John Bolton - September 28, 2017


Highwood Pass Gate to Gate to Gate


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

156.42194

Word Count

1,213

Sentence Count

121


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Highwood Pass is a challenging climb up to the top of the pass. There is a lot of climbing up this pass and it's a challenge to get to the other side. I did it the last time I did this climb and it was a challenge.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I'm down here on 40 Highway and this is Peter Lougheed Provincial Park and that
00:00:07.380 road right in behind that sign there is leading up to Highwood Pass. I was here
00:00:11.000 earlier this year and I rode it from Kananaskis Village. This was about 30
00:00:15.240 kilometers back that way and went to the top. Today I'm going to do both ascents
00:00:20.520 of the pass so 16k up here then across the top 35 to 37k down turn right around
00:00:27.360 and do it in the opposite direction. About 108k today I think about 1500 to 1600
00:00:33.840 meters of climbing on today's ride. I've done this one before a few years back
00:00:39.180 it's you know it's a little bit of a challenge but it shouldn't be too
00:00:42.600 difficult today. The other side which is 37k from bottom to top is harder it's not
00:00:48.100 as steep but it just goes on and on and on and on and on. The last time I came up
00:00:52.440 here I suffered a lot but keep in mind when they did it last time it already
00:00:57.060 ridden 150k before I got to the bottom of the climb it was 187k day so it was a
00:01:02.280 pretty long climb but a beautiful day for a bike ride out here in Kananaskis
00:01:06.240 country. Beautiful sunshine a little bit cool I've got the arm warmers on today
00:01:10.500 probably take those off before I get to the top of the pass today but it
00:01:15.540 certainly is going to be a fun ride a challenging ride and if you're ever out
00:01:18.420 here in Alberta I would suggest you climb the pass at least do it on one
00:01:23.380 direction or if you feel up to it do it from both sides. We'll do another video
00:01:28.000 when we get to the top and before we go over the top to head down towards Longview
00:01:32.560 Alberta. Okay so here I am I'm at Highwood Pass and last 2k I think your average is
00:01:44.140 7 percent grade. It's a good climb from that section it's uh so you can see that 16.8k
00:01:53.560 60.9k to the top. Took 54 minutes and 542 meters of elevation so that's right from the
00:02:05.860 start. From the bottom that's where my car is. So here we are at Highwood Pass now
00:02:12.520 and uh get my breath. Beautiful day. Sunny and I'm going to go to the other side now. I think it's
00:02:24.700 about 35k from that sign to the bottom. Turn around and ride back up. Okay so here I am at the other end of the
00:02:36.140 pass. There's the gate. The other one closed uh through the winter time and up to June 15th. I think
00:02:44.780 this store is probably open. I'm going to run down here and see if I can get some more water.
00:02:49.320 Have a bite to eat. I was remembering the last time I rode this side of the pass
00:02:55.200 and it was right after the flood in Calgary and this store was closed and luckily when I
00:03:00.840 went into Longview I rode from Longview to the top of the pass and back a hundred mile ride there
00:03:05.240 that day. I asked them if this store was open. They said no. So I filled up in water there. So it was
00:03:09.720 pretty uh pretty good that I'd asked them. But I'm going to run in here. Just fill up my water.
00:03:15.720 It's a beautiful view uh back that way. And so far I've ridden uh Autopause 54.9k.
00:03:26.440 Uh took me about an hour and 15 minutes to get here from the top of the pass. So it's going to be a long
00:03:31.360 ride back. Uh 694 meters of climbing. So I added uh maybe 140 150 meters coming back this way.
00:03:39.200 I've descended 878. So that the big part of that 878 was this last 35 to 36k.
00:03:48.880 So I'm going to have to climb up that on the way back. But I get to go downhill at about 80k an hour
00:03:54.160 a little bit later on. And lots of cows out here. You'll find them all the way up along this road.
00:04:02.160 And uh they get onto the road as well. You'll find all kinds of Texas gates out there so that
00:04:06.800 they can't walk on the road. But just beautiful country out here. Uh take off the arm warmers.
00:04:11.600 It's warmed up quite a bit and uh start the climb back. 35k most of it uphill.
00:04:23.920 Okay so I'm fueled up. Had something to eat. Got some more water. So I've got lots of liquids.
00:04:31.840 And it's going to be 37k from here to the sign at the top of the pass. I'll pull out the camera
00:04:39.520 when I get up there. It's a long haul. This is uh this is an interesting one. It never it only tilts
00:04:45.680 up a lot at the end which is really cruel of the people who build the roads out here. But
00:04:49.360 there's four or five percent grades with a lot of three percent grades coming out here. It just takes
00:04:54.640 a long time. And uh you know when you're riding long distances sometimes it gets discouraging
00:05:04.800 because it seems like you'll never get there. But gotta look at it this way. I'm now driving towards
00:05:10.160 my car. Okay that's what you got to think about it sometime. Going up a long climb. Get to the next
00:05:17.920 sign. You can see it up the road you know. In this case I'm driving towards my car. And uh slow and
00:05:25.600 steady wins the race right. Plus I get to go about 80k an hour down the other side for that last 16-17k.
00:05:31.920 I got that to look forward to. Here we go. Beautiful view eh? Ah they put a hill at the beginning of the climb. Bastards.
00:05:42.480 Let's just take a look at our computer. Four hours two minutes. So it's about two hours to get back up
00:05:50.880 from down below. How many meters of climbing? 1,521 meters of climbing. Descending 1,034.
00:06:05.840 So we'll add another 400 meters to that going downhill here or 500. But there you go. 64.8 maximum speed.
00:06:13.520 93.2. And right there is a sign for the pass. So we've got back to it. 74k later. And let's rip downhill now.
00:06:23.760 A lot of nice fast downhill right here. Some more Rocky Mountain sheep. Now here we are back in the scene
00:06:31.520 of the crime from the beginning. And back to Peter Leahy Provincial Park. And back to the car which is
00:06:39.120 still here. Which is always a good sign after a bike ride to have your car back where it belongs.
00:06:45.600 And let's see. Tale of the tape. Four hours 30 minutes. 110 kilometers. That auto pause should
00:06:53.440 clear from there in a sec. Heading southwest doesn't matter. 1,579 meters of climbing. Maximum speed 76.8.
00:07:03.680 We average 24.4. Not too bad considering all the climbing. 1,570 total descent. Average cadence 93.
00:07:14.800 4,968 calories burned. I'm not sure that's absolutely correct. But it's well in excess of
00:07:22.640 3,500 burned. So I can go eat a whole bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. So there you go. Great ride
00:07:28.960 today here in Cananastis country. Gate to gate to gate Highwood Pass. 110k on a lovely day in Alberta.