trans-canada, prevailing winds & solo travels questions

[NadiaMac]

The golden triangle was awesome, and a nice complement to the Icefields Parkway in that the terrain and scenery was quite different on each segment (from eachother and from the Icefields-- more sweeping gradual vistas and of course the long valley ride on highway 95). I especially loved highway 95 between golden and radium hot springs! Limited traffic and wonderful valley views, plus gradual grades that permitted good speed even on the loaded touring bikes

We rode it in the reverse direction to that recommended in our route guide (and to that used by the big group ride that takes the route). It was fine in that direction! We had a bigger climb out of radium springs than had we done it in reverse, but much smaller climbs on the transcanada to Golden. Not sure whether the shoulder is better on the transcanda going east, though. The westward shoulder was in poor/unusuable condition for chunks of the westward ride.