Another weekend and a few more bike rides

It wasn’t the most beautiful weekend in Vancouver – a few clouds, a bit of rain but the sun DID manage to peak out a few times – even still I got a couple of great bike rides in! Saturday morning I was up early and Warren and I decided to head out for a ride around the city – first off to Stanley Park to circle the park (on the road, not the seawall – had to make sure we got the hill in!) and then over to Jericho, along the beach and up the hill to UBC. Then it was back down and home – about 2 1/2 hours out total. It was a great morning and a pretty great ride. The rest of my day was spent celebrating the lovely Caroline’s upcoming wedding with a wedding shower and then some dancing later on! Good times!

Sunday rolled around and it was time for another hill climb – this time we tackled Cypress Mountain (last week it was Seymour). Cypress is about the same distance as Seymour (maybe a tiny bit longer even) but the elevation gain isn’t quite as high. It’s still a tough climb but overall I found it easier than Seymour was last week. There are some big switchbacks on the road which allowed for some recovery time and to gain some speed for the next big hill! The top of Cypress is flat going into the parking lot which is nice as well. The worst part of the ride though? The descent!! It was drizzling on us all the way up – not a hard rain but enough to have us good and soaked by the time we got up there. Then we had to go down. Fast. It was sooooo cold! My hands and feet were FREEZING by the end! Couldn’t wait to get in the car and crank the heat. Last week it took me an hour and 10 minutes to ride Seymour, this week was an hour and 2 minutes on Cypress. Now I have some benchmarks I have to beat! I’ll be over on the island for the weekend though so perhaps I’ll try out Mount Washington for this weeks challenge? Stay tuned!