BOU AVENUE
Rotary/Mattamy Greenway
Zosia Zgolak and I completed a single-day
bicycle tour of the
Rotary/Mattamy Greenway in Calgary, Alberta on 6 June 2020.
The 140-kilometre long Greenway essentially circumnavigates the city of
Calgary and incorporates mostly paved paths with some designated biking
routes along city streets. Although riding the entire loop in a single day is not technically
challenging, it is nevertheless still demanding both physically and
mentally. In order to get a good start, we rode to my mother's house
in the community of Cedarbrae the previous afternoon and spent the night
there before getting up in the wee hours of the morning. The
weather forecast called for mainly cloudy skies but no rain although it
had rained during the night. Best of all, winds were supposed to be
light--ideal for riding through many of the open spaces along the
Greenway. We chose to ride the loop in a clockwise direction in hopes of
getting the more hilly sections in the northwest done earlier in the day
when we had more energy.The first
part through Weaselhead Flats was straightforward since we had
previously biked in this area extensively. Ongoing construction of
the ring road in the southwest made the 37 Street W-Glenmore Trail
interchange a bit tricky to ride across, but fortunately, traffic was
still light enough to allow us easy access along a short stretch of 37
Street W before turning onto the designated biking route on 46 Avenue S.
At Signal Hill Centre, we skipped a 1.5-kilometre long section where the
Greenway makes an inexplicably pointless detour west along Richmond Road
and then north to Battalion Park. This detour entails dismounting
the bicycle and climbing a series of stairs before descending east back
toward Sarcee Trail. I suspect that in the future, the Greenway may
be re-routed further west to 101 Street W which might explain the curious
extension along Richmond Road.
After descending to Edworthy Park and
crossing Bow River, we skipped another section near Shouldice Park due to
pathway repairs, but we picked up the Greenway again at 52 Street W and
Bowness Road. The next section along Bow River is very scenic, but
the Greenway makes an annoying climb up to the top of the bluffs in the
community of Silver Springs only to lose all that hard-won elevation as
it descends back to the river at Bowmont Park. Further west, we
made another short construction detour under Stoney Trail before
commencing the most strenuous stretch of the Greenway in the hilly
northwest part of the city. Much to the credit of the Greenway
designers, the climbing never felt too strenuous at least in the
direction we were traveling. Having said that, there are occasions
when the route seems more convoluted than necessary such as the
long-winded diversion through the residences at Tuscany Meadows Crescent
and Tuscany Meadows Heath. A more direct ride along not-that-busy
Tuscany Meadows Drive would have sufficed. We also took a wrong
turn up Tuscany Valley View when we should have headed east along Tuscany
Boulevard, but we easily regained the Greenway at the Tuscany Ctrain/bus
station and only missed out on a short section running through Twelve Mile Coulee
park.
Cruising past the nondescript high point
of the day (1271 metres) near a car mall in the community of Royal Vista,
we faced our most significant challenge in navigating the
unfinished section of the Greenway between 14 Street W and Centre Street
in the community of Carrington. At 14 Street W just south of 140
Avenue N, the Greenway pavement ends at a big mud pit. There was
still a rudimentary dirt track we could follow, but after the previous
night's rains, some parts of this track were too muddy to ride. The
worst section was maybe about 125 metres long, and we dismounted to walk
our bikes here after I stupidly tried to pedal through a mud hole. Fortunately, we found pavement again after this
muddy section, and all went well until we reached Centre Street.
Here, the pavement ends again in a muddy ditch beside the road. We
walked our bikes a short distance to get onto the pavement of Centre
Street, but it is not entirely obvious where the Greenway goes from here.
With a bit of searching around, we eventually found the Greenway atop a
hill on the northeast side of the Centre Street-Stoney Trail interchange.
From there, we enjoyed a short stretch of easy riding until the pavement
ends again at 15 Street E which is a gravel road at this point. The
Greenway follows 15 Street E southward under Stoney Trail and across
train tracks and a stream before regaining pavement near 128 Avenue N.
Until this section of the Greenway is completed, it may be better to
avoid all the troubles here by simply heading further north and riding
along 144 Avenue N between 14 Street W and 15 Street E.
Route-finding was generally not a problem
for the rest of the trip after we cleared the unfinished section of the
Greenway. The ride through the northeast part of Calgary was
straightforward, but by the time we stopped for lunch at a wetlands area
in the community of Monterey Park, we were both starting to feel some
aches and pains--for me, most notably in my neck and shoulders.
Further south on 52 Street E, we skipped another section where the Greenway heads east
along a canal to 84 Street E. Both Zosia and I had already ridden
this part of the Greenway previously and felt that it did not merit a
repeat visit. Instead, we continued south on 52 Street E before
heading east along 114 Avenue S to rejoin the Greenway at the 114 Avenue
S-Stoney Trail interchange. Doing so shaved off about 3.5
kilometres of easy but uninspiring cycling from our total trip distance,
but since we had already skipped a couple of short sections of the
Greenway earlier in the day, we had already given up on maintaining
purism of the route.
After winding around the southeast corner
of the city, we passed the low point of the day (996 metres) along the
Bow River near McKenzie Meadows Golf Course. We then crossed a foot
bridge over Bow River and rode west through familiar territory in Fish
Creek Provincial Park. The park was busy as usual for a Saturday
afternoon, and many parts of the Greenway were quite congested. We
stopped for another lengthy break at a day-use shelter near MacLeod Trail
before tackling the final uncomplicated southwest leg of the loop.
Upon returning to my mother's house, we were rewarded with a second
delicious home-cooked meal in as many days. Zosia and I washed the
dishes after dinner, and we still had enough energy left to ride home
later in the evening.
A special thank you goes out to my
mother, Grace Bou, for her generous hospitality and wonderful culinary
skills. She is truly the salt of the earth.
