Bicycling in Vancouver, British Columbia
Aug 3rd - 8th, 2005
This year, I kept on telling Gayle that I didn't want anything for my birthday. I already have enough (arguably, too much) stuff, and certainly don't need any more. Then she really surprised me and said "why don't you go bicycling with Mike?" Mike and I have been riding together since we we're teenagers, and he and his wife Linda now live in Vancouver, so we don't get to ride together anywhere near as often as we'd like to. Needless to say, I said "Hell, yes!" And it was the best birthday present I've ever had.
First, a little orientation. Vancouver, and the surrounding area sort of looks like this. This will make some more sense when I start talking about each day's ride and putting the pictures together into a story. The opening picture is taken from the south shore of False Creek, looking north. Mike tells me that most of this is new construction, based upon what was the World's Fair grounds in 1986. Its a very, very upscale waterfront community.
Before I forget, here's Mike and Linda
This was taken on the beach to the west of the city, looking back towards the
east, more or less. Right before sunset. More about sunsets, later.
Vancouver's got lots of public beaches and parks, all pretty much right in town.
Easy to get to and very well maintained. It's a beautiful place.
And here's Mike and Linda's house.
It's a neat place, and they were kind enough to let me stay there.
So here we go. Sorry I don't have topographic mapping software for Canada, but as you'll see from the pictures, there are some neat hills to climb and some scenery that makes it all worthwhile.
Day 1
As you can see from these pictures the weather was perfect.
In fact, it was sunny and 80 or so for the whole trip. We started at Mike and Linda's house and cut through a forest
preserve to the University of British Columbia. They both work there
(professors in the Biology department). Mike actually runs home from work
some days, covering about 4 miles if I remember right. The campus has a
neat rose garden, overlooking the Vancouver harbor and the mountains beyond. If
you look carefully between the trees on the right, you can see that there's
still snow on Mt. Seymour, which I think goes up to something like 7000+ feet.
I'd like to tell you that we biked up that one, but we didn't.
Much of the campus is quite modern, as is the rest of the city.
In fact, Mike and Linda just moved into a new research building, which has some
really cool looking atria inside
and lots of natural light. The labs are on the sides and run the length of
the building, overlooking the atria. Because of all the ultra modern stuff, and the
huge diversity of climates in a relatively small area, many movies and TV shows
are filmed in and around Vancouver. Mike says that's why all of the
planets that they visit on Stargate SG-1 have pine trees.
From the University, we traveled west along the coast, past the
beaches and into the real downtown part of the city.
We stopped in town and sat by the water watching the
seaplanes takeoff and land.
There's a lot of seaplane traffic between the airport, downtown and Victoria (on
Vancouver island, about 30 miles offshore)
From there, we doubled back into Stanley park, and took a road
up to one of the highest points in the city, overlooking the Lions Gate Bridge
(shown as Route 99 on the map, connecting Vancouver with North Vancouver).
We took a trail back down, and also made a second pass around
the park, but this time down at the level of the sea wall. I forget what
this particular rock is called, but there's no structure like it anywhere
nearby.
From there, it was back across town, and along the south side of False Creek (see photo at the top of the page) and then home for a total of something like 45 miles.
Day 2
We headed south, towards the airport. Just beyond the
airport was a combination restaurant / bar / seaplane airport called The Flying
Beaver. You can't make this stuff up. In case you hadn't noticed by
now, Mike nad I have very similar taste when it comes to bicycling jerseys.
From there, it was south to Steveston, which is still a very
active fishing community.
As you can see, its also got some nice looking dining establishments along the
water, sort of like a South Street NYC. Linda says that it was a very
large community of Japanese immigrants before the second world war. As was
the case in the US, they were all packed off to relocation camps somewhere in
the interior due to the irrational fear that they were all spies and saboteurs.
Kind of hard to imagine.
There wasn't much else that was scenic on Day 2, just some nice
riding around farmland on suburban areas in Richmond and Vancouver. We got
back early after putting in about 35 miles and headed for the beach in the
evening. Gravity must've been a bit off that day, 'cause I'm usually
taller than Mike.
Day 3
Just another couple of happy idiots going out for a ride. Today, the plan
was to go northwest toward Deep Cove. Probably some of the most
challenging riding of the trip. On the way out there, we had to go over a
very high bridge. It had its own bike / pedestrian path, but it was only
about 6-12" wider than the handlebars on either side. No big deal on the
way up, but headed down, at considerable speed, you knew that if you strayed off
the center line by more than a bit, your bars would snag on the pickets of the
railing and it was going to hurt very, very badly. There was also a very
disturbing optical illusion: once you got up to a decent speed, the
pickets of the guard rail seemed to disappear. It looked like there was
just a top rail (which was disconcertingly low from the perspective of a bike)
and nothing beneath it to keep you out of a long fall to the water below.
Lots of adrenaline on that descent.
Deep Cove is breathtakingly beautiful. Clear, deep water
surrounded by high mountains. And check out the text of the sign that I'm
standing next to.
We headed back along the waterfront, stopped at a market for
some fruit and water, and got some good views of the city. Even saw a
harbor seal swimming around, but sadly couldn't get any good pictures). Then it was back over the Lions Gate bridge, through Stanley
Park again, and over the Burrard Street Bridge
We put in another 37 miles on day three, coming up with a respectable total of 117 or so for the three days of riding.
That night, Mike's department head had us over to dinner at his
house, which is about 2 blocks off the beach. It was a beautiful home with
a fantastic view of the water. And the best part is that the finals of an
international fireworks competition took place were going on. I really
wasn't sure which explosion belonged to which nation, but it was beautiful to
watch.
Day 4
No cycling today, but we drove out to Lighthouse Park, northwest
of the city. This strange little beast is a "smart car". Although
there appears to be something behind the front seats, there's no trunk.
And the body doesn't extend more than a few inches beyond the wheels, which must
be all of a foot in diameter. They don't go fast, but they're supposed to
get fantastic mileage. And they've got to be easy to park. It seemed
funny to see one parked right next to a full sized SUV.
Lighthouse park itself surrounds some virgin cedar forest.
And these things are massively huge. There's no good way to capture either
the girth or the height in a photograph, and they grow straight as an arrow for
what must be well over 100 feet in height. And there are some great views
of the water from the cliffs at the edge of the park.
Our last stop was Horseshoe Bay
and from there, the red-eye back to Boston. What a fantastic trip and a superb birthday present!