Ring Around Cowtown

As urban cycling adventures go, Calgary’s Rotary/Mattamy Greenway is a gem.

By John Campbell (originally published in Explore, Summer 2021)

Wheels pointed upslope, we clack gears and lean into the grade, one of the steadiest on Calgary’s 145-kilometre Rotary/Mattamy Greenway bike trail encircling the city. The leg we’re milling this sunny morning in mid-June is a northward climb from the Bow River into the hills and communities above 12-Mile Coulee, a rise-over-run of about 200 metres in the next 10 kilometres. Not so bad. This is my partner Roxanne LeBlanc’s idea. A lifelong cyclist and bicycle advocate, the Mattamy had been a lingering item on her must-ride list and given COVID’s travel limitations, Summer 2020 was a time for hometown adventures.

Cresting the climb, we look down toward the sunlit river far below and yonder to the west where high elevation prairie unfurls and finally greets the Rockies. That’s real Coyote Country! we say. From this vantage point we can clearly see the towers of the city and marvel at the contrast between these built and natural environments and how the Mattamy has magically taken us through an ever-changing series of landscapes. From wooded parkland in the south to foothills in the west and a series of marshy wetlands teeming with shorebirds on the very eastern edges of the city, Calgary is a place of transitions and contradictions best seen from the saddle, we reckon.

Fun fact: with the completion in 2009 of the $50 million Mattamy, Calgary now hosts 1,200 kilometres of dedicated bike routes, cycle tracks, pathways and trails—an urban bikeway said to be North America’s most extensive. For a city often typecast by white hats and pumpjacks, this is world-class two-wheel infrastructure.

While a one-day Gran Fondo-style blitz of the Mattamy is certainly doable for many riders, simply bombing the Greenway in one leg-burning session was not what Roxanne had in mind. Her plan was to weave the mainly paved Mattamy with other trails in Calgary’s bike network into a more involved exploration of the entire city, which is divided into four quadrants: NW, NE, SW, SE.

To cover all that ground we mapped out a series of 60- and 70-kilometre loops—with the Mattamy always placed as the baseline—thus creating a multi-day shamrock tour of the quadrants. Ultimately we would log 383 kilometres to complete our Mattamy circumnavigation, always cycling back to where one loop ended and the next began. Our one rule: only pedal power allowed on this mission.

If your plan for the Mattamy is to crush it all in one go there are factors to consider. For starters, 145 kilometres is still stiff mileage in this mountain city where a curt west-southwest breeze nearly always arrives by early afternoon, blown in from the Rockies’ eastern slopes. As well, there’s a total elevation gain of about 1,000 metres from one end of the Greenway to the other and way-finding can be a touch hinkey in places where dedicated pavement and signage peters out as the trail feathers through, instead of around, suburbs. On our journey we found one unfinished section in the northeast community of Carrington where the trail went entirely MIA for a short spell. The City of Calgary has an app and hardcopy map for navigating the Greenway, but route-checking still takes time.

Most of the big elevation gains are on the southwest and northwest side of the city so a clockwise rotation starting in the deep south by Fish Creek Park means you’ll get most of the climbing pain over and done with early into your ride and the WSW wind will be mainly at your back through most of the day. On the other hand, if grunting into a headwind is your thing, proceed counterclockwise and no judgements here.

For riders more inclined toward easy cruising, there are good ways to sample the Mattamy in bite-size chunks. Calgary’s excellent Light Rail Transit system features stops either directly on or very nearby the Greenway. Among the most tactical are Tuscany Station in the northwest and Fish Creek LaCombe in the southeast. From the Tuscany stop it’s practically a pedal-free glide downhill toward the Bow River with marvellous mountain vistas off to the west. The Fish Creek LaCombe station is a key entry point to Fish Creek Provincial Park—a heavily wooded 19-kilometre urban green belt where hikers and cyclists share space with deer, coyote, beaver, eagle, and bear populations. Bikes are allowed aboard the LRT trains except during rush hour, so plan accordingly for an urban cycling adventure opportunity with few parallels.