Biking Through the Mountains

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Each spring my husband Will and I look forward to doing e-bike rides on mountain highways while they are closed to vehicle traffic. This year we managed three spectacular rides.

The first was on the Sheep River Road, which is about an hour and half drive south of our home in Calgary. On May 10th, our group of eight met at the winter gate that blocks off the last 18 kilometres of the unplowed highway from Dec 1 to May 14 every year. The snow gradually disappears from the road in April. 

May 10th turned out to be a beautiful blue-sky day. Our summer clothing contrasted the snow-covered mountains.  

Three members of our group met the challenge of the hills on regular bikes. Impressive! We took many stops along the way, including one for the highway's namesake bighorn sheep.  

And a picnic lunch at the Sheep River Falls. 

On our return trip, another biker snapped a shot of the whole group. 

Our second ride this spring was the Highwood Pass, the highest paved road in Canada. It closes to traffic from December 1 to June 14 due to high snowfall and to protect wildlife. The first two weeks of June the road is free from snow for biking. It's hard to find a parking spot on the popular weekends. Seven of us went Thursday, June 7, the weekday with the best weather forecast during that narrow biking window. 

Here I am (turquoise jacket) outside the winter gate before starting the ride.  

We enjoyed blue skies, but the brisk wind made the riding cool and the uphill sections more challenging, especially for intrepid Sam, on a regular bike. He also took our group selfie. 

The return ride was mostly downhill with the wind behind us, which made for lovely coasting through gorgeous mountain scenery. 

      

Our last mountain road ride of the season was June 14th on the Bow Valley Parkway from Banff to Johnston Canyon. This highway stays open in winter but closes to cars in June and September to protect wildlife and allow cyclists to enjoy the road. Tourists can rent e-bikes in Banff for the 50-kilometre return journey. The Parkway's hills are less steep than those of Sheep River and Highwood highways. This time regular bikers outnumbered e-bikers 4-3 in our seven person group. 

The weather forecast was 40 percent rain and we got pelted with with cold drops during a five-minute downhill section.  My cotton pants were drenched but dried quickly in the breeze when the sun reappeared. 

We heard reports of four bears sighted on the roadside. We missed them, but once more encountered bighorn sheep.   

These highways are so long that I've never felt crowded even when I've gone on popular weekends. This spring we did all three rides on weekdays and most of the time we had the roads entirely to ourselves. 

                                                                        

   

Where do you get your ideas?

 

                                                                                                                                                                          Please click this link for author, book and purchase information

"Where do you get your ideas?" This might be the number one question readers ask authors.

My quick answer is that ideas pop into my head all the time and they come from everywhere. My personal experience, conversations with other people, places I've lived in and visited, the news, books I've read, TV, movies, perhaps a painting or line of music. 

This winter, I'm editing a novel-in-progress, book # 3 of my Paula Savard mystery series, while mulling ideas for book # 4. With a series, many of the basic ideas are already there. I start with my sleuth, Paula, a fifty-five year old insurance adjuster, and her cast of supporting characters, who impact her personal life and, in some cases, her sleuthing. Paula and most of her family, colleagues and friends live in my home city, Calgary Alberta. I could send Paula to another location for all or part of the next book, but I see her as grounded in Calgary. Unlike me, Paula isn't drawn to travel, although book # 3 presents her with a future travel opportunity. For now, I think her adventures in book # 4 will continue in Calgary. 

 

    An often deserted pathway behind Calgary's Saddledome arena inspired my idea for the murder in the first Paula Savard novel, A Deadly Fall. 

My current novel-in-progress, Winter's Rage, ends in January 2020, with Paula at a crossroads in her life. Book # 4 will begin with her dealing with that situation. I've decided it will take place in spring, since Paula's first three mysteries happened in fall, summer and winter. But which spring will this be? January 2020 was right before COVID-19 changed the world. Will we next meet Paula in spring 2020, as she grapples with the start of the pandemic both personally and at work? Or will it be spring 2021, when the the pandemic is (we hope) nearing its end? I could jump over the virus and set the novel in spring 2022. This would make the time frame more contemporary to my publication date, although I find it hard to envision the post COVID-19 world. What things will return to the old normal and what will be the long term changes? The year I choose for this fourth novel will affect my ideas for it. Thoughts to mull during the winter.

 

Calgary's annual Stampede parade prompted ideas for a major character and an inciting incident in my second novel, Ten Days in Summer. 

  

While Paula got into solving mysteries as an amateur sleuth, I decided her subsequent ventures would come from her insurance adjusting work. Ten Days in Summer starts with a suspicious death resulting from a building fire. Paula naturally becomes involved in the course of investigating the property fire insurance claim. In Winter's Rage, she adjusts a hit and run collision and gradually suspects the fatality was no accident. 

This quiet, suburban Calgary street plays a large role in Winter's Rage.

For book # 4, I'm thinking that burglary could make a good cover up for murder. Last spring, my husband and I bought e-bikes at a local bicycle shop. I was intrigued by the store's booming business. With most of their usual activities shut down for the pandemic, Calgarians sought outdoor activities and many of us updated our old bicycles. That store and the two guys operating it are giving me ideas for the crime that will launch Paula's next mystery.            

I also want to include a ghost in book # 4, because ghosts both interest and frighten me. At the end of Ten Days in Summer, Paula's office moved to Inglewood, Calgary's oldest neighbourhood. Many ghosts lurk in Inglewood, a location for Calgary's haunted walking tours. The ghost rumoured to haunt her historic office building will challenge rational Paula, who doesn't believe in other worldly happenings. 

A ghost walking tour of Inglewood inspired my choice of  this "haunted" building for Paula's office.

All of these bits and pieces, swirling in my mind, will converge into the start of a story, when I eventually sit down and write the novel. As the story moves along, it will pluck more ideas from my usual sources. That's the plan, anyway, and it's how I get my ideas.    

  

E-biking last spring triggered ideas for my next novel 

 

E-Biking Though the Pandemic

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COVID-19 prompted my husband Will and me to buy e-bikes. Our thinking was that with most of our usual activities likely to be gone or restricted this summer, it would be good to expand the ones we'd be able to do. This included cycling. We'd always enjoyed getting out on our twenty-five-year-old bikes and hoped electric bicycles would let us ride longer and farther and handle steeper hills.

I didn't quite know what an e-bike was before I bought one. Since then, I've learned they have motors that provide pedal-assist. You still pedal the same as with a regular bike, but get more for your effort. E-bikes can go up to 32 kilometres per hour (20 mph) to be classified as bicycles, not mopeds. After each use, you plug them in to recharge the battery.

The motor makes e-bikes heavier than regular bicycles. Usually the battery is attached to the frame. We chose models with built-in batteries. They aren't much heavier than our old regular bikes. This will make them easier to load in our car for outings and easier to ride if the battery ever runs out. I'm especially glad we got the lighter bikes after hearing about a friend's holiday in Paris. During her first day of renting a heavy e-bike, it toppled onto her and broke her leg.
 

I chose an upright cruiser style, with a comfortable seat and handy front basket.  

Will and I bought our bikes at a local bicycle store, which has been doing a steady business this spring. Some companies are thriving during the pandemic and I see lineups outside of every bike shop in Calgary, where I live. We walked to the store to pick up our e-bikes, rode them home, and tried them out on our quiet, flat neighbourhood streets. The next day, we went for a longer ride on a city bike path, with a hill I previously couldn't ride all the way up. Half way, I'd have to get off and walk my old bike. On the e-bike, I cruised to the top, passing a group of fit-looking riders in their twenties. What a thrill for a senior citizen! 

Will chose a racier model. We'll enjoy the lunch box on the back for picnics. On a ride to downtown, we had our first look at Calgary's kayak course on the Bow River. 

Calgary enjoyed a couple of weeks of fine weather after we bought our bikes. Will and I took them out every day or two. We conquered numerous hills we'd have struggled with or walked up before. I could still feel the cardio exercise as I pedalled to the crest. We could also do longer rides, to parts of the city we hadn't previously biked to from our home. I returned feeling less tired than I used to from my regular bike rides, although my sore muscles suggested I'd had a workout. 

I'm still cautious about riding a more powerful bike. Wind from the higher speed makes me cooler when I ride. I've had to wear more layers of clothing this spring, but this might make biking on hot summer days more comfortable. My e-bike has nine gears, which are easy to change with the paddles on the handle. The power level button on the frame is trickier to use. I still haven't got the knack of pressing the button 1,2 or 3 times to shift the power up or down while riding. 

Colourful, layered clothing in the cool wind.

E-bikes aren't cheap. Ours were in the lower price range and each one cost more than Will's first car. But with this spring, summer and probably fall of non travel, e-bikes turn staying at home into a vacation. When Calgary's weather warms up again, we plan to load our e-bikes into the van and ride in the rolling countryside, tackling hills with ease. Not much beats coasting to the top, leaving those twenty-somethings in our dust.