Why this ride
A one-way ride of 136 km, Banff to Invermere - roughly 2 h 12 in the saddle. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Kootenay Rockies Loop: Banff to Radium Hot Springs
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 136 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 12
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Banff
Banff in the morning has a particular feel: cold air coming off the glacier-fed Bow River, mist clinging to Mount Rundle, and the smell of pine and woodsmoke from kitchens. The town sits in the heart of the Canadian Rockies at about 1,400 metres, hemmed in by peaks, and it exists because of hot springs. In the 1880s railway workers found warm water at Cave and Basin, and the government made the area a reserve that grew into Canada's first national park.
Read the complete Banff write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Banff is where the day begins. Next is Kootenay National Park.
2. Kootenay National Park
There is a place on this road where the colour of the ground changes from grey to rust. Kootenay National Park, on the western side of the Continental Divide, is the quieter neighbour of Banff, and Highway 93 South threads through it for about ninety kilometres from the Vermilion Pass to the hot springs at Radium. The stretch around Marble Canyon is the heart of it, with a deep, narrow limestone gorge and, close by, the Paint Pots, where iron-rich springs stain the earth ochre, and where the First Nations once gathered pigment to trade.
Read the complete Kootenay National Park write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kootenay National Park comes up about 86 km into the recorded legs. Next is Radium Hot Springs.
3. Radium Hot Springs
You smell Radium Hot Springs before you see it, or so it seems: faint sulphur, wood smoke, hot tarmac. The village sits where the Kootenay valley opens to the broad Columbia, and the road from the north drops through Sinclair Canyon, a dramatic notch in red rock, so narrow that the highway squeezes through with barely a shoulder. It is the best entrance to any town on the loop.
Read the complete Radium Hot Springs write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 136 km.
Leg by leg
Banff to Kootenay National Park
Banff → Kootenay National Park is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kootenay National Park to Radium Hot Springs
Kootenay National Park → Radium Hot Springs is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
More motorcycle rides nearby
- Kootenay Rockies Loop: Banff to Golden · 241 km
- Kootenay Rockies Loop · 408 km
- Bow Valley Parkway (91 km) · 80 km