Blast from the past

[Lindsay Canham]

I'm helping my mother pack up her place and found a bunch of old randoneur shirts in a box. She has a few from the early 90s but I kinda liked this 10th anniversary one! 

I knew she did a lot of biking when I was a kid, but other than biking to school I was never as into it. 

Now here I am 30 years later and I've followed her footsteps with distance cycling too! 

She was much much faster/fitter than me when she was in her prime, but I've got time to catch up. 😆

[Jeff Shmoorkoff]

Lindsay,

Hah, I remember having a friend in Edmonton design that one! Great that your mom kept it/them!! It was a long sleeve tshirt. Now you’ve stirred some memories:

 1997 (this shirt year) was when I became very busy in rural medicine (started summer of 1995) and the Calgary group started to heavily support the club’s promotion and organization. Thanks guys. The club has evolved so much since my days of hand drawing maps, driving courses to collect elevation data and having a super time getting the maps out to find new routes. Now Stephen, Joel and Matt (and many others) have a system on line that’s seamless, for maps, brevet cards and membership. And to Ian, Dan, Wayne and Steve for past and present support.  Mailing and licking stamps in the past won’t be forgotten!

I still have all the maps and data in a box along with all my medals, jersies and jackets from the decades since the club inception in 1987. I do thank those at BC and Prairie Randonneurs for supporting my early enthusiasm with Randonneurring and helping to get brevets set for our own inaugural qualification at PBP 1991. 

And Rob and Sue Lepertel in France and the Audax Club Parisienne and later the Randonneurs Mondiaux for all of their support. And to Chester and Maurice for continuing our club’s communication with France.

Does anyone remember the Super 3000 and 5000 medals we had for those riding those cumulative distances in one season?

And my promotion letters to sponsors was when I was first learning how to use a computer. I’m still a dinosaur and not so skilled! But having volunteers and food at checkpoints was awesome. Wow, a person volunteering at a km point in the middle of nowhere provided food and water and signed one’s brevet cards! Now it’s about carrying enough supplies for some checkpoints that are over 100km apart! Thanks again to those volunteers. And Typhoon for our initial jerseys and shorts and jackets! It was about being bright and seen on the road! And today it’s still about that.

I recall one route south and west of Calgary as we descended a hill in the dark. We were stopped by the police! They simply wanted to thank us for all of our safety vests, reflective tape and lights. They said we “lit up like Christmas trees!” It was and still is about safety.

And then the 400km route south of Calgary that we were soaked through by a downpour in the night. It was cold. We stopped in a laundromat to dry our clothes. It was heaven, even if only for an hour before we were soaked again!

And no matter what the weather, we rode. Riding west from Leduc on a slushy days was no fun! Having to stop to chip ice off the brakes and derailleurs was “fun” just to ensure we had stopping capacity and gearing ratios! Now, we have a week leeway to offer more enjoyable brevet experiences!

Riding through the cold in the mountain rain was never fun. Plastic bags over our socks, inside our shoes was very helpful. Now merino clothing and great booties offer modern protection, layering and warmth!

And learning how to properly eat during such enduring events was a lesson in itself. The bonks were never fun. The riding sleep attacks were scary. Technology of endurance nutrition helped so much! Simple caffeine also was awesome! Cytomax was my go to nutrition!

I sent inaugural promotion posters to every bike shop in Alberta and drove to every shop in Edmonton and Calgary in order to ask for poster space and counter space for brochures. The very first poster was black to the edges - then a printing headache as the dye had to be leached to the edges. And now it’s all about social media. 

A few years, we even had a group of volunteers do volunteer radio communications through the towered mountain routes for safety! Wow! Now look at the technology of eg., RWGPS and also incident/GPS technology on our ride computers and helmets!!

In 1987, I had qualified for and finished PBP (via the Prairie Randonneurs as I didn’t get the aka Rocky Mountain Randonneurs brevets registered with France during the club’s inaugural year 1987). Then more members joined and qualified for the next PBP in 1991. We had a club presence there. Then again in 1995. And so on. Now members have participated all over the world in 1200+ km brevets!

I recall riding the Raid of The Pyrenees in 1991 with EW. It was epic. We had no support (the AB way) and slept on park benches and corners of tennis courts - on foamies and with space blankets. Ascending and descending those passes in day and night was awesome! Hearing the wild horse hooves on the asphalt was initially scary as we couldn’t see what animal was making the noise, but we recognized a horse trot! 

Then the one and only Canadian Mountain Challenge (1300km from Vancouver to Calgary) was designed. It had an epic jersey and medal, thanks to my landlord for the artwork. I still have them … somewhere in a drawer. It was a tough route through BC and AB. I recall descending into Creston in the second night with my helmet headlight, rotating my head left to right to see the deer eyes, hoping one didn’t jump in front of me at my 70kph descent speed. Later DP designed a more southerly route called the VCR (Vancouver Calgary Randonneur).

Then the Ft McMurray guys went extreme with the Muffsloose Trail 200km - on the ice road in February from Ft McKay to Ft Chip. This was before the days of fat bikes and true winter bikes. I had no studs and got through it in my commuting Mt bike. I recall all the respiration humidity freezing on my belaclava, making a long icicle that resembled a saber tooth tiger tooth and extending to my chest! Checkpoints were in trucks and our volunteers had hot soup and hot chocolate to consume. We’d thaw out while warming up only to have our sweat freeze in our bike position as we started out again.

Then there were the countless 2, 3, 4, 600 and 1000km routes. One will never forget the Banff-Jasper-Banff 600, South to north and return and in reverse. I recall descending Bow Pass and a grizzly running to the west road edge from the ditch, standing on its hind legs to sniff the air. He looked up toward me and down away. As I approached at 70kph, along with all the linear frost ruts (looking down to avoid crashing in one - at the same time as looking up at the bear), I hoped it didn’t pounce in front of or on me!  TORA 1000 was epic as was the STORM 1000. My story on that was published in a national magazine.

Nic Lees was a great supporter and wrote several articles about the sport in the Edmonton Journal. He has since passed, but I will never forget him!

Then the Populaire Series attracted riders: 50, 100, 150 km, culminating with a 200km. It was introductory and had a bronze, silver and gold pin for each distance and the memorable custom bronze medal for the 200km.

Our 40th season was in 2026! Now we start our 5th decade in 2027! We may not be a big club in membership, but we are big in enthusiasm, distance and spirit! Thanks to all for the support over the decades and to Lindsay and her mom for bringing up such fond memories.

Jeff S

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 10, 2026, at 12:47 PM, Lindsay Canham <lindsay...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm helping my mother pack up her place and found a bunch of old randoneur shirts in a box. She has a few from the early 90s but I kinda liked this 10th anniversary one! 

I knew she did a lot of biking when I was a kid, but other than biking to school I was never as into it. 

Now here I am 30 years later and I've followed her footsteps with distance cycling too! 

She was much much faster/fitter than me when she was in her prime, but I've got time to catch up. 😆

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[John McWhae]

Wow, thanks guys for a great history of the club! Very inspiring.

John

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 11, 2026, at 10:15 AM, Jeff Shmoorkoff <jfs...@gmail.com> wrote:

Lindsay,

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/abrando/A433B1CB-619B-4CA1-9B5F-44D9AFDD605D%40gmail.com.

[mwd...@gmail.com]

Wow, Jeff; I'm going to save that epistle to the Alberta Rando vaults (aka our Google Drive) - some really interesting history! And thanks, Lindsay, for inspiring Jeff...  I hadn't come across those t-shirts - very cool!

Matt