Today is the third day of Dave's and my ride from Seattle to Vancouver BC.
With just over 2600 ft of climbing, this would be the biggest daily elevation gain, however it is in 84 miles. Yesterday's ride had 2200 ft of climbing in 56 miles making it a little tougher, but other than riding heavier bikes with some gear, none of these days should have been terribly difficult for us.
Today marks the end of our northward adventure, and also marks my first 1000 mile month of the year.
Despite my thousand mile month, I'm not in the best bike shape. That in combination with the moderate climbing, loaded bike, 3 days of headwind, and a longer ride today, and I was getting tired!
We started off from Bellingham at 8AM under beautiful blue sky, albeit a bit cool.
As we pedaled through the north part of town we noted frost on lawns and rooftops. Both of us had fingerless gloves on and our fingertips were numb. Finally the sun began to warm the countryside and our fingertips along with it.
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| Wiser Lake |
We reached the town of Lynden. It was obvious that this town has an active Dutch community.
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| Channeling my inner Hollander -Dave's photo |
On the outskirts of town there were well maintained farms.
After riding for about 25 miles we reached the Canadian/US border.
We chatted about the silliness of this line in the sand. We would ride about 1.5 miles along the border to get to the official border crossing. It was awfully tempting to just walk our bikes a few feet and avoid the whole hassle.
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USA to the left, Canada to the right
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Fearing that there might be some major repercussions for bypassing customs, we proceeded to the official border crossing where we were waiting in line with the motor vehicles for 45 minutes, then were told to bypass that process and come inside the building.
I lucked out and had a friendly customs agent who looked at my passport card, asked a question or two, and sent me on my way.
Dave had an agent who had an unbelieving look on his face when hearing Dave say he had started in Bellingham and the reason for the trip was pleasure. I heard "Are you training for some event?" and "When
I go for a ride on
MY bike I ride around the neighborhood"
At this point neither Dave, nor the customs agent were smiling. I exited the building while the getting was good. ;-) (Someone had to be able to go for help if Dave was detained!)
After 15 minutes of questioning, Dave was also allowed to proceed.
We proceeded through some suburbia interspersed with well manicured farms.
We arrived at Ft Langley, 42 miles into our 85 mile trip, at 11:30, thanks to our delay getting through customs. We decided that a leisurely lunch was in order. We stopped at
The Fort Pub which had a great view of McMillan Island
We each had a burger, fries, and a beer. The burger and fries were both excellent and the local beer was good too!
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| Dave's photo |
From Fort Langley we pedaled toward Port Moody, along the Port to Port Trail. It was a combination of paved path and rural roads. Where we were on roads a gravel path existed for pedestrians. We pedaled for about 8 miles along Derby Reach, with what we expected to be great views of the Fraser River, instead the river views were screened by riverside trees except for very brief glimpses.
On the land side there were cranberry bogs.
We arrived at the
Golden Ears Bridge.
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| Dave's photo |
Little did we know that this bridge and a few others in the greater Vancouver area are the
subject of some funding turmoil.
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| Frazier River |
At about mile 50, by the Pitt Meadows Regional Airport, I came up on a local woman who was out on a training ride. Dave did not load the route on his Garmin :-( so I had been leading the whole trip. With heavy bikes, moderate climbing, out of shape legs, and noticeable headwinds for three days, I was tired. I pushed a bit harder to pull into her draft. We pedaled along for several miles before Dave passed both of us. I pulled up next to the gal and we chatted for a few more miles before our routes diverged.
Dave and I crossed the
Pitt River Bridge that looked very similar to the Golden Ears Bridge, and was opened the same year.
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| Pitt River |
As soon as we got off the bridge we exited at a shopping center to pick up some candy bars that were requested by a friend. Finding the candy bars was easy, the long lines at the checkout were a pain. This stop cost us nearly an hour. So far today we had 1 hour lost at customs, 1 hour at lunch, and now nearly an hour on a candy run. Luckily, we had some hours to spare.
The section from mile 70 to 75 along the Barnet Hwy was tough for me. The headwind that we had "enjoyed" all day was blowing significantly now. Well, probably 15 mph. I was tired, and really wishing I could get more aerodynamic than full fenders, buddy flaps front and rear, and two panniers. There was enough undulation in the terrain as we rode along Vancouver's harbor to really make my tired legs show themselves. From mile 74 to mile 76 we had climbed 300 vertical feet, but now turned off Hwy 7, Barnet Hwy, and were on residential streets. We had 10 miles to go and expected to be on busy commercial streets at any moment.
We were surprised to be so near our destination, in the heart of downtown Vancouver, and still not be in traffic congestion. We were biking along in what Portland would call greenways,
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| We rode primarily on the Frances/Union bike route and the Adnac Bike route |
Every few blocks we'd come to some impediment to motor vehicle traffic, that kept bike traffic clear, and free from through motor vehicle traffic.
Finally, with less than 2 miles to go, we were on city streets. The streets did have painted bike lanes. I had changed my Garmin view to 300 ft, from my normal 200 ft, to give me more advanced notice of turns. It was a bit difficult to get across three lanes of traffic to make a left turn with only 200 ft notice. But doing this lost some resolution, and I missed a subtle change in direction. Pretty soon Dave and I found ourselves "on route" but facing a 30 ft wall in front of us, with a through road directly above us. We remedied that by taking a taking a right turn and going around a block to get back where we were supposed to be.
We arrived at our destination, the Best Western Plus Chateau and Suites. We were welcomed in, told we could bring our bikes to the room, or leave them in secure storage. ;-)
We rolled the bikes into the elevator, ascended to the 11th floor, and set up house for the night.
We walked down the street to an Irish Pub and had dinner (chicken, mashed potatoes, veggies) then returned to our room and waited for the lunar eclipse.
Ah, Vancouver BC, what a fun trip north it has been.
.......Road bike........Rollers.......MTB.......Lifecycle....Total
Today........85...............0..............0..............0..............85
Jan..........765.............0..............0..............0.............765
Feb..........248............0..............0..............0..............248
March......183...........0...............0.............0...............183
April........228...........0...............0.............0...............228
May.........200............0..............0.............0...............200
June.........199...........0...............26...........0...............225
July..........246...........0...............0.............0...............246
August.....502...........0...............0.............0...............502
Sept..........961...........0..............44............0..............1005
Total........3394.........0...............70............0..............3464
