- Carfree, Cycling & Cycle Touring, Metro Vancouver & North Shore, Trip Reports, Trips with Kids, Urban
Vancouver to Coquitlam: The Boy Who Biked 80km in a Day
Our son Neil (then eight) had been asking to break his cycling record of 72km in a day for a while. I figured that the long warm summer days would be a good time for this. My dad was visiting, and he loves riding, so he joined us. We didn’t train for this ride, but a steady diet of riding to get around, as well as a few weekend trips (such as a five day trip to the Gulf Islands) were likely helpful. Crossing the Coquitlam River I used RideWithGPS to plan an 80km loop, using as much dedicated bike infrastructure as possible and without too much climbing. Our ride…
Galiano & Salt Spring Islands: A Birthday Bike Trip
The Gulf Islands are truly magical. So, when we had the opportunity to take a few days off around my birthday, I knew it would be an awesome place to spend my birthday. Combining this with biking, one of my favourite things in the whole world and with my favourite people, guaranteed me a great birthday. Getting ready to roll! However, the ferry schedule was tricky and our time was limited. We also hadn’t reserved any camp sites, so we wanted to avoid the weekend. I had to scratch my head a few times before coming up with a plan. We spent Saturday at the Folk Fest in Vancouver and…
Ottawa-Quebec City – A Bike Trip in the “Other Canada”
At the end of summer we set off on yet another bike trip. Our flight was very early in the morning and followed a night of very little sleep. It was a domestic flight though, to Ottawa, so there was less airport hassle than usual. As were leaving, the sky looked hazy. It turned out that the smoke from wild fires had finally rolled into Vancouver. Up until that point we had no smoke in Vancouver. Early morning flight to Ottawa Five hours later we landed in sunny Ottawa. We took a taxi to our wonderful Warm Showers hosts, one of six different hosts we stayed with during this two…
Vancouver to Chemainus: Once Again, But More Planned
May long weekend was sneaking up on us. It’s been a while since we’d seen our friends on the island and we thought it would be nice to visit again. Last year we had a rushed bike ride to Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal. We figured we could have a much more relaxing experience if we’d actually plan to bike there and take enough time. Biking along Beach Ave., Vancouver We now knew Neil was capable of biking the entire route – 72kms, with some hills. We made one stop at Ambleside Park before connecting to Marine Drive and the narrow, windy way to the ferry terminal. Quick stop at Ambleside…
Mexico: Let the Good Times Roll
It all started with a wedding. It was sometime in the spring that Gili shared the news that his cousin was getting married in Mexico in November. Mexico, in November? Sure, that doesn’t sound too bad. We were excited for the wedding of course, but November is also our favourite time to get away from gray and rainy Vancouver. So we started thinking how we might combine the wedding with our annual fall cycling trip. YVR, late at night… We left late at night with an elaborate plan to leave our bikes and gear in Cancun during a short five hour layover between our flights. It was a great plan but…
Olympic Discovery Trail: Ending the Summer on a Positive Note
This summer did not start in the best possible way… In early July while making dinner I managed to cut myself pretty badly, cutting 70% of the way through one of the tendons in my right hand. Of course, after the initial shock of first going to the ER followed by a small procedure a couple of days later, my next question was “can I ride my bike”? The intern who did the procedure looked at me like I had just landed from the moon – “of course not”. I kept asking my physiotherapist the same question and her answer was even worse, maybe in 8-10 weeks, like mid September. …
Saturna Island: A Hilly Little Island
The weather over the spring wasn’t ideal to say the least… We got more rainy days than sun and it just felt like the seasons forgot to change. So we were all surprised that for the weekend we had planned to go to Saturna the forecast showed nothing but sun. That was more like it. Heading to Vancouver Island We met another friend and his two boys in Tsawwassen and we all rode together a few kilometers till the ferry terminal. Although we were there with plenty of time, the ferry crew decided to let us wait till they boarded all the cars and only then let us on. Not cool. In Victoria…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Carfree, Cycling & Cycle Touring, Trip Reports, Trips with Kids, Vancouver Island
Vancouver to Chemainus: The Boy Who Biked 72km in a Day
Neil woke up, and exclaimed, “I want to ride the whole way to Chemainus”. We tried to convince him that maybe it would be best to catch the bus part of the way, as we had planned, but he would have none of that. Finally, we decided it would be easier to go along and see what happened. The problem was that we had timed everything based on Maya and the kids catching the bus, so we had to hurry. On the Burrard Bridge We skipped breakfast (?!) and headed straight out, with Kai biking on his own till the Burrard Bridge. There I finally managed to convince him to…
Portugal: Far and Away to Faro
It was Monday morning and Gili and I were biking in the first of several atmospheric rivers to hit British Columbia. The rain was coming down hard and we were soaked. But we had to keep going, we had to make it on time to get our COVID test… We hadn’t been overseas for almost two years and we were dreaming of a long bike trip in a far away sunny place. After much consideration we chose Portugal as our destination. At the time, the high vaccination rates in the country played a role in our decision. Also, we had heard really great things about biking in Portugal, the weather…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Cycling & Cycle Touring, Kayaking and Canoeing, Overseas, Random Thoughts, Travel, Trips with Kids
2021: Looking at the Glass Half Full
I woke up with a rare blast of optimism on the 31st. I was so focused in the last few days on saying good riddance to 2021 and I had no idea how to summarize this year. Then I thought why not focus on the glass half full. I came up with a mission to think of at least five good things that happened this year. It wasn’t actually too difficult and I asked Gili to do the same. We both wrote our list of five things before comparing notes. Neil showed some interest but only wrote two things. Our lists had some overlaps and similarities, but also differences. So here is our list of good…
