MTB in Alberta... ideas?

Kicking Horse and Golden are good . KH was uplift alpine stuff , golden more xc.

Oddly enough I was in the back of an uplift 4x4 with a guy in New South Wales over Christmas and somehow discovered one of the other rider's mate's Dad was the owner of the Kicking Horse bike shop. At the time I didn't think we'd be going there so I didn't ask him any questions whatsoever 😖 

That was a bit of a truncated reply earlier. Kicking Horse was good fun, iirc I hired a bike there and it was good. Golden was seriously geared up towards mountain biking. I "raced" at Golden in Singletrack 6 in 2016 - I have the belt buckle from the race on today 

We rode at Canmore too but that was offpiste xc stuff.

Depends where you are based, Alberta is pretty big!

I used to live in Calgary and Bragg Creek & Moose Mountain were my go to. Trailforks will keep you right.

I’ve heard the riding at Crowsnest pass is good, but never made it down there.

Wherever you end up riding, be aware there are bears (black & grizzly). Rarely a problem, but never a bad idea to take bear spray with you. 

We did a good xc style ride called baldy pass. South of Canmore starting at a university research centre. Nordic centre is easy Uk style trail centre riding with bear spray needed. Golden was very good

golden more xc

Golden also has the steepest DH run in the world (allegedly) on Mount 7

[And it seems you'll be mostly be in BC not Alberta-  these things matter 😉]

I'd recommend Razors Ridge ride, a couple of km east of Canmore AB - it's a double black but still worth it (can walk around the few really tricky bits if needed). Someone posted a YT video of it here a few weeks ago.

If you're near Fernie (town in BC, but not too far from Calgary) then I really recommend stopping there.  Amazing mountain town with great places to eat, brew pubs etc.  There's a network of trails direct from town, a mix of tech and flow and uplifted stuff at the ski resort (which we didnt bother doing).

Revelstoke is similar, but bigger - depends what part of Alberta you are planning on visiting to know whether eastern BC is also an option for you.

Thanks for the tips!

Those are the places we are going near on our trip and we're suggested to me by the non-riding people we're visiting but I didn't even look at state borders, just assumed we were in Alberta the whole time. 

state borders

Hmmm, now you're taking the piss...I suggest you brush up on your geography and current politics before you're lynched. Haha

As per vlad. Be careful in current times...

I live in Calgary in the province of Alberta.

Now we've got that out of the way... :0)

What's your exact itinerary, are you bringing a bike and what do you like to ride. It's not BC but within an hours drive of Calgary we have everything from shuttle DH trails (Moose), flow XC (West Bragg / Canmore) and alpine ridges (JP Cox).  Then as others have mentioned further afield there's Crows nest pass, Fernie, Golden, invermere and Revelstoke.

How old are your boys?

If you are renting keep in mind Canada runs it's brakes Euro style... So you'll need to make sure they can be switched (I e not Shimano or TRP)

I'm visiting my sister-in-law who lives in Calgary - yes the same one in Alberta 😉

She's organised an itinerary that takes in Icefields and Jasper, Moraine Lake, a friend who has a place near Golden and Kicking Horse, Windermere, and then back to Calgary. We'll have our own car, so can split off as required (giving my Mrs Reeksy plenty of time to catch up with her sis).

The kids will be 13 and 11. Both good riders (the older one is almost 6 foot and can now drop me on most tracks and is placing pretty well at local gravity enduro races) but the older they get the less they seem to like pedalling up hills! They say they like flow and tech, but our tech is probably not that tech.  

Good point on brakes - I once hired a bike at Maydena in Tasmania that was last ridden by a Canadian and they'd forgotten to swap the brakes until just as I was leaving the shop. That would have been messy.

Okay. Everything I'm talking about is on Trail Forks.  I can't provide any info on bike hire but you're visiting some pretty tourist and MTB locations:  The challenge you're going to have is that these trail heads are not always right in town... any chance you can upgrade the rental car to a truck?  

Golden - Mount 7 for Enduro and DH - don't try Dead Dog in the middle of summer.  Start with 3k down and then 5k down to see how things go...  Kicking horse is a maybe if they've fixed the gondola but honestly it's not my favorite hill.  If you want more mellow pedalling trails then Mondraker system is good fun but very "blue".  There's plenty of bike shops in Golden so I'm sure some of them rent stuff out... 

Windermere - Your best bet for hiring is going to be in Invermere.  Then you have Mount Swansea for Enduro pedaling just outside town.  The uptrack is fine to the 2K - Try Autobahn to Hula Girl first from the uptrack and then if you want something more challenging steeps to gravy train (gravy train is a big step up in difficulty).  If you fancy more XC then Johnson-Kloosifer is great but possibly Meh for a 13 year old who likes enduro...  South park is a big slog to the top and is then a flow DH... it's nice but it's not tech.

Calgary - Head to Moose - I'll do some googling around bike hire options... We have everything from blue flow (7-27) to Double Black Tech (SLF).  My favorites are Race of Spades and Tdub - if you search for Moose Mountain and trail name they're on YouTube to get you a feel for what we've got.   

Thinking about this the second half of your itinerary is really quite favorable for some excellent riding potential... any chance you could just bring out all the bikes... by the time you've hired in 3 places the costs might not be overly different... 

And of you rent a truck then Golden, Swansea and Moose are all shuttle options... just sayin :0)  Embrace the Canadian way... 

If you're Enduro / DH'd out by Calgary then other options would be a bigger Alpine ride in Jumping Pound-Cox hill (if good weather), or  there's Prairie View-jewel Pass which is a shorter ride but a classic of the region (with the option to extent to include Razors Edge) or much more XC stuff at Canmore Nordic Center / West Bragg Creek 

Great info @sweaman2 it's appreciated. We'll be pushing it to get two days on bikes I think, as there will be other activities (plus the actual driving).

I'd love to be able to ride my own bike, but there's no way we can bring bikes as we're travelling for 6 weeks to multiple countries on planes, trains and ... erm in cars. Believe it or not we tacked Canada on at the end of the trip seeing as we'll be at that end of the planet and we've never visited that sister. The bags alone will be hard to move around, we couldn't manage three bikes as well unfortunately, so will have to hire as we go.