Biking kept me fit for a great many years. I biked to work, in Saskatchewan, every day for about 20 years. This included biking throughout the winter, which can be a very rewarding challenge.
My old biking page is still HERE.
A log book of our rides is HERE.
Myra Canyon 2021
I got a chance to bike part of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail on my drive to BC, Wonderful views and a great experience. Not a challenging bike ride by any stretch of the imagination. But I will try to talk others into doing it with me. Take a look at Myra Canyon 2021 for more photos.
Biking Commute
Most of my biking was always the commute to and from work. Because so many people asked me questions about it, I uploaded a WHOLE bunch of photos to Flickr.
This is what I wear when it is about -20 C. Many, many layers. And as they say, if you aren’t cold for the first 15 minutes, you are probably over-dressed. Sometimes it is hard to find the right balance. Unzipping the layers is my secret to not arriving soaking wet.
The commute changed as my job moved about. Fifteen years of it was along single track trails along the river bank. Both a joy and sometimes a pain. Winter travel time was often more than an hour as I had to carry the bike through deep snow.
The Flickr album was put together in 2007. I continued biking for another 7 years, until my workplace relocated. At that point I gave in, as almost an hour each way seemed like too great a loss of time out of my life. In winter, it would have been at least one and half hours each way. In extreme conditions, that is a long time to be outside
Local Biking Around Our Emma Lake Cabin
There are a whole bunch of cross-country skiing trails that double as mountain biking trails. This are within a 15 minute drive of our Emma Lake cabin so we do them frequently.
Anglin Lake (and Swamp biking)
Anglin Lake has a bunch of cross country ski trails. In the summer they are good hiking/biking trails. Once section became flooded because of storms and deadfall and beavers. Recently they have upgraded the signage (in places) to indicate that the section is impassible in the summer. And skiing over NewYears 2017, we discovered that they have actually re-routed one of the trails. This was without any change in signage (sigh). But, for awhile there, it was fun, and the blocked section was far enough into the loop that everyone chose to go through it rather than back. Fun for Hoodoo (the dog) too.
Swamp Biking is just something that happens to us when some of the Anglin Lake trails get flooded. It makes for a different experience. The first few times, you don’t know that the trail is going to be blocked, and by the time that you discover it, you just aren’t up to going back where you came from.
Spruce River Highlands
This is a trail on the eastern edge of the Prince Albert National Park which loops back on itself. It is about 9 km. long, with the eastern end linking up outside of the park to the Anglin Lake ski trails. It has evolved a bit over time. We used to ski it regularly, hiked it a few times, and now mostly bike around it. Bikes are not encouraged on the trail, but if you come in from the eastern side, there is nothing to say you shouldn’t use bikes. For awhile, the trail fell out of park favour, and budget cuts lead to less and less maintenance. The trails were unmarked and removed from the park pamphlets. We continued to use them. The park hiking trails map is HERE.
It looks like Parks Canada has recently realized that they dropped the ball here, and there is a new partnership which officially advertises and links together Spruce River Highlands and the Anglin Lake ski trails. The new official website is HERE.
Fish Lake
The Fish Lake trails are in the south eastern corner of the Prince Albert National Park. Map is HERE. We are going to spend more time on these trails. Biked them a few times, and one overnight winter camping trip on cross-country skis.
Emma Lake North Woods
There is a route which starts near Anglin Lake and circles through the woods, coming out near Murray Point, and from there, you can take the roads around the south end of the lake and get back home. All the way around Emma Lake. At first glimpse, it doesn’t look possible when you look at the roads on a map.
Local Biking Journal
The rest of this page is more or less chronological, more recent near the top of the list.
Fish Lake 2016 November
Unusually warm weather meant that we (Warren, Kim and Tegan) took bikes up to the lake instead of skis: GooglePhotos – Fish Lake 2016
Emma Lake North Woods 2016 September
With George and Tegan and the dogs, Hoodoo and Koa: GooglePhotos – Emma Lake North Woods 2016
Swamp Biking 2015 August: With Lindens
With Alison, Ken, Katrina, Jeffrey and Christopher: GooglePhotos – Anglin Swamp Bike 2015
Spruce River Highlands 2015 August:
Quick bike around the loop with Jeffrey and Christopher Linden. Turned out to be a hot, dry day. GooglePhotos – Spruce River Highlands 2015
Spruce River Highlands 2014 August: with gymnasts
We had Keiran and some of his fellow gymnasts (Keith, Jaimie and Evan) at the cabin and thought it would be fun to do a bike ride. GooglePhotos – Spruce River Highlands 2014
Swamp Biking 2014 August with George and Rebecca
With George and Rebecca GooglePhotos – Anglin Swamp 2014
Spruce River Highlands 2013 September: With Rick McCharles
This time Rick and I went in from the PA park side. Steep hill to start, but then you don’t have to wade the (probably) swamp in the middle of the trail in from Anglin Lake. Doing the loop clock-wise from this end, you do the steep sandy hills first, then negotiate the flatter swampy side as you return to your starting point: GooglePhotos – Spruce River Highlands 2013
Spruce River Highlands 2012 September: Warren Goes Solo
I thought I would do a quick loop. No-one else was up for it: GooglePhotos – Spruce River Highlands 2012: Warren Solo
Swamp Biking 2012 September with George
With George GooglePhotos – Swamp Biking with George 2012
Swamp Biking 2012 August with Keiran
With Keiran on Flickr
Spruce River Highlands November 2005: With Elaine and Bill
This was more of a winter biking session than anything else. Lots of wipe outs onto HARD ice, simply because sideways sloping trails covered in ice, with or without a little bit of snow cover, simply aren’t ride-able. GooglePhotos – Spruce River Highlands 2005
Biking When Far Away Journal
If the opportunity arises, we like to do some biking on our travels as well. Doesn’t happen as often as I would like, as there are always lots of other things that MUST be done as well.
Mammoth Mountain 2012
Another big drive. And some mountain biking. This time we chose Mammoth Mountain, a ski resort which switches over to mountain biking in the summer. Again, rented the bikes and went out into the blinding sunshine and desert heat. After several hours we figured out what we liked doing best. The black diamond runs were fun, but we are slow, and there was always a risk that someone doing 50 kph would come around a blind corner into us. And speaking of coming around a corner, we did just that and stumbled into a large bear cub, climbing a tree. Don’t know where Mommy Bear was which made all of us nervous. Yes, I got a few photos. GooglePhotos – Biking Mammoth Mountain
Moab 2010
We were doing one of our big drives. One of our goals was to do some biking in Moab. Didn’t bring our own bikes, easier to rent for the one day. Poison Spider provided some nice bikes and a ride out to the slick rock north of Moab. Since it was August and going to be blindingly hot, we decided to go early in the morning and finish before noon. Moab provided us with an extra special thunderstorm late in the day which flooded the town: GooglePhotos – Biking in Moab
San Francisco Golden Gate Loop 2008
Another big drive, this time in California. While in San Francisco we decided to do a big, touristy bike ride. We rented bikes from Bay City Bike and the route we chose starts in San Francisco, goes across the Golden Gate Bridge, on to Marin, then catch a ferry back to San Francisco and return the rental bikes. A great loop, lots of sunshine and then thick fog going across the bridge. And a huge rush at the end as we struggled to make the last ferry to get the bikes returned before the rental shop closed. Would have been easier if we had started much earlier in the day, but we aren’t good at that. GooglePhotos – Biking the Golden Gate Bridge