As the fella behind Bike Portage Club and the organizer of Burnabop XL Day, I’ve been wanting to do a Port Moody version for a few years now. I’ve done a few rides in the Bert Flinn trail network as well as the assortment of neighbourhood trails nearby – but there were trails around Buntzen Lake which I have not personally tried. There was also a route over Sugar Mountain that connected nicely with the Buntzen loop. Today I explored a portion of these.
Riding from my place in East Van and knowing I had a lot of hard miles ahead of me, I took the path of least resistance on the way to Port Moody via Barnet Highway. This took me right past the recently re-opened and massively upgraded Barnet Skills Park, so I stopped by to check it out. It was absolutely packed, unsurprisingly.
Once in Port Moody proper, I decided to get a driveside photo of the Rambler out of the way when I saw a good backdrop. I feel like I’ve finally built the appropriate bike for my preferred rides, though I’ve happily ridden these routes on the “wrong” bike until now.
I rode past Rocky Point park on the way out to the trails at low tide, but returned at high tide. Goes to show how long I spent in the woods, I guess! This spot is about 18km from my place too, so a fair bit of riding either side of this spot.
The next hour was spent doing some trial-and-error climbing from sea level up into the Heritage Mountain community in Port Moody. I haven’t quite figured out how to best connect things, but there’s a lot of fun cheeky paths and trails to get up the hill. Only one deep ravine has no currently passable route and does require a short road detour around.
I got into the Bert Flinn trail network, which is made up of green and blue MTB trails that can largely be ridden on a gravel bike (with some MTB skills). I was having so much fun that I forgot I was not supposed to descend nearly as far as I did, and I had to backtrack back up…
But this turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the trail I took back up the hill turned out to be one of my favourites of the day. Here are two photos showcasing its beauty:
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