Niki and I have been saying we should ride together for a long time now, and today we finally did. We chose to do a Burnaby loop that followed a lot of my 2026 iteration of Burnabop XL , albeit a shorter loop. It still ended up being about 50km door-to-door though.
I chose my now-trusty Rambler as Niki was riding her gravel bike too. The Rambler’s proven to be exactly what I’d hoped for; a very capable bike on the rough stuff while still feeling good on pavement. It’s a bit heavy but I don’t notice it. With the knobby 2.2″ Rene Herse tires it’s pretty much perfect for my needs, but I do look forward to trying bigger tires next summer for some bikepacking routes.
One of the reasons for doing this Burnaby loop, the same reason the Burnabop XL event happens in October, is that these trails are at their peak in autumn since they have largely deciduous trees along them.
We also did the Chines descent, which is deeply rutted and only partially rideable (see below) but has enough beauty along the way to make it more than worthwhile (if you don’t mind some underbiking).
The vine maples are becoming more chartreuse, but still hanging onto their leaves for a while yet it looks like. The same cannot be said for the big leaf maples, which have already covered the ground along the TCT near Capitol Hill! I hope they keep enough leaves to thoroughly cover the ground for Burnabop XL Day, still almost a month away.
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