The Bike Ride!

Just after getting to Hinton, Carolyn & the kids came up for a visit and we spent the weekend out at the Cadomin patrol cabin, if you recall the pictures on this blog. On our drive out there I made it my goal to get in good enough shape to ride out to the mine entrance which is south of Highway 16 on Highway 40, sounds like an easy ride? Well it is almost straight up the whole way to the mine site!

Last Sunday I left with this objective in mind, it was a nice day, 16 degrees, sun shining and a slight SW breeze. I estimated it to be a 25-30 kilometer ride, up hill, to the entrance.


Highway 40 southbound, this was one of the first descents on my route, for the most part it was up hill the entire way. One of the descents had my speed up to 74 km/hr! All I kept thinking was 'I have to ride back up this!' On the way back I was doing ~8 km/hr!


My objective! The tunnel is the entrance to the Elk Valley Coal Mine at Luscar Creek! It was exactly 40 kilometers to this point which took me 2 hours to reach, the return trip only took me 1 hour!

Stats: Ascent - 718 meters, Descent - 246 meters, Average Speed - 24 km/hr, Total Ride Time - ~3 hours, Average Heart Rate - 155 bpm, Max Speed - 74 km/hr!