Cycling Camp in Jasper

Well, I'd planned to write a bunch about the cycling camp I was at last weekend in Jasper, but with the bizarre stuff coming out of the Floyd Landis hearings all I had time to do was create this map/satellite photo from Google Earth of our "mountain challenge" ride up to the base of Marmot Basin ski area (my group started from the turnoff, rode up then down then back to town). More to come when I get a chance...


(addendum May 18 - here's the same route on a topo map)


This was our big climb, on Saturday afternoon - 11 km total from the turnoff to the top, average grade of about 5.5-6 % (calculating from the topo map, as none of the group members who had Garmins actually knew how to use the grade/elevation functions), 1 hr 15 min up for me. And we even made it to the top before the faster riders caught up to us (they rode from town then up the climb, whereas we saved our energy for the climb by driving to the base). Perhaps the bear seen by the two in front (we had to get passing-tourists' cars to ride beside us for protection just in case the bear hadn't actually run away like we thought) provided that last burst of adrenaline to get us to the top ...

(May 19 - more about the camp on the other blog here)