An Excellent Adventure

In the past few days we've traveled from Elkford through Sparwood to Hosmer, through Fernie and Elko to Kikomun Provincial Park on Lake Koocanusa, and through the US-Canada border to Eureka, Montana. For these days, we chose to do the tamer of the two alternatives our ACA maps had to offer - known as the Fernie Alternate because it passes through the cute sporty town of Fernie, BC - but still encountered plenty of surprises, challenges, and delightful trail along the way. We also got some delicious coffee, bagels, and muffins on Fernie's main street. Mmm... But I found myself almost homesick or nostalgic for the more remote and more massive mountains of northern BC, but thoroughly enjoyed the frontcountry riding as well... and we're anticipating that the next few days in MT will be more remote again. Day 5 I think this was halfway up a 2+ mile climb on a mining road. Not steep just loooong! We had heard rumors that part of the trail- here an old gravel mining road- ...

Civilization! After 4 days on the road through the woods of Alberta and British Columbia, we arrived yesterday in Elkford, BC, the first place we've had electricity, cell service, or WiFi since we set off from Banff. The warm showers at the municipal campground were wonderful :) Things are going very well so far. Aside from a bit of drama on day 1, the trip has begun quite smoothly. Here are some highlights of our journey so far: Day 1: We hit the trail from Banff. So far so good. We enjoyed some beautiful scenery on the way. We encountered several steep hills that required pushing, sometimes with difficulty. We learned the hard way how ride safely on a gravel highway. Soon after we turned off the trail onto the gravel highway, our need for speed overcame us, and we both fell when we hit a patch of loose gravel. We sustained minor scrapes and bruises. However, a minor fixable issue with my bike occurred as a result of the fall. I noticed something was off but ju...

This morning we woke up in Banff and spent some time doing wildfire research. There are some wildfires burning in the next province over, but thankfully, none of them are currently close to our planned bike route. After learning this good news, we drove up to Lake Louise to do some hiking before we leave the area on our bikes tomorrow. Mike, Katelyn, and Jonathan in front of Lake Louise   We went on a hike from Lake Louise up to Lake Agnes We made it up to Lake Agnes (also home to a cute tea house, not pictured here), and I think we found one of the world's top lunch spots. There was a shuttle that took us from the Lake Louise overflow parking lot down by the highway, up and down to the lake and back. It was very convenient and well-run. Katelyn and I realized that, from our brief experience, we like the way the Canadians handle tourism from a public infrastructure perspective. Rather than expanding parking lots up the mountain near the lake to handl...

Yesterday we flew into Calgary via Toronto. We prayed and prayed that our bikes would all arrive in one piece. Thankfully, we had enlisted Carmie's help in packing them. Who knew one of her hidden talents was building custom-sized non-rectangular cardboard boxes? We stayed up late packing the night before. And finally, we were off! With the most and largest bags I have ever checked on a flight. Katelyn's dad Mike flew with us and helped us out tremendously. His favorite joke to passers-by was that we were bringing two big-screen TVs on our wilderness trip ;) Once we got to Calgary, we made a shopping run for food and all the dangerous stuff you can't bring on planes. When we finally got to Banff, we opened up our bike boxes to find... they were in pieces! But thankfully, it was the exact same number of pieces we had packed them in. We spent an hour or so re-assembling them, and when we finished, they were in great shape! After we finished ...

Rise and shine, DiGioia bike trip blog! After almost three years of gathering cyber dust, we are starting up our blog again to document our next big bike trip. In case you don't know, here is more about what we're doing and what's going on with us... Since last year Jonathan and I have been preparing to ride the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) . Over the past few months and weeks we have been especially busy getting ready. Jonathan installs a new set of brakes on his bike. Part of our preparation has included fixing/changing/replacing components on our bicycles over the last several weeks. Getting ready for this trip has been mixed with a lot of transitions and some surprises. We moved out of our apartment on Linden Avenue where we had lived for almost three years. (Unlike our strategy three years ago, we did not choose to move out of our apartment and leave on a cross-country bike trip on the same day. This time, we are spending two weeks in Lil...