Doing a Dave Ramsey

Without local knowledge I would definitely have had to turn back from Seymour Arm. It proved to me, once again, the benefit in asking people for directions and using local knowledge, even if you don’t think you need it. Dave Ramsey is one of the best I’ve ever met at doing this. As a result, he makes lots of friends and goes to some interesting places. 

The directions I’d received yesterday were great – the first part of the road was tight but smooth and then I hit Forestry Services Roads (FSR’s) again, which shook the hell out of me and the bike. I turned south down the Gorge FSR as per my directions –  it was easy when you knew what you were looking for. It was a great road although pretty rocky and steep in places. I was very glad I’d dropped a tooth off the front sprocket before I’d left. I hit another major Y. The right was called the 4900 Rd, so kept going straight – this seemed a pretty good bet. But, I kept coming to more and more unmarked intersections. I hate that and was getting pretty lost, so I just kept heading south – I really didn’t want to have to go back over the last 200 km again. The road rose again, with big vistas over mountain lakes and high roads that could be ridden really fast. Down was the challenge it always is, with lots of slippery pea gravel and loose corners.

It was with relief that I came back on the yellow kilometre signs that mark the distance to and from main roads and then hit the bitumen around 35 km west of Revelstoke.

I found a great Mexican cafe just off the Main Street and had some excellent tacos for lunch. I met a guy called Hank (he just came up and introduced himself when he saw me looking at a map by the bike) who was a fellow Kato rider living in the area. He travelled a lot by bike in South America and insisted on joining me and marking up my paper map. Got some really interesting suggestions that will make for great riding. Had been planning on heading south for a bit and trying to see if I could find roads heading east to Banff. I’ve often found tracks in Canada where there are none marked. Definitely not the case this time – the reason was the Rocky Mountains. There’s simply no riding across them! 

So, made the call to slab it 300 km down the Highway and get it out of the way. It was still a nice ride – the mountains were beautiful, especially as I started getting into the Rockies. From Lake Louise, I headed down the Bow Valley Parkway. It was racetrack quality road with plenty of long sweeping bends and a 60 km per hour speed limit that everyone stuck to. Reckoned there had to be a reason! As I suggested, the Rocky Mountains were spectacular, especially in the last of the late afternoons light. I had my camp set up by about 8.00 and back into town for ribs, garlic mash, coleslaw and a few reds. They were awesome – going to eat a lot more of these I think.