This is the second ride on my newly built up Crust Evasion, and the first one with freshly installed fenders. The weather was looking drizzly but not overly rainy, and cool but not too cold – about 7 or 8 degrees Celsius. I had noticed a trail on heatmaps months ago that piqued my curiosity, as it descended quite a significant hill next to a road climb/descent I was quite familiar with. Knowing the terrain, I knew it wouldn’t be a lot of fun on one of my Rivs, but riding out that far on my Stooge wasn’t super attractive, either.
As soon as I’d committed to buying the Evasion, I knew I’d have the right bike for finally checking this one out. I had no intel on how rideable it was though.
I roped my good buddy Rob into checking this one out with me, and we had a stretch goal of heading around the inlet to some trails in Port Moody if we felt up to it. Rob’s always up for some hike-a-bike if it takes us somewhere interesting or links up a route in a nice way.
Here is the be-fendered Evasion as I waited in the meetup spot for Rob. What a chunkster!
The ride out was pleasant and not too noteworthy, mostly consisting of a mix of gravel paths and quiet streets. I routed us through a couple parks which added some stairs and very slippery wooden structures.
The image above right is near the top of the mystery trail we went to see. It was deeply rutted but generally rideable. Furthermore, the forest was beautiful! The trail traced along a ridge, so the forest floor fell sharply to either side of the trail for sections.
Feeling energized by a very successful recon mission, we decided to continue around Burrard Inlet over to the trail network on the other side. It was just a few kilometres of paved pathways which were not too busy thanks to the weather.
Below, left: the Gatensbury hill trail descent
Below, center: exploring an adjacent trail
Below, right: the start of the climb up on the other side of the inlet
I had already explored once before in this zone, Bert Flinn park, so I knew it was a tough climb to start. We opted for a very direct route on a little-used hiking trail, which was efficient, though some tough hike-a-bike over a lot of coarse river rock. I suspect this “trail” regularly becomes a creek bed during the rainy season.
Some sections were pleasant while others were less so, but it was almost exclusively a walk up – which was totally fine by us. It eventually levelled off, and we were in the mountain bike trail network. Unlike the fabled north shore, the trails here are decidedly more XC style and mostly green and blue difficulty – lending themselves to gravel type bikes, as long as you don’t mind some under-biking.
This area of forest is beautiful, and the lightly foggy weather was making it even moreso.
We found a traversing trail that was perfect, though not straightforward to link up in any meaningful way. This is what I love about these rides though; if you’re open to dragging your bike through trails that most couldn’t be bothered, you’ll often be rewarded with the most special trails. Below are a couple views of one of my favourite stretches, which rode beautifully if you don’t mind hopping over the odd root.
It tends to come with a price though, and this case it was a steep bushwhack down to a parallel trail in order to get out the way we needed to go. Thankfully it was pretty short, and I didn’t fall.
There was also one creek crossing that I knew to expect from my previous trip in this area – it was fine, though it might become quite difficult if the waters rise much more.
We were spat out back onto the side roads by the seaside path, and from there it was a rather ordinary ~22 km ride home on the road.
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