2020 Alberta Rockies 500 Special Edition

Ten months ago I had ACL reconstruction surgery on my left knee. We will call that my “new knee”. The surgery consisted of harvesting one of my hamstring tendons and anchoring that to my femur and tibia. Voila…new ACL. The rehab was long and much of the time was spent strengthening the hamstring and other knee stability muscles. Lucky for me, cycling was a large part of the recovery.

Busted up knee

Recovery was going well and the doctor said after nine months, I should be good to start getting back to normal activity. The Alberta Rockies 700 (AR700) is normal activity, right? The AR700 bikepack race is typically 700km long. This year was reduced to 500km due to COVID-19 and interprovincial camping restrictions, so it was called Alberta Rockies 500 Special Edition. It is a mixed surface race with a combination of gravel roads, pavement, doubletrack, and singletrack.

Alberta Rockies 500 SE Route

About four weeks before the start, I decided to do the race and see how the new knee held up with some big volume. I had been riding regularly as it was part of my rehab and was starting to do some longer rides. Once I decided to do the race, I started doing some bigger rides. One test two weeks before the race was a ride between Lake Louise and Jasper. I had ridden that stretch several times before and I wanted to see if I could do it stopping as little as possible. My goal was to finish in under nine hours total elapsed time with my geared road bike. 

Lake Louise to Jasper roadie machine

I rode the Lake Louise to Jasper ride and everything went really well. I managed to hammer hard and finish in 8:13 total elapsed time (12 minutes stopped time). The new knee felt great! But the next day riding with Kristin around Jasper, my new knee started screaming. There was a sharp pain at the top of the kneecap. Uh oh, did I overdo it with that long hard ride?

I had two weeks before the AR700 and I did a couple of hill training rides on the single speed. The kneecap started to flare up again, so with my past experience and 20 minutes of intensive Google research, I diagnosed myself with quadriceps tendonitis. So, I decided to rest as much as I possibly could before the AR700. The quadriceps tendonitis is an overuse injury, and since my rehab for the new knee includes a lot of cycling, I’ve been increasing volume gradually over the past 7 months, but since I decided to do the AR700, I decided to increase my volume a lot really fast. I think that’s what flared up the tendonitis.

Weekly hill climbing machine

The week and a half before the race I tried to ride as little as possible, but I still had to ride everyday because of the Ride 366 2020 Challenge. Aside: I started a challenge where you need to ride every day of 2020 for at least 15 minutes. My last day off was December 8, 2019. It’s Ride 366 2020 because it’s a leap year. I also iced it as much as I could and took ibuprofen to reduce the inflammation. I thought I’d let it heal as much as possible, but I expected it to hurt during the race. I figured the most amount of time I rested would reduce the amount of discomfort during the race.

Race Strategy:

My primary purpose for the race was to test the new knee. I hoped to ride the whole distance in one go while stopping as little as possible. I brought just enough gear for emergencies: puffy coat, long sleeve base layer, base layer leggings, raincoat, chemical toe warmers, and an emergency bivy. I didn’t plan on stopping to sleep so I only wanted to bring enough in case I got into trouble and had to hole up somewhere. I could put on all my clothes and huddle up in my bivy. I had some basic tools, bear spray, and other essential items too. The rest of my space was filled up with food. I did not want to buy food anywhere along the route since that takes time. I wanted to keep pedaling as much as possible at a gentle pace to save the knee and eat on the bike as I rode. I wanted to ignore the other racers, keep a slow steady pace with no stopping, and see how the new knee felt at the end! Whatever my finish time was, was what it was. 

Bike Setup:

I was riding my RollingDale Cycles titanium single speed bike with a gear ratio of 32x18 and Maxxis Ikon 2.35” 29” tires. That ratio on paved, easy portions I spin comfortably at 20-22 km/hr. If I spin like a madman, I can spin up to 26 km/hr, but I can also climb a decent grade of hill comfortably. I thought that would be a good mix for this race.

Bike is short for Bichael

Race day came and we drove out to Canmore the night before, had a big pile of pasta from Boston Pizza and drove out to the start in the morning.

When we got to the start, there were a few cars scattered around with cyclists. I knew Tim and Trish and Joanne. Monika showed up a little bit later. I packed up the bike, got ready and took off. Kristin was the official photographer for the start and Joanne was the announcer for the start of the race. Kristin took a socially distanced group picture and Joanne yelled us off and we were off down the dusty road.

It seemed like everybody was riding at a reasonable pace. I chatted with Tim a little bit and met Shaun from South Africa who now lives in Calgary. We just kept a nice, gentle pace on the roads. It was a gradual uphill for the first bit. As I expected, the guys on the gravel bikes, cross bikes, drop bars, and gears all started to gradually pull away. And over the next two to three hours I would only see them on hills in the distance.

I didn’t want to overstress my new knee in the beginning, so I kept a nice gentle pace without pushing super hard to see how it felt. Over the next few hours, both knees had aches and pains that would come and go, which is actually quite normal for this kind of event. I was nervous that the new knee would hurt on top of the kneecap, which is where I felt the most pain recently, but it never seemed to hurt very much there. Great news so far, but I was still feeling cautious.

I happened to see Tim again and we talked a bit more. He mentioned this was the Ghost of the Gravel route. We chatted a bit more and he pulled away into the distance again.

Whole lotta this for the first 130 km

I kept riding and saw one guy stopped on the side of the road and asked if he was okay. He said he had a puncture, so I kept on going. I almost took a wrong turn because the route loops around and comes back on the same trail. I almost took the wrong right, so I corrected myself and kept on riding.

On the start of this first loop the road surface was pretty good and the temperature was nice. It was around 12 to 15 degrees and there were not very many vehicles on the road.

As the morning passed into afternoon, it started to get a little warmer. I started to see more RVs and campsites. I reminded myself to stay at my pace and started eating on my schedule. Now I seemed to be all by myself, as these races go. Later in the afternoon, I actually saw a rider ahead of me! I was catching up with somebody! I crept up and it was Shaun. We talked a bit and the temperature was starting to get hot, around 25 degrees. We just talked about how hot it was and how he didn’t train very much for the race, just his daily commute. Good for him for testing himself with this race! Eventually I started creeping away from him.

I took a last sip out of my CamelBak and realized I was almost out of water, so I started looking for water sources. I saw one creek, but it was slow moving and brown, so I decided to wait. I found one that wasn’t too bad a little bit later. I filled up there and I had to wait 30 minutes for the Aquatabs to work before I could drink it. But I was happy because I didn’t have to stop until Cochrane to get water.

I rode past the staging area again at the start and I was happy to have the Ghost section behind me. Later in the afternoon there was more traffic and more dust on the gravel roads. I felt like I ate a pound of that white gravel dust! I passed the start point after the first loop and I was wondering if I was passing a bunch of people who were going back to their vehicles for resupply. 

That's not fog, it's dust. Blech!

I kept riding and was now in the paved section which was nice due to less vibration. Eventually I saw Tim’s smiling face beside me. We chatted a bit, then he kept riding ahead of me. I expected everybody to pass me again because now we’re on pavement and maximum comfortable speed I could go was 22 km/hr. Tim passed me then a couple of other guys passed me too.

It was starting to get pretty hot, about 28-30 degrees and I had this bad tasting creek water. I decided to either go to the Ghost convenience store which was off route or go to a gas station in Cochrane. I couldn’t remember how far the Ghost store was so I decided to go to Cochrane. I stopped at the edge of Cochrane to check my phone and see where the gas station was. There was one a kilometer down the road so I went to that one. Since I was super thirsty, I ended up buying too many liquids. I filled up the CamelBak and my water bottle, drank a Tim Horton’s drink and a cranberry juice, and I put a small 750 ml bottle of water in my frame bag. I rolled away with my overstuffed Buddha belly full of water and I got back on route. The route followed bike paths through Cochrane. It was nice being away from traffic.

At one point on the bike paths I felt humiliated because I had to walk up a paved hill. Hey, it was really steep! The route went up a steep road out of Cochrane on the other side of the riverbank and I was back on gravel roads.

These gravel roads were on farmer’s fields so the traffic was a lot lighter than in the Ghost area. I did a quick Facebook Live video to update people including Kristin. Was wondering what Powderface Trail was going to be like. The gravel roads turned onto a paved road as I crossed under Highway 1. I was riding up a hill, looked up and saw Niels at the top of the hill! It was great to see the support! He was on a ride in the area and saw I was nearby on Trackleaders. He walked alongside me as I rode my bike up the hill. 

Photo by Niels Van Ommeren

We chatted a bit about the route and he mentioned I’d be walking a lot of Powderface Trail because of a lot of steep pitches. Once I got onto Powderface Trail, I saw Niels was telling the truth! I walked quite a few hills. 

Beginning of Powderface

The surface was nice and the hills were steep as the sun went down. It was amazing the temperature change! Within an hour the temperature went from 27C to 10C as the sun went behind the hills. I rode up quite a long, steep hill, and took a short break at the top. I heard some gravel crunching nearby and saw another racer! It was a guy with a Fox t-shirt, who I thought was in front of me. We talked a bit and he mentioned he was going to stop and camp pretty soon. We started riding down the hill, leapfrogged a little bit, and eventually he wasn’t behind me anymore. I guess he stopped.

I rode up to the campsite where the aid station was and realized I didn’t know which camping spot to go to. I looked at my phone to see if I could text Jonathan, but there was no service. I remembered there was something in the email, so I looked at the email and found the aid station. Upon arriving, I said hi to Jonathan and his family. I was looking forward to getting some water since I was pretty much out. I was surprised to find out that I was the second one there! How did that happen? Dave was the first one there and was still there. I started filling up with water and bananas and got rid of my garbage. I think my arrival and reluctance to sit down spurred Dave to leave more quickly, so he was off right after I got there. I left probably maybe 10 minutes after Dave did and was wondering if I would see him again.

It was a slow climb up to Mount Romulus. This was the beginning of the summit of the route at 2236 meters. This was a transition from gravel roads up to this point into trail. Now it started to become more of a mountain bike trail. The trail surface from the aid station to Mount Romulus was fun and not very steep. At one point I saw Dave again who was off to the side of the trail. He came up riding behind me and said he went off route for a little bit and started climbing strongly ahead of me on his cross bike. I was walking up the steep section that he could ride and eventually he started walking too, but then got back on his bike and rode away. I didn’t see him again for a long time.

The trail kept going up and up and past Mount Romulus and started getting more rocky, rough, and steep so I was walking quite a bit. Eventually I got to the summit at Tombstone Lake. The stars were amazing so I took a minute to look at the stars and was looking forward to a smooth, fun descent that never came…

It started with a short descent and then turned into a very rocky trail that slowly climbed. The trail consisted mostly of babyheaded rocks that were difficult to maneuver, so I walked a decent amount of it and it seemed to stretch on for a very long time. I started to think of the Arizona Trail where there’s a constant question of if I should try to ride it or just walk it. Many times I tried riding and I would have to stop after 10 meters so I would have to get off again. This repeated for a while as time passed into the middle of the night.

The trail started to trend down towards Highway 40. It was a descent, but it was a technical, rocky descent where you had to be careful not to crash. I wondered how Dave was doing on his cross bike. Lo and behold, Highway 40 appeared and it was on a fast, paved descent in the dark. The trail turned off onto an easy pathway through the trees toward Boulton campsite. I was looking forward to riding this part because I was familiar with the paths from riding them before. The paved paths wound through the campsite and saw headlights in the distance. It was Dave! He mentioned the trail ahead was closed and we talked about what to do. I wanted to see for myself so I rode up and there was tape across and the area was closed due to bear activity. We spent some time trying to find a reroute. There was no cell service so I had to use my Etrex to try to find a new route. Etrex works for this, but it’s very slow and clumsy so it took a while to find a good route.

Can't go this way!

We rode together on a road that bypassed the closure area and met up with the route again. We kept riding for a while until we got to the High Rockies Trail (HRT) and I knew Dave would be faster so he went first. He took off like a shot down the trails.

The HRT is a singletrack mountain bike trail that is well built and had good flow. I did however expect it to be easier. Leading up to the start of this section, I imagined something quite different. I imagined a singletrack trail that gently climbed hills, flowed through the woods, as I expended very little effort riding carefree through the trees with a smile on my face. Maybe there were even birds chirping and butterflies floating around me in my delusion. It was not that way at all.

It was about 4 in the morning when I started the HRT and it began with a climb. The trail was smooth at first, but it was like a little roller coaster so it would be going up and down, up and down, with the ups being a lot higher than the downs. So I could ride some of the trail, but I would have to get off and push the bike…a lot. I had flashbacks of the Arizona Trail again. Again, I had to decide if I wanted to try to ride something or just walk it. When I tried to ride, often I could only ride for 10 meters and I would hit a steep hill and I had to walk. 

Famous HRT suspension bridge

The trail trended uphill at times and I walked a lot of that. But then it would trend downhill and it would be fun because it would be a fast, flowy singletrack trail. I knew the HRT was about 50 km and as the first hour went by, I realized it was going to be a long night and possibly morning. The process of walking steep sections and riding the fun sections down repeated all night. When dawn arrived, I was about halfway done.

The HRT caused conflicting emotions. First, despair. I was very tired and my legs were pretty worn out. I didn’t have much punch left to power up the short, steep sections. At these times, I couldn’t wait for the HRT to be over. Second, glee. This trail was a blast to ride! As long as it was flowing downhill. It was such a nice trail that was so well done and so much fun, I wish I had more energy to enjoy it. 

Glee and despair

At one point I saw a little sheep on the trail. He was walking along the trail too and we walked together for a while with him staying just ahead. It was a surreal experience! It was nice having someone to talk too… even if they were not talking back. 

My buddy the sheep

As the sun rose and the trail got further north, it got rockier, so it was a little more challenging technically. Due to my sleep deprivation, I started to realize I could trust my hearing and vision less and less. I’ve had experience with this before. In other races that I’ve had in the past, I’d get auditory and visual hallucinations after about 30 hours of exertion, and from what I’ve heard this is common in ultra-endurance events. Since I have experienced this before, I know how to deal with them and they don’t concern me too much. I knew hearing voices in the woods and seeing things moving out of the corner of my eye were not real and to just ignore them. I started to realize that the things I was seeing in front of me also couldn’t be trusted. There was one time I thought I saw a large whale on the trail and I pondered, “Why would I think a whale is more plausible to be on the trail than a large rock because obviously it’s a large rock and not a whale.” At one point during a fast descent, it appeared there was a bear in the tree out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t look at it because I had to focus on the descent and I thought it probably wasn’t real anyway. 

I'm pretty sure he's real!

As I got closer to Banff, the trail started to get busier. There were a few hikers, a few bikers and I thought, “Please let the end be here soon.” Much to my relief, the trail crossed Smith-Dorrien Road and went down to the bank of the Spray Lakes Reservoir. I knew from that point on the nastiness was over. The trail might be a bit rocky here and there and there might be some steep climbs, but nothing would be sustained for a long period of time. Everything would be short-lived.

I reveled in riding the trail along the Spray Lakes bank. I crossed the dam and went back onto the HRT for the portion that connected to Goat Creek Trail. I had ridden this a couple of times in the past and I knew it was fairly easy. Spirits were high! As my speed increased because the trail was easier, it was still rocky and my feet were feeling the pain the most. The impact of riding on the technical trails made my toes really sore, so I was doing my best to sit in the saddle to take pressure of my feet. But with the fast descent still on portions of rocky and rooty sections, I still had to stand on the pedals and endure the foot pain.

I knew once Goat Creek was over, my challenge would no longer be riding difficult trails, it would be to ride safely while being very tired. After Goat Creek the route is about 100 km of fairly easy pavement to the finish. I knew that in my sleep deprived state, riding the technical trails kept me engaged, but riding on the pavement in the heat would make me relax and would make sleepiness a major factor. When riding the single speed on the easy pavement, I can’t push a pace. I just coast a lot, so it lowers my heart rate, I get comfortable, then tend to feel sleepy. I knew this would probably happen and it made me nervous for the finish.

Once I got to the end of Goat Creek, I stopped at the garbage can to empty my garbage. I checked my phone to see where I could fill up with some water. By this time it was midday and about 30 degrees. I found the Shell on Banff Avenue and stopped there. I was feeling the heat so I had a popsicle. I got some water, some juice, and some chocolate milk. For some strange reason, the juice was lukewarm so I ate the popsicle, drank the juice, filled up my CamelBak and water bottle. I started to drink the chocolate milk, realized I was too full. Didn’t want to overfill my belly like after Cochrane so I only drank a quarter of the chocolate milk. Plus, milk products and the heat can sometimes go very wrong…

Oh yeah, my new knee! About in the middle of the night, I forgot that I was worried about it and realized it wasn’t hurting at all. It was totally fine! Aches and pains would come and go as they do in this type of racing, but no major issues. I brought a lot of ibuprofen and pain killers anticipating that I would be taking a steady diet as the race progressed, but I never took any. As mentioned before, my feet really hurt and I was debating taking some ibuprofen for my feet, but I knew with the long, easy pavement ahead, I would be drowsy and I didn’t want to take anymore ibuprofen to make me more drowsy. I’m not sure if that’s a side effect, but I didn’t want to risk it. Plus, I thought a little bit of pain would keep me awake.

So with my liquid tanks (belly included) all filled up, I headed down the Legacy Trail. Almost immediately I started feeling drowsy. I was debating whether to stop and take a nap. My personal rule is if I start to feel like I’m going to nod off, I stop and lie down and usually that gets me out of the drowsy state. It’s better to stop than to ride unsafely. As I was riding down the trail thinking of the best place I could stop and take a nap because I felt so drowsy, I saw Tim Johnson’s smiling face riding towards me. I said hi and he turned around and started riding with me and rode with me all the way to Canmore. The conversation we had while we were riding woke me up, totally removed the drowsy feeling and really saved my bacon. Thanks, Tim! 

Photo by Tim Johnson 

Tim and I parted ways in Canmore. I started following some bike trails toward Highway 1A and to my surprise I saw Guy Stuart! It was another encouraging moment to see his smiling face.

Photo by Guy Stuart

I continued riding on Highway 1A knowing this would be a particularly stressful stretch because it’s a busy road with virtually no shoulder. I did another Facebook Live video while there was still a shoulder to give people an update and began the stretch that never seemed to end until the turnoff to go north to the finish line.

It was about 57 km of a stretch with no shoulder and it helped with the drowsiness because I had to focus so hard on riding in a straight line so the cars could pass safely by. About every 20 to 30 minutes I would stop on a pullout and check my phone only just to break the cycle and stay alert. The kilometers seemed to pass by incredibly slowly. At one point someone drove by with Saskatchewan plates yelling indistinctly, jerking their hand up in a sharp, upward manner and I chose to believe they were cheering me on saying, “Great job!” There was one other time somebody was honking at me and it felt like an angry honk. I chose not to let it bother me. Another time I heard some honking from way behind and I felt like it was an encouraging honk and it was my lovely wife driving by cheering me on through the open passenger window.

The kilometers went by very, very slowly while taking breaks trying to stay alert on the edge of drowsiness, trying to stay safe and just waiting for the shoulder to come which I knew came at the Ghost Campground. I was about to stop at what I thought was another pullout and then realized that was the shoulder! I was elated!

I took a drink off my CamelBak, realized it was dry so I decided I had to stop at the convenience store at the Ghost campsite. I pulled in knowing exactly what to get after overbuying at the last two stops and bought 1.5 liters of water to fill up my CamelBak and a Starbucks Frappuccino. It was a long wait in line at the convenience store, but the air conditioning was nice. I saw an angry camper buying liquor who didn’t seem to be appreciating the air conditioning during the long wait in line. He was very rude to the cashier and I thought that was sad. I bought my water and Frappuccino, said thank you and stepped outside back in the heat. I drank the Frappuccino, filled up the CamelBak and was happy to see the last 30 km ahead of me.

There’s a strange phenomenon that when you’re going back along a route that you’ve previously travelled, it seems to go faster. I rode out this way the day previous in the afternoon and now I was riding back so I knew some familiar landmarks that were coming up and I was looking for those. I knew there was the Ghost Fire Hall. There was the Waiparous Creek gully. There was one or two steep but short climbs to do. I had my mind focused on those, so this section went by much faster than the Highway 1A portion. I have a feeling the Frappuccino helped with my alertness because I didn’t feel drowsiness at all. I tried to keep a solid pace and the kilometers seemed to go by quickly.

I reached the final steep climb that I expected and with my broken legs, I couldn’t make it up, so I started to walk. I walked up to the top of the steepest section, got back on the bike, and started pedaling again. Just after I got back on my bike, some blond-looking man in a small car yelled, “Go Dean!” I wondered if that was Dave.

As I was riding to the end, I was not looking forward to the short gravel section because my feet and hands were sore and I knew it was very washboardy. I was happy to see the parking lot in the distance once I got on the gravel and then tried to ride strong to the finish. I rounded the corner, saw my lovely wife and was happy to be done.

The race was complete and I was happy with the result. I rode according to my plan and actually came in second! My knee felt good so I’m confident it’s healing well. I wonder what will be next…

Race done!