Okotoks 145K

Saturday was a fine day for a bike ride. I work in Okotoks so the Okotoks 200K brevet route has been calling me ever since I first noticed it on the AB Rando website last year. I wasn't able to ride the actual brevet last weekend, but I wanted to put in some more miles and see what the ride was like.

I got off to a late start because of a late night on Friday. Who knew that one of the biggest challenges of LD riding would be getting enough sleep the night before and having enough time between social obligations! The ride leaves Shawnessy shopping centre and then heads down Hwy 22x to Pridis. I stopped in Pridis for a bathroom break and a chocolate milk. The ladies at the gas station were quite interested in my recumbent.

From there the ride shoots mostly south on Hwy 22 to Longview via Turner Valley and Black Diamond. It was a nice ride with some bizarre wind! It seemed like I'd have a tailwind one moment, a sidewind the next and then a headwind. Oh well it certainly wasn't boring. I stopped a few times to grab some food and snap a few pics. The mountains looked beautiful off to the west. I took a some pics, but as you can see from the one above the mountains are barely discernible.

From the bustling metropolis of Longview I headed northeast to Okotoks. On this leg I realized I was going to run short of time as I had to meet up with Sarah and head to a birthday party in the early evening. I decided to skip a jaunt through Okotoks and then the ride out to High River. This cut off 55kms from the route and got me back home just in time!

Overall the route was very scenic with excellent roads and light traffic. It was hillier than I remembered [from other DF rides in the area] with 1370m of climbing. The weather was not quite as warm as predicted so I kept my arm/knee warmers and vest on the whole time. I was riding around some dark storm clouds all day, but it stayed dry for me...=-) I'll definitely come back and do the whole route when I have a little more time.