Calgary – Cremona – Rocky Mountain House – Nordegg – Brazeau – Hinton – Jasper
410 kilometers – 3.550 height meters
First kilometers and a warm welcome
On 31st of May, late in the night, the wheels of our Air Transat plane touches Canadian soil. Flights have been perfect and we were lucky to be placed next to the emergency doors on the first stretch from Madrid to Montreal resulting in plenty of leg space. The bike boxes on the other hand looked like they’ve had a rough time when we pick them up at the ‘odd sized baggage’. In what shape will the bikes come out of it? Worries for tomorrow. We travelled more than 24 hours and we need some sleep. I booked a free night at the Hilton close to the airport with some points I gathered while traveling for ASML in the past. We call up the shuttle service and load the boxes into the van.
After a perfect nights rest we have our first North-American breakfast: waffles, eggs, bacon, muffins, etc. We eat like dogs. We assemble the bikes and they seem fine, although my rear derailleur is not shifting as fluid as it did in Spain. In the afternoon we wave goodbye to the hotel employees and cycle our first kilometers in Canada headed for downtown Calgary.
On our layover in Montreal we’ve messaged a handful Warmshowers*-hosts and to our surprise 5 (!) hosts messaged back saying that we are welcome to stay at their place. We can pick who we want to stay with. What an abundance and what a difference with Portugal and Spain where almost always nobody even responded let alone accepted us.
*Warmshowers is a community like Couchsurfing dedicated for cyclists. The website shows a map of people that are open for hosting you at their house. More than often they’ve also had their share of bicycle-adventures/travels. Sometimes you get your own bedroom, sometimes you pitch your tent in their backyard and almost always you get a warm shower. It is great to meet locals this way and it’s amazing to see how rich the world is with hospitable people.
So we stay our first night with Rick and Tanya and their son Tarn. We offered to cook for them and Jacko made a nice Shakshouka-dish. We drink a beer on their front porch in the sun and chat about cycling and travelling and the adventures it brings. We are amazed to hear that Rick and Tanya cycled all over the world with their 3 sons while they were only 1, 4 and 6 years old. Amazing!






Cycling up north, Olympic ice and Bear spray
We’ve long heard all the stories about bears in Canada and decide to get some bear spray in Calgary. Apparently bear spray is considered a weapon and Jacko has to sign some kind of paper in which he swears he will not use it on people. After a nice breakfast with (again) an abundancy of waffles and of course maple syrup we discuss our cycling plans with Rick. We decide to make a loop in Canada. First we’ll head up north over the foothills towards Hinton. Then afterwards going West to Jasper and taking the beautiful Icefields Parkway south towards Banff right across the Canadian Rockies. After a pleasant stay with Rick and Tanya we head off north and Tarn is joining us for the first 50km and also acting as our GPS navigator out of the city.
Before we leave Calgary however I tell Tarn to plan a pit stop at the Olympic Oval. Me as a fanatic speed skating enthusiast cannot leave this City without touching the ice at the rink where so many records were broken in the past. To my despair the ice in the Oval is gone because of a graduation ceremony, but because of our enthusiasm (“We cycled all the way from the Netherlands to see the Olymic Oval!”) I do get a book and a nice bag from the lady behind the reception. Jacko laughs because the book is heavy and this will add up to the weight I have to carry over every hill.




Cycling differences
On our first day we already seem to find so many differences cycling compared to Europe:
- Everything here is so much more stretched out and so less densely populated
- Instead of finding a bakery or terrace every 5km (EU) we are lucky to find a gas station after every 50km (Ca)
- This also means we have to carry much more food with us
- Everything is more expensive and therefore we cannot afford ourselves too much luxury like nights in hostels.
- The roads here are just either a straight line north-south or a straight line east-west and the city maps look like a ‘stroopwafel’
- Every time we arrive in a city that seems to be quite big on Google Maps it is kind off disappointing for us.
We have to drink a beer in a Chicken restaurant (Ca) instead of finding a nice terrace in a picturesque square next to the church (EU). No lively street life, just pick-up trucks, gas stations and McDonald’s.
We drive north following the highway 22 but are annoyed by the big trucks whooshing by us and the sometimes small shoulders we have to cycle on. We decide to take parallel roads to the 22. After 95km of either going straight up north or going straight to the west we arrive at the second village we encountered after Calgary. The ‘village’ is 10 houses with a liquor store, a gas station and a Chinese restaurant. The village does however have a nice park with benches and nicely cut grass. We decide to just pitch the tents and hope nobody will order us to leave.

Increased bear awareness
The second day we arrive in Rocky House Mountain (what a name!) and find ourselves a beautiful camp spot at the Saskatchewan river next to steep cliffs. We set up our tents, make a campfire and put on some dry clothes. We both find a suitable branch with a sharp end that we can spear our sausages on and grill them over the flames of the fire. We eat them on a bun with cucumber and some mayonnaise. This is life.
Last night in Cremona we joked a little bit about bears and the measures we have to take to not get bears close to our tents. It is estimated that black bears’ sense of smell is about seven times greater than a bloodhound’s and they are looking to get food easy and therefore campsites are always an easy target. Many signs and posters therefore tell you to store away all food, cooking gear and even tooth paste when camping.
In Cremona we ended up cooking next to our tents, spilling food on the ground, forgetting to store away some food etc. Although the last bear that has been signaled in the village of Cremona was 20 years ago we didn’t sleep well. Every sound we heard was a possible bear. And since we’re not camping in the middle of a little village anymore we decided to do it better this time. Over the course of the next weeks we become better and better in being ‘bear-aware’:
- Storing ALL our food either in a bear storage (if available) or in a bear-proof garbage bin (however multiple times mice got to our food this way) or in a toilet building or hang it in a tree
- Making sure not to cook in the vicinity of our sleeping spot
- No spilling of food
- Throwing away garbage









Into the wild and a crash
The road from Rocky House Mountain to Nordegg is hilly and again it is “one day, one road”, highway 11 in this case. The many Provincial Recreation Areas in the state of Alberta turn out to be very nice camp spots and we find a nice one next to a lake close to Nordegg. For the next days we decide to take a gravel road (“The Foresty Trunk Road”) up to Hinton, a 175km ride without any villages or services and only a few campgrounds along the way. We stock up food: canned tuna and sardines, spaghetti, tomato paste, bread and peanut butter. We wake up in the pouring rain. We try to find some shelter under the pine trees for our morning coffee, but they don’t seem to withhold too much raindrops. When it stops raining for a bit we decide to take off, but later on it starts to drizzle again. We hoped that the road indeed was gravel, but instead all the pebbles seem to have drifted of to the side of the road and the road itself is just sand. And the sand in combination with the continuous drizzle and soft rain turns the road in a mud bath. After 20 kilometers everything is covered in mud. It sticks between the tires and the guards, it even covers our chain, cassette and derailleur. Shifting is difficult. We keep pushing on. The rain keeps falling. We are completely drenched and covered in mud. Every descend the wind and rain smacks us in the face and makes us cold to the bone. The kilometers pass by so slow.
After 50km we are done and look on the map, there is a campground in 20km. We keep pushing on. On the descends we notice that the mud that got stuck between our brakes ate away our brake pads. My front brake is completely gone, but luckily I still have some in the rear. Jacko finds out both of his brake pads are completely gone. The last 500m towards the campground are pretty steep downhill and has a sneaky curve in it. Literally 100m before we reach the campground, Jacko cannot hold the corner anymore, he tries to brake with his feet but he fails and he crashes. I find him scrambling up. His face is covered in mud and blood. He curses. I want to look at the wound on his head and clean it, but he stops me: first we need to take a picture. It’s his first serious crash in 10 months of cycling and as a fanatic photographer he wants to capture it. I laugh. We stumble towards the campground and we find out that both his shifters are broken and even his handlebars are bend. We cannot fix this ourselves and he cannot cycle this way. We’ll have to come up with a plan B, but first: get warm and fed. We are super lucky that the campsite (nobody here, just us) has a shelter where we can pitch the tents and more importantly: A CAST IRON STOVE WITH DRY WOOD! What a relief. We make fire, dry our wet clothes next to it, put on some dry clothes and cook. Jacko has a big bruise on his leg, his wrist aches and has a scratch on his head, but seems fine nonetheless.














There can be only one Plan B: hitchhiking. We pack up our stuff and go stand next to the road. The road is far less traveled than yesterday. In two hours three cars pass us, nobody can take us. The fourth one goes in the wrong direction but stops nevertheless to ask if we’re alright. We tell him that we’re good but need to catch a ride to either Robb (60km) or Hinton (108km). He tells us he has to work in the coalmine and cannot help us unfortunately. We thank him for stopping and he drives off. Ten minutes later he returns to give us 20 protein bars in case we didn’t have food. Ten more minutes later he comes back again and tells us he cannot leave us like that and he will drive us to Robb. We thank him multiple times and load the bikes into his pick-up. Once arrived in Robb Travis tells us, what the heck, why not drive you all the way to Hinton. What a guy. In Hinton the bike shop is closed and we call up a bike shop in Jasper.
He has the spareparts we need, what a relief! We stay in Hinton with WarmShowers-hosts Kristinn and Bruce and get to sleep in a real tree house! We eat a warm meal and drink a beer and tell about our adventure. Kristinn is kind enough to post a message on Facebook asking for somebody to take us from Hinton to Jasper. Justin answers that he can take us. He doesn’t even necessarily need to be in Jasper, he just wants to help out. Canadian people are the best. He drops us off at the bike shop in Jasper and they can fix Jacko’s bike at the end of the day. Justin proposes that in the meantime we could drive up to his favorite part of Jasper: Maligne Lake. On our way to the lake we spot our first real wildlife: an elk, a coyete and an osprey. The lake still carries a coat of ice and the snow capped mountains that emerge behind it are breathtaking. In Jasper we stay at another WarmShowers-host, Bruce, an old engine-driver upon the train going to Alaska.









The next day Jacko’s bike is fixed (although it costed him an arm and a leg) we had some rest and we are ready for the Canadian Rockies.
Stay tuned!
De foto’s op insta zijn prachtig maar de verhalen zijn helemaal geweldig om te lezen!
Succes weer de komende etappe!!
Wat een mooi verhaal weer , iets meer als een maand onderweg en al zoveel meegemaakt en zoveel geweldige mensen ontmoet ! Geniet iedere dag en we kijken uit naar het volgende verhaal dit keer uit de USA
LIEFS PA EN MA
Wat een fantastisch verhaal weer! en wat een avontuur, ik kijk weer uit naar de volgende!
Groeten Peer
Mooi verhaal weer maat!
Wat een fantastisch verhaal weer, je schrijft of we er zélf bij zijn….zó sprekend. Het is bij jullie nog geen enkele dag saai geweest. Wij kijken alweer uit naar je volgende blog.
Nice Flipmeister!! Mooie avonturen al!
Hey yin! Thanks so much! And no haha I cannot reach SD in one week 😉 have fun though
Hey Marijn,
Fantastisch wat een belevenissen, wat een avontuur, wat een doorzetter (doorzetters)!
Geweldig dat wij dit op zo’n afstand mogen mee beleven!
ENJOY en CARPE DIEM!
Liefs, Ans en Kaat