RIDE AND RIDE, ON

FIRST ROLLERCOASTER RIDE LARGELY A SUCCESS

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The road cycling season is off to an early start despite the cold bite in the air this early part of Spring.

I have managed to fully recover from my knee injuries, although my knees are still untested by a 5km jog around English Bay. But I have been able to bump up my cycling to a two hour trip as of yesterday, without my knees beginning to click and pop when I start walking back home.

I am tending to believe now that I had a hamstring injury and that everything pulled my knees out of joint, which made them tender and noisy for about six weeks.

This result is a big relief to me as I hope to stay active for quite a few more years, without the use of a walking cane, brace or mobility device.

The last two weekends I went out for 90 minute rides on both Saturday and Sunday. The half hour difference does not look like much on paper, but when you lose as much water through sweating as I do, if you push hard, the first two hour ride can really bonk you.

I have found that my cardiovascular conditioning has room for improvement after staying off my legs since March, except for a couple of April days of snowboarding, so as to fully recover.

I started jogging again last May. And I found that this deep cardiovascular activity did help my weekend road cycling.

I may opt to return to jogging during the week, with longer road cycles on Saturday and Sunday, depending on how my knees react to the activity.

I have decided that if my knees begin to act up again from the jogging, this pair of running shoes will be the last pair of running shoes.

I now live in the West End of Downtown Vancouver, so I have had to augment my cycling routes, but mainly from a start line near Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver, to a start line near English Bay in Vancouver.

This change might not seem like much, but getting onto my favorite roller coaster ride requires an extra 50 minutes of cycling just to get to the start near Cypress Mountain. I would do the same distance anyway, but instead off swinging around Stanley Park at the midpoint of the route, I begin the route in Stanley Park and swing around Horseshoe Bay.

Last weekend, on Saturday I headed out to the University of British Columbia Endowment Lands after crossing Burrard Street Bridge and meandering through Kitsilano until getting to Spanish Banks and that awful slow grinding hill toward UBC.

I went around UBC passed Thunderbird Stadium and then took a hard left back though UBC and down into Kitsilano, passed Arbutus, and then another hard left onto Burrard Street, over the Burrard Bridge and then, if I am feeling good, which I did this day, I headed into Stanley Park to do one lap.

I will sometimes do an extra lap or two of Stanley Park instead of heading out for a longer trip away from home since once exiting the Park I can be home in about 5 minutes.

At the beginning of this season, I got my legs going by doing three laps of Stanley Park from home and then going directly back home, all in all, out on a 60 minute road cycle.

So, I went from 60 minutes with three laps around Stanley Park in early April to a 90 minute ride to UBC last weekend, to a 120 minute roller coaster ride yesterday.

I love the rollercoaster as I can still get an adrenaline bump off the dips, and then the endorphin high off the climbs, that is if I can survive the bonking that happens back home after eating some protein and drinking a couple of cold beer, waiting for the sweat to dry off.

I of course did a bit of preparation for the roller coaster.

I cleaned the chain and the drive train of my carbon fiber bike for the Spring start. And as I do at the beginning of each ride, I made sure my tires were full of air. If the tires are too low, the inner tube will pinch against the rim of the wheel and that will be enough sometimes to pop the soft inner tire.

I now choose to do a three quarter lap of Stanley Park exiting at the entrance to the Lions Gate Bridge, instead of taking the Stanley Park causeway with all the cars approaching the Lions Gate.

The Stanley Park Causeway can be a long boring stretch just for breathing in a lot of air pollution.

Once over the Bridge and through West Vancouver, I climb up through the subdivisions to the TransCanada Highway, on or about the Cypress Mountain off ramp.

I then head to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal and take the down ramp to Horseshoe Bay Village. 

I try to enjoy this first dip as much as possible since once through the village the slow grinding climb begins back to the top.

Once passed the forestation and golf and country club, a nice but very dangerous single lane mountain decent begins toward the West Vancouver Yacht Club and Marina. This section begins the danger of dying from a collision with on-coming traffic, including public transit busses and construction vehicles that must, out of necessity of making the corners, enter your lane.

The adrenaline charging descents of the roller coaster begin at Lighthouse Park, and bend right and then left passed the fire station and then right and left again with three beautiful dips toward Cypress Park on Marine Drive.

I am well familiar with the roads and the hazards of oncoming traffic. You need to maintain speed from the very beginning to effortlessly overcome the three accents. But if you are able to accomplish this reckless riding, you feel like you are flying by the time you get to the bottom.

I strongly advise against excessive speeds on this very dangerous route, and at the very least, I advise people to run the route at a more casual speed a few times to flush out where death waits and where the safety spots are.

In the summer months, cars will often ruin the ride by cutting in front of you, even merging from a side street on the left, to keep your speed to a crawl.

And if you stay too far over to the shoulder on the right, you run the risk of running into an opening door of one of the many cars parked on the side of the road.

Anyway, take care and be safe by riding on the side of caution, always.