PISTE SEASON FINALE

HISTORICAL TRIP INVOLVES CYCLING PASSED PLANES, TRAINS AND FISHING BOATS

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The summer riding season is coming to an end with a long ride to Canary Row in Steveston.

I took a break from cycling after attaining my goal of the long one day, 6 hour summer tour.

The training from that tour built up a considerable amount of endurance.

At the same time, I had been getting speed training in wherever I could during long rides and, in particular, by doing laps of the Stanley Park roadway.

Five laps of Stanley Park over two hours proved to be a bit dizzying. 

I then searched for a longer ride after the two hour ride became too easily doable.

Eventually I turned south toward the Richmond Oval. However, this trip also proved to be two hours from the West End of Vancouver.

I eventually reached further to Steveston to add another 30 minutes to the distance one way, and then another 30 minutes for the return trip.

The first time to Steveston took a bit of figuring out, but generally the GPS was set to cycle south but not South East as South East would direct me to the George Massey Tunnel. If you ever got turned around and lost in Richmond, you know that initially heading in the correct destination direction is a bit of a chore. The directional issue at least makes one hesitate.

Generally, I hesitated until I began to see the tall masts and trolling poles of the large commercial fishing boats.

Steveston has a downtown village atmosphere of sufficient size to be home to several seafood restaurants and pubs.

A dyke trail extends from Steveston Village to the Richmond Oval. But the trail is made of crushed gravel so a bit too rough for a delicate road bicycle.

I also discovered that after the Arthur Lange Bridge, cyclist should just continue on after taking an overpass away from the airport terminals and into Richmond. The best way is to just continue on passed the second set of lights until passing the Oval on the left. The highway extends onto an overpass into Richmond just west of the Oval and just east of Tera Nova Park.

If you were riding a mountain bike with trail tires, you could then go onto the crushed gravel dyke trail and head along one side of Canary Row toward Steveston.

But having to stay on the asphalt, I took Railway Avenue until the Village, and then circled around a bit to get a sense of the atmosphere.

The second time there, I stopped a bit inside one of the parks at the dyke trail head, before turning completely around and heading back home.

I had been taking shorter trips to the Richmond Oval and heading back into Vancouver over the Skytrain pedestrian bridge and then down Cambie Street passed Queen Elizabeth Park toward City Hall.

Once, I took the long way around by turning left onto King Edward until Arbutus and then turning right on 16^th toward Burrard Street and then turning left on Burrard Street into the Downtown over the Burrard Street Bridge.

King Edward was an unusually calm route ideal for cycling. And the detour to Arbutus and then back to Burrard was only a few blocks taking just 10 or so extra minutes. You cannot take King Edward directly to Burrard because of a big thwack of green and large estate homes that form part of the prestigious historical neighborhood of Shaughnessy.

Last Saturday, I did not even want to approach Cambie Street, so I went back over the Arthur Lange Bridge and turned left onto Granville Street and then left again onto South West Marine Drive.

Just less than one block West of Granville Street is the Arbutus Greenway that leads north toward the Downtown in parallel to West Boulevard and Arbutus. (See map below).

This paved multi-use trail is wide enough to be comfortably divided into a north-south cycling path and a north-south walking path from Marpole to Kitsilano.

But you just cannot go onto the trail in race speed because of the ‘share the trail’ with multi-use intent.

I took the bend in the Greenway at 6^th Avenue and continued East until Cypress. I then took Cypress all the way down to First Avenue and then headed toward Burrard and over the Burrard Bridge into the West End.

You could take Cypress all the way to the seawall and then head around Kitsilano to False Creek and then around Science World and keep on the seawall to Stanley Park as part of a more relaxed ride in the multi-use, share the trail zone.

But I didn’t do that.

I wanted to have one last stretch riding hard toward home, because I had a couple of beers in the fridge already making me thirsty. 

Next time, I will be snowboarding. But until then, I have some off season training to do.