Four Days, Three Rides in Vancouver

After two weeks of indoor riding in New York, I was hoping that my stop-over in Vancouver for the IISD Board of Directors meeting would coincide with good enough weather that I could get in some rides. Of course, I could wait for next week and the Tour of Thailand, but since I was here en route with my bike, would it be too much to ask that the weather would cooperate just a little.

Well, it did cooperate, but just a little.

On Saturday, after arriving at the Sheraton Wall Center, I put the bike together and rode for a quick spin of Stanley Park, just to clear out the cobwebs. The fog was thick and it was seriously cold so even if I had felt better after a long flight, my hands were frozen and I headed back to the hotel after a single loop.

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But, Sunday, 19 January, the weather warmed to about 5 degrees and the fog seemed to thin a bit. After a morning meeting, I took off on a much more ambitious ride:

I rode west to the Univ. of British Columbia campus, riding up the hill out of the fog into the bright blue sky to see the University for the first time. From there, I rode to the southeast down to the airport and across the bridge to Richmond. Once the road joined up along the river, it was really interesting riding past the sawmills and logs that had come down the river. Out in eastern Vancouver, after heading through Kingsway, I worked my way back to downtown along the Skytrain route, on the greenway that runs along the mass transit route.

All total, about 3:30 and 80 km, more or less.

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Then, today, my last full day in Vancouver, I had planned on getting in a long ride. However, the fog from Saturday and Sunday was still hanging around on Tuesday. Early in the day they had been talking on TV about freezing fog, which is never a good sign when bike riding.

So, at lunch, I rode for just under an hour down around Stanley Park, but my hands ached from the cold and the thought of riding in warmer climes next week in Thailand seemed like a better prospect than a second lap... and I headed back to the hotel to work.

Now, off to the airport and through Tokyo and Bangkok to Chiang Mai!!