Battle River Badlands

I first heard about the Battle River Badlands via the Alberta Gravel Cycling Facebook group. Back in January, a Battle River-valley resident named Forrest Hagen posted a gravel route near the town of Donalda, south of Camrose. Then in April, Edmonton gravel gurus Greg and Aaron rode that very route and posted a glowing review of the area along with some impressive photos. I was intrigued. Why had I never heard of this area as a gravel-riding destination?

Dusty Lens: Near Beauvais Lake, July

                             

Viking Ribstones

I’m a big believer in having a destination on a gravel ride. It doesn’t have to be anything special--a country store, an onion-domed Orthodox church, a shaded picnic spot, a viewpoint. A plaque even. I’ll gladly ride to a random plaque and back.

On a recent foray, setting out from Kinsella, in east central Alberta, we settled on the Viking Ribstones, an historical site I’d read about online. Ribstones are big old rocks with shapes or lines (specifically lines that look kind of like an animal’s rib cage) carved into them a long time ago by Indigenous people. It’s thought that the carvings were a kind of offering to the spirit of Old Man Buffalo. Apparently nine different ribstone sites have been found in Alberta, but the one near Viking is one of the better preserved specimens.  

Gooseberry Rambles

I recently spent a couple of days exploring some of the off-pavement options in the Neutral Hills in east-central Alberta, near Consort, and I can report that even though I only rode a fraction of it, this area has lots of potential for adventurous gravel cyclists.

We camped at Gooseberry Lake Provincial Park, about 15 km north of Consort, which turns out to be a great starting point for cycling. To the south and east, it’s your typical prairie gravel roads, all fine and well, but to the north and west things get interesting. The hilly terrain reminds me of another Alberta terminal moraine, the Porcupine Hills area near Claresholm--similar topography and similar “roads,” if that’s even the right word. The hills are bestrewn with totally bikeable tracks and trails, most of them private but some of them public.

Bruxelles Pussycats

                         

Nuns and Pussycats and baseball. It sounds like the elevator pitch for a bad 70s cartoon. But for me, those are the key ingredients in the story of Bruxelles, Manitoba, my new favorite place for gravel riding.

My wife grew up in Morden, Manitoba, a small town south of Winnipeg. Baseball’s big in those parts. In fact, the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame, such as it is, resides in the Morden recreation complex. Every small--and I mean tiny--town in that part of the world used to have a soft ball team, often several, men’s and women’s, and if you didn’t play for one, you probably knew someone who did and even watched some games on warm summer nights.

For the last 25 years, I’ve visited Morden almost every summer, and during that time I’ve gone to my fair share of Manitoba ball games, and even played the odd pick up game myself. My wife and her sisters have lots of women’s softball stories about small town rivalries between the Morden Fighting Saints, Winkler Skylarks, and Altona Thresherwomen, but my favorite ones involve the legendary Bruxelles Pussycats.

Bruxelles (pronounced Brux-els), named, not surprisingly, after the much larger Belgian city which we know as Brussells, is located about 100 miles southwest of Winnipeg. It was founded in the 1890s by Belgian immigrants, and became known for its convent and school run by Ursuline nuns from the old country.

Every time we drove from Edmonton to Morden we passed the sign for the Bruxelles turn off. And every time, my wife would tell me not about the nuns but about the Pussycats and how for such a tiny place, Bruxelles somehow always fielded an impressive women’s team. (As far as I know, there were no actual nuns on the team, but they may have arranged for some divine assistance.) I loved the name, partly for the way it channelled the popular 70s comic book Josie and the Pussycats, and partly for the juxtaposition: Bruxelles sounds Euro and cosmopolitan; Pussycats are feminine but feisty.

But until about a week ago, I had never actually been to Bruxelles. What got me to go, in the end, wasn’t the nuns or the Pussycats; rather, it was the gravel. The last couple of times I drove through that area, I noticed that the gravel roads around the Bruxelles turnoff looked particularly intriguing--surprisingly hilly with narrow roads. Turns out there’s an annual gravel race there each April, the Bruxelles Spring Classic.

And I can see why. I drove out to the Bruxelles area one morning and rode a 40-km loop, stopping in the village at the mid-way point. The vistas were stunning, the roads rising and falling constantly. It was one of those magical mornings.

                            

As for the village, I wasn’t expecting much, after having seen my share of sad little prairie towns. But Bruxelles wasn’t sad at all. It was charming. The convent is long gone (burnt down in 1954) but the church still stands and its expansive old-world Catholic grounds--cemetery, stations of the cross, tiny chapel, and grotto--are surprisingly well tended. I saw a general store, B and B, community hall, and a lovely little park (where I think the convent used to be).

                        

                                    

               

                                

                                

But what I came for was the ball field, which is located in a lower field behind the church. I don’t know what I was expecting there. Some kind of Pussycats Hall of Fame monument? Plaques commemorating ladies’ soft ball success? Of course, there was nothing Pussycat-related at all. It was just a ball field that didn’t look to be used very much anymore.

I rode my bike around the grass field for a while, and that’s when I noticed it. The church spire looming over the trees past the outfield. Something about that seemed right for Bruxelles. Those Belgian founders knew how to pick their spots. Nuns and Pussycats and baseball.           

                             

Tucson Postcard

So much to love about Tucson, if you’re a cyclist. It’s got terrific cycling infrastructure: wide painted bike lanes on most arterial roads; two very cool residential bikeways that bisect the city north-south and east-west; some separated bike lanes in key parts of the city; and a beautiful paved trail system that loops around the city.

But more important than the infrastructure, Tucson has a cycling culture. Bikes are common as dirt and not just tolerated but appreciated, respected as a legitimate transportation option and a normal part of regular people’s lives. Bikes are embraced and celebrated as part of the culture of the city, part of its identity. I love how this particular E.T. inspired, lizardy-tandem-bicycle sculpture rises above the Rillito bike trail at Campbell Avenue. Most bikes ride below on the trail, but the elevated art work, visible from the avenue, captures the proud and ascendant spirit of Tucson’s cool cycling vibe.

Highwood

The snow on the road appeared suddenly. One moment we had clear pavement, with patches of snow in the ditches here and there. And then the next, most of the road was covered in a couple of inches of snow. We were close to the top, maybe a kilometer from the summit, but that was as far as we would get. On our skinny tires, we weren’t going to make it far in this snow.

On a warm day in late May, Strava Jeff and I had ridden our bikes up to Highwood Pass, exploring, for the first time, a classic Alberta rite of spring. Calgarians do it all the time, I know, but we’d never made it down to Kananaskis during the brief window between when the snow melts and the high mountain road, which is closed for the winter, re-opens to vehicle traffic June 15.

Cypress Hills Haze

Photo by Val Garou

As much as I love creating my own adventure-cycling routes, sometimes the work has already been done by someone else, and all one has to do is read the internet and follow the virtual wheel tracks. I’d been thinking about doing a trip in the fabulous Cypress Hills of southeastern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan for years, when I came across this trip report on bikepacking.com about a 100-mile route on a combination of trails and gravel. Perfect.

The Cypress Hills area is a gem, a little bit of pseudo-mountain in the middle of the great plains. Eons ago, this small area was somehow missed by receding glaciers (dumb glaciers), leaving an island of surprisingly high ground and all the flora and fauna that comes with it. Ask anyone who lives in Saskatchewan or southern Alberta about the Cypress Hills and you’re bound to see misty eyes and hear tall tales of family excursions to these underappreciated Pyrenees of the Prairies.  

The description on bikepacking.com says the trip is “easily attainable by most people,” a mere four out of ten on their scale of difficulty. The guys who wrote the piece did the trip in four days, and the pics on the website make it seem awful leisurely—dudes taking photos of caterpillars and stopping to fish for trout in streams. So, we decided to do the trip in three days. It’s only 100 miles, right? How hard could that be?   

Athabasca and Back

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a sucker for gravel adventures on obscure historical trails. There’s something about the combination of dust and plaques that I just can’t resist. Our discovery, a few years ago, of the Victoria Trail northeast of Edmonton has been such a hit, that it now features in the annual Dusty 100.

For a while now, I’ve been wondering about the potential of another historical trail just sitting there on my map of Alberta: the Athabasca Landing Trail (ALT). This 100-mile trail links the town of Athabasca, on the Athabasca River, with Fort Saskatchewan, on the North Saskatchewan River. It was a major overland route for fur traders from the mid-1860s until the beginning of the railroad in that area in the 1910s. 

Vermont Bike Ferry

The Island Line Trail, a popular 14-mile cycling path which runs from Burlington, Vermont, to South Hero Island, Vermont, is missing something—200 feet, to be exact.

Old Brick Store

Quarter past a boot. Tractor o’clock. Ten to the hammer.

I can’t help it. The huge clock on the exterior wall of the Old Brick Store in Charlotte, VT, invites such cornball jokes. And the grand old building invites visitors to step inside, and into a charming mixture of past and present.

Green July

About a month ago, when Val and Tando said, “Hey, let’s go ride our bikes around Vermont for 10 days,” I immediately thought of Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby in the 1954 classic film White Christmas, part of which takes place in the fictional resort of Pine Tree, Vermont. Kaye’s character says, in response to Vera-Ellen’s invitation to join her and her sister for a winter adventure, and again later trying to convince Bing’s character to go along, “Vermont should be beautiful this time of the year, with all that snow.” The only difference, in my case, was the last part of my response. “Vermont should be beautiful this time of the year,” I told the fellas. “All that . . . green.” 

SoCal Postcard

A view of the hills of Encinitas. 

Hills and traffic, that’s what I found riding my bike around the San Diego area for three days. Oh, and also a Jaws-style shark head sticking out of some dude’s driveway marker in La Jolla. It is California. Southern California.

Grand Beach Postcard

End of summer, one last hurrah, a few glorious days at Grand Beach, north of Winnipeg, visiting old friends. Classic cottage activities, catching frogs and playing cards, helped us not think about school bearing down. But this beautiful bike ride along a lovely stretch of the Trans-Canada Trail that runs parallel to the shore of Lake Winnipeg was the highlight. My favorite riding partner, Victoria Day, joined me on this one; here she is, among the birches, on our way back from the Ancient Beach Trail. I like how the trees are showing the beginnings of autumn, and I like how the trail looks like it goes on forever through the woods.

Old Velvet Street

Within minutes I am lost in Connecticut, the land of quaint mailboxes and plentiful roadkill. I had set out north from New Haven, prepared, or so I thought, with a cue sheet (yalecycling.org) and an area cycling map (courtesy of College Street Cycles). But it turns out that prairie living has dulled my navigational instincts. I’ve dwelled for so long inside orderly grids, a right-angled universe, that Connecticut quite literally threw me for a loop. The roads here are neither straight nor orderly—they criss-cross, circle back, wind around, shift identities.

Connecticut Quick Stop

The cow on the roof beckoned. I was ready for a break, for lunch, in fact, when I glimpsed this rooftop bovine and took it as a curious harbinger of good eats. Rural Connecticut, and much of New England, I imagine, is dotted with independent places like this, offering a little bit of everything for locals, travellers, cyclists: cold drinks, “fried dough” (?), night crawlers, fireworks, pastrami sandwiches.

I parked my rental bike out front, not worrying a whit about someone stealing it. (The serene and elevated cow somehow gave off a protective, Jedi-Master air.) Strolling about the surprisingly large store, I surveyed the broad selection of weird American “candy bars” and artery-busting pork rinds, eventually settling on a custom deli sandwich. The Quick Stop felt a bit like an old-timey general store, with its eclectic inventory of food, hardware, and toys. This was my kind of place.  

Old Bikes of New Haven

Here in New Haven, Connecticut, you can’t swing a cat without hitting an old bicycle these days. I’m in town for the International Cycling History Conference, an event devoted to celebrating the machines and culture of the early years of cycling, especially the 1860s to the early 1900s. 

This year’s conference, in fact, is being held to coincide with the 150^th anniversary of the first bike ride in America. In the spring of 1866, French transplant Pierre Lallement rode his prototype velocipede between Ansonia and Derby, CT, just outside of New Haven. As part of this year’s festivities, some old bike aficionados brought their wondrous old boneshakers, pennyfarthings, and safeties to display and even demonstrate on the New Haven Green last Saturday.

Ascent of Mount Nebo

I feel the air getting thinner as I turn the final bend of the ascent.  Approaching the summit, I notice subtle changes in the vegetation: the dew on the grass glistens with a darker shade of green; the trees are just that tiny bit shorter. I feel a shortness of breath as I shift into my biggest ring on the back. I am pedalling up Mount Nebo, the 121^st highest mountain in Manitoba.

Camping at the WBR

One of the highlights of our family’s recent camping vacay in Montana and Idaho was a short stay at the Whitefish Bike Retreat (WBR), a gem of a spot about 10 miles northwest of this ski-resort town in northwest Montana. The WBR opened in 2013 and has been growing steadily, catering to mountain bikers and touring cyclists alike. The location is key: the WBR is trailside lodging for the terrific Whitefish Trail system, 26 miles of smooth single track; it’s only a minor detour off the Adventure Cycling Association’s popular Northern Tier route; and it’s also close enough to the Tour Divide route that Divide riders have been known to swing by for visit. The WBR has a bunk lodge where you can sleep in a bed and cook in a communal kitchen, but we opted for the camping.

Preview: Rural Alberta Adventure

Ten days, 900 km of mostly gravel roads, a southeast squiggle from Red Deer to Medicine Hat, through the Alberta Badlands and around Special Area No. 2 (I know, it sounds like Alberta’s version of Roswell’s Area 51 but it’s actually just an ominously named rural municipality)—that’s the trip Val, Penn, and I will undertake in a little over a week from now.

We’ve been scheming a gravel cycling adventure for some time now, eager to test out what it would be like to tour on dusty back roads. Our very own province of Alberta boasts gravel galore, so why not start close to home? But not too close to home. 

We’ll start in Red Deer, at the Donut Mill, no less—the acknowledged omphalos of Alberta. Our route will take us across prairie and Badlands, through a series of small towns, and across some remote town-less stretches, into a land without espresso. We will follow the Red Deer River for much of the first part of the journey before dipping down along the Saskatchewan border to the Hat.

Here are a few things I’m looking forward to on our rural Alberta adventure: