Mountain biking in Alberta

I was in Calgary for the last holiday weekend visiting .... On Tuesday we decided to check out the local trails to get a flavour of biking in Alberta. We drove up to Canmore's Nordic Ski Centre, host to the 1988 Winter Olympic Nordic Ski events. It's about 40 mins north of Calgary, just on the border of Banff National Park. The weather had been pretty dismal for the previous two days so we were slightly skeptical about the trails but according to the Ski Centre's website, the trails were pretty rideable except for some lingering snow and ice.

We rented some Rocky Mountain dual-suspension Element Sport bikes and set off. We decided to do the Black Loop which is the 24 Hours of Adrenaline race trail. Apparently, the fastest guys did it in just under an hour. It took us substantially longer than that.

My bike seemed like it hadn't been serviced very well. It didn't shift smoothly and compared to my Trek Fuel Ex 9.9, weighed at least 5 lbs more. I felt like I had cement legs on the hills and had to walk quite a lot of them as my gears crapped out when I needed them most. Needless to say I got very frustrated. The trails were quite technical with lots of roots and rocks but not super difficult. At one point we decided to try to adjust my rear shock which wasn't very active. Luckily we brought the right pump and fixed that little problem. From then on, I had a more comfortable ride.

There was quite a lot of uphill climbing and only certain sections were flowy so all in all, I would say it wasn't my most enjoyable ride. The trail markers are small and inconspicuous and there are miles and miles of trails with many many junctions so there was a lot of biking/orienteering involved!

But the scenery was beautiful and the trails were well maintained. It was great to get outside and ride in a different area. At one junction while consulting the map, we spotted some deer who didn't seem to be scared of us at all so we got some nice pics.

Overall, a very successful trail ride!