Critique Of Alberta's Iron Horse Trail

Welcome to BikeBike Adventure TV!  "We do these trips so you don't have to!"

Well, we tried, and failed at bikepacking the full length of Alberta's Iron Horse Trail. 

We thought we did enough homework. We knew the trail was not optimized for bikes. We knew it would be slow going in spots. But we persisted with our plans.

What we didn't know it would be impassable in many places. We didn't know the trail was completely ripped up from Bonnyville to Cold Lake. Like ripped up completely by water main construction for 40+ kilometres.

Now you know.  

In short, we'd recommend avoiding this trail for bikepacking.  

Strava Link Day 1

Strava Link Day 2

Strava Link Day 3 

New Bikepacking Route: Canals For Daze

Fans of the WID Canal (Western Irrigation District) pathway to Chestermere will likely understand why we were intrigued by the idea of riding more of Alberta's canals: It's peaceful, completely car free, often people free, with wide open views of this beautiful part of Alberta.

One of the interesting parts of the canal system is that it follows a "lay of the land" route instead of the monotonous range/township grid offering an ever-changing view ahead which makes riding out on the Prairie a little less boring.

After some digging in the 'ol intranetwebs this past winter, I found a map of all of the irrigation canals in Southern Alberta and very quickly began linking together some of these canals with those boring rural roads to try and create a route that was available earlier in the season than mountain routes, would be safe and easy for new bikepackers, and explore a part of Alberta often forgotten about.

Is Electric Bikepacking Is The New Black? - Chapter 1

Ebikes have finally started to catch on with North Americans in the last couple of years and people are starting to use them for all manner of reasons. Electric mountain bikes are a thing. Electric city commuter bikes are a thing. Electric cargo bikes are definitely a thing. But electric touring bikes? Are they a thing?

They are indeed a thing, and we believe they are poised to propel more people into bigger/longer adventures as more and more companies design bikes with bigger batteries and faster chargers.