Monday, July 19, 2010

Tour De Jasper Part I

On July 14, 25 started our amazing bicycle adventure at the local VIA rail station. Tour De Jasper is a 4 day, 384 km bicycle tour to Jasper.  It is a luxury tour, so they carry all your gear, and all you have to carry is gear for the day such as repair kit, rain gear, camera, water, and food.  It is a good introduction to bicycle touring

Gourmet breakfasts, dinners, camping, park pass, and a train ride home are included.  Oh, and so is much needed bicycle support.  There were a lot of flats on trip and between help from fellow bicyclists and the support vehicle, you weren't alone.  There was a photographer taking photos of you along the way, and we talked him into selling those photos to us.  He is taking photos to put in a book (including from past trips), but never thought we'd want to buy some..but he took photos of us biking at the best places..and you can't get a photo like that while you are pedalling.  :)

There were some pretty sweet bicycles on trip.  For my Dutch bicycle fans out there, the silver bike on the right side of the guy in blue with hands on hips, it's a Dutch Touring Bike, steel, so heavy!  But pretty sweet!  They picked it up in Paris and toured France with it.



Anyways, after an intro, we all headed off on our grand adventure.  The weather that day was amazing!  Little did I know just how lucky we were on this trip.
 Once in a while you'd see these "Watch for cyclists on the Road- Tour De Jasper"  Many times it meant the photographer was in the vicinity taking a photo or two of you.




Rest stop along the way.  Why the rush?  We would get to Purden fairly early and just sit around.  So we took our sweet time!
Above:  I almost made it!  We are staying at the private site, down the road a bit.
Below:  Chairlift chairs at Purden.  They have a nice new lodge there.


We were treated to a nice tasty dinner!  We were fed really well during this trip.
And there was a bike mechanic who took care of our bikes if needed.  I should have got him to tighten brakes at end as over the 4 days they have loosened.  Will take to shop today...still work good, but could use some tightening.


So that was Day 1 of Tour De Jasper.   As I will be travelling again soon, the rest of the installments won't be here for a few weeks.  I try to access computers when I can, but hard to find one that will accept memory cards.  Sorry about that!  I need a netbook one day!


6 comments:

  1. Lovely Pictures and Beautiful Scenery really nice there .I would love going on a Tour like that where they carry your stuff for you. You need to have your Brakes good for the Steep Mountain Roads.

    I have found it Thrilling and also a bit Scary Flying down Mountain Roads and Tipping the Brakes every so often to slow the Bike down a bit. On one occasion I found the front Brake give a Chuck then a Grating Sound and interfere with the Wheel when I applied it and had to stop and rely on the rear Brake only. I tried to fix it at the Bottom of the Hill as best I could.

    I had to do a proper job on it when I got Home. Although conventional Brake Block Brakes are easier to fix enroute I am coming around to the Idea of Disc Brakes especially on Mountain Roads ,they have more stopping Power.

    I would have liked a more close up view of the Dutch Tourer to see what it is like.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks excellent! How did the cars/trucks treat everyone? The thing keeping me from cycle touring is fear of motor vehicles trying to run me off the road

    ReplyDelete
  3. I talked to my mechanic about brakes and he says how they are set depends on preferences.

    They did work fine on trip and I only checked about it after fellow bicyclist on trip mentioned that to me when he drove my bike/gear home. He had to take off front wheel to put into vehicle..that's how he noticed.

    My mechanic checked them and said they were good. I agree, I think disc brakes are better, especially in the rain.

    I also would go clipless rather then use clips as they were no good on 4th day, as my feet swelled and were squashed in the clip..ended up using other side of pedal. Yet, some others on the trip were also using clip and liked it. Total personal preference I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @alex warrier For the most part, vehicles treated us good. There were a few parts..ie passing vehicles coming too close at crazy speeds, or when big trucks blowed by too close, first pushing you off the road then immediately followed by a vacuum which tried to suck you onto the road at times. You really had to watch it with that, get a steady hold.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cool, thanks for the reply. I see from the photo there are rumble strips present. Did the rumble strips present any problems?

    ReplyDelete
  6. @alex warrier Yep, those are rumble strips. No problems with them as long as you didn't ride over them.

    One person had fenders with quick release, and they kept falling off when he went over those. Hehad those removed at Purden.

    The one you thing you avoid like the plague, is blown tires from trucks. They had wires in them which liked to poke holes in any tubes, even the good ones. One guy had 3 flats in a day because of them! It's a miracle that I didn't have any flats during the trip. I brought 2 spare tubes just in case and the mechanic had more too if you used all of yours. (tires too)

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...