Think I did this last year or maybe it was the year before? Time is moving way to fast guys if it was two years ago. I do remember it being smoky and me riding cause I was fed up of not riding cause of all the smoke that year which means last year right?
Just hold on, go get a latte or something all right?
Yes it was last year, phew. Time isn't going that fast.
Covid still feels like yesterday though right?
I found the airport ride of 2023 on Strava and compared it to today. Last time I was forced to ride a lot of highway which really sucked. The preferred route is backroads to Nisku which is great but one stretch is quite busy with car traffic so not much better than the highway although there is less exposure. Last year it was a two hour and one minute ride for 39.25km and today was two hours and ten minutes for 43.43km so a bit of a longer route but you get to go through Nisku baby!
The ride started from Lonebiker headquarters and some would say the airport is an odd place for a destination but I am a huge airplane geek so it just makes sense. It is Beaumont Days here so I rode through box car races and a heavy amount of people as they made their way to the fairgrounds and wondered if my family would miss me if I disappeared and became a carney.
It was some gravel for the gravel bike as I left town and eventually found Nisku and rode by the place that was a huge part of my life at one time and I gave zero thought of those times cause I just don't really care now. Life is funny that way.
After Nisku it was a sketchy zero shoulder bridge cross over highway 2 and I eventually found the old entrance to the airport where the trees and closed road provided good shelter for a potty break. I found some Hercules aircraft doing some training from Winnipeg I assumed.
A headwind got in my way on the way back to Beaumont and I made the mistake of staying off the gravel and riding a very tight shouldered paved backroad into town.
It was a top notch ride despite the lame traffic.
