Iain writes

10th April 2023

Well this was an exciting day. After carefully watching the weather, the forecast had been awful almost the whole week, it seemed that the rain would clear for Monday and, dear reader, it did. The day was dry apart from a brief shower in the Production Way area on the way out to the Port Mann Bridge.

Eight of us met at Waterfront Station, some had cycled there and others took the Seabus and off we went, along Alexander and then south to the Frances Union bikeway, which took us very smoothly round the SFU foothills, passing Mammoth Studios, which we didn’t think was sufficently large to merit the moniker and up to the Highway 7 underpass. TMX project had managed to close this off very effectively so we had a long, poorly signposted detour before rejoing the path. After that it was plain sailing past Braid Skytrain Station and along United Boulevard, with the Port Mann Bridge coming into sight.

It’s an easy ride over the bridge, we stopped for photographs in the middle and marvelled at the ice bomb friendly design. After that a bit of an uphill slog to the Highway 1 Overpass and then to Hawthorne Rotary Park for lunch.

Green Timbers was next and very smooth and fast ride before recrossing Highway 1 at Tynehead park (and replacing a chain with the very handy chain replacement tool) and then heading NW to recross the Port Mann Bridge. It had all been going so well up to this point.

The journey home was somewhat marred by me cycling into a large stationary object and then another rider becoming separated from their bike on the King Edward Street/Trans Canada Highway Overpass. Definitely blood and bruising for that one. Speedy action from another member prevented the siuation deterirating and the traffic was safely stopped. Nevertheless we pressed on, somewhat gingerly, before splitting into two groups at Second Narrows.

Some of us made our way to East Van Brewing for war story and wound comparison purposes before wending our way home.

See the route here on Iain’s garmin GPSMAP66sr