver together. Tonight we will share dinner and war stories. Actually they are outside my bedroom window drinking wine out in the parking lot. I hear them laughing so I will bid adieu.