Planning Your First Bike Overnight

"Thinking about something is often far more daunting than actually doing the thing"

Planning your first bike touring trip or bike-overnight can seem like a daunting affair - especially if you're not used to camping. But with some careful planning, route selection, not biting off too big a challenge your first time out, and the right mix of gear, it can open the door to a great experience and whet your whistle to do more trips, longer trips, and more adventurous (remote) adventures.

Bikeovernight into Rural Alberta

While the lure of the Rocky Mountains is unquestionably strong and there seems to be no shortage of beautiful places to visit, sometimes they can also be overloaded with happy visitors, busy highways, and full campgrounds.

So it was decided to head East and go looking for new roads, preferably some gravel, and to avoid those busy highways and campgrounds.A quick glance at some backroads maps and some time digging around Alberta Parks' website, I picked Wyndam-Carseland Provincial Park as my destination.

The plan would be to use as many range and township roads as possible and if there was some gravel, even better. On the return trip, the plan was to return to Calgary on the soth side of the Bow River via Dewinton. Here are the Strava links:

Day 1 
Day 2

Please enjoy this photo essay and if you have any questions, leave us a comment.

Sean

One Night Out On A Bike

When people talk about bicycle touring the image that come to mind more often then not is something that looks like this - - -

- - - and conjures up images of long, multiple days in the saddle, riding across Canada or some such "crazy" adventure requiring quitting your job, growing dreadlocks, and not having a shower for weeks at a time.

Truth is, touring by bike can be just like that. Or it can be so much simpler and still offer the feeling of being away from civilization - even if it's only for a single night.