Multimodel Fatbiking

With no car of my own, and none available to easily borrow I decided it was time to fire up the multimodel experience and head down to Fish Creek Park for some fatbiking on trails that, at least in summer, are super fun to explore.

With the West LRT line passing close by my house and the Ctrain network extending all the way down to Fish Creek I figured it would be an easy, relatively fast, and warm! option for getting down there and back without a car.

All aboard the fatbike express!

Temperatures when I was at the station waiting were around -11c with it forecast to drop a little throughout the day.  Total time to get from my front door to Canyon Meadows station (start of the ride) was a reasonable 45 minutes.

Fish Creek Park was also damaged in the June floods and as a result many of the designated mountain bike trails were impassable or simply gone altogether.  Navigating through the park to find the good trails was a little bit of guessing, remembering past rides, and blind luck.

Perfect conditions.

At one point I found myself out on Fish Creek itself, riding along in a ski/snowshoe trough that seemed to have followed the entire length of the creek through the park - cool!  That was pretty unique but I wanted to find my way back into the forest singletracks that meander throughout the valley bottom so I veered off into the forest at my earliest opportunity.

I might like these trails better than West Bragg Creek!

I was able to find my way onto some great trails that had been snowshoed and walked on making for some very sweet ups and downs through the forest, plenty of open side slopes with amazing views, and even some deer sightings.

The trail network in the park is amazing!  I know people love riding the West Bragg Creek trails (45 min. drive west of Calgary) but I'd suggest giving Fish Creek a try if you haven't yet.  With trails running everywhere you could play in there for hours and have a blast, all within the city limits.  How cool is that?

2 hours later I was back on the train for the ride back to my little corner of the city.  By the time I was done the temperature had dropped a few degrees, I was completely soaked from the effort and glad to be relaxing for the ride home.

My only hiccup was on the trip back - I wish I had brought a fresh sweater to throw on under my jacket to keep the damp, chilliness away.  Nothing serious but I'll definitely remember for next time.