Bike: Mrs. Frog’s Wild Ride was indeed just that. Eight strong riders had a terrific day rolling up and down all day long across 3 cities, very many greenways, trails, bikeways and a lot of traffic lights. Our small group made street crossings easy. Throughout, it was constantly amazing how well connected these routes were. Metro Vancouver is constantly upgrading their multi-transportation network and we certainly benefit when we ride around Vancouver and the greater area.
We rode along shady rivers, through parks, zig zagged neighborhoods, wove along greenbelts, so much greenery all along the way. In a few critical connections we found active road construction with re-routing necessary. No problem to go around.
With such a beautiful day, we enjoyed a delicious lunch in Gastown sitting outside where we were close to our bikes.
We dropped down along the Fraser River shoreline to enjoy the parks and mountain views. At one beautiful spot we found a quite large homeless camp had developed. As we came along, we met a man with a handcart full of soup bowls he was going to pass out.
It was a quick buzz underneath Pacific Place then up and around the Convention Centre. We walked our bikes all the way out to the far end of Pacific Place, which was full of people strolling about. 3 or 4 cruise ships were lined up, they are gigantic when you are right up next to these horizontal skyscrapers.
With a hop over to the city’s biggest train station and we caught our Skytrain out to New Westminster, a 20 minute journey at a second story level and wonderful views.
Biking into New Westminster included protected walkways up and over expressways, a bridge and back, industry and housing. We cruised right through downtown and uphill back to our cars. At points, navigation choices were not obvious, but everyone had some form of mapping on their phones and we quickly made new tracks to finish our ride.
We were an excellent and fun group of riders who enjoyed the variety and discovery of our big city neighbors to the north.
Photos are posted on the MBC Flikr site.
Janet