Onwards with the recaps! In the future I am thinking about doing a monthly post to summarize the month in addition to specific posts for special trips or whatnot – rather than a post for each decent ride. Still work-shopping.
I love how this house looks like a face, and in this case, looks like it’s watching the crow on the fence. This is along my bike commute, and was taken on the way home from work on the first of August.
After six months of having Sunny in our family we finally tried out whether she’s cool with being in the bike trailer. She was pretty good about it, no major concerns.
On August 4th my friend Tay and I drove up to Whistler at 5am and rode Into the Mystic / Lord of the Squirrels, an epic loop that climbs all the way into the alpine followed by a 1200+m descent. This was a life-altering kind of ride. I thought I made a blog post about it, but it seems like I am mistaken! So I’ll have to share a bunch of photos here. We each took our Stooge – me on a Scrambler and her on a Tracker, both bikes outfitted with plus-size tires.
It was a decent climb just to get to the start of Into the Mystic – we started around 640m elevation, and this trail started at about 1000m, climbing to 1650m. From there we took a trail called On the Rocks which topped out at 1800m, and as the name implies, is all above the tree line. While the first couple hours of climbing were pleasant enough, it was when we reached the sub-alpine meadows filled with flowers that the ride started to really become something special. Both the sub-alpine meadows and the otherworldly alpine vistas had us giddy the whole time, just amazed by the beauty of the world. The descent was moderately technical, not too bad, and felt un-ending. This is absolutely worthy of a bucket-list ride. I hope to go back every year if I can.
The only negative thing I can say is that the mosquitos up there are absolutely unreal. If you look close in some of the alpine photos you can see them in the shots – they swarmed us constantly. Thankfully I had brought repellant, but missed a few spots (ie my back) which ended up looking like chicken pox by the end of the day.
That was certainly one of the highlights of August for me, but the humdrum of the normal week isn’t so bad either. I commuted the following Wednesday and it happened to coincide with a proper summer rainstorm in the morning. Thankfully my commute home was much drier. Check out the effectiveness of the poncho + full coverage fenders to keep my office attire reasonably dry!
The next day we had a good TCR (tall can ride) with a few pals after work, covering about 45km by the time I got home – this is really what I love about summer, these big after-work rides.
More flower photos, taken around 8am on Saturday on the morning dog walk to the park. These were all taken in the community garden at Pandora Park, where I can usually be found.
This particular Saturday was also Farmhouse Fest, the only beer festival I go to, put on by some old friends and I’ve been going to this since its inception in 2015. This might have been the last one, due to the decline of interest in farmhouse style beers and the dying import industry. It is held at the UBC farm, about 18km from my place, and I rode the Twenty – my trusty sidekick when I need to lock up for a while.
On Sunday we had parkbagging, and thankfully I didn’t get carried away at the beer festival the day prior so I was able to enjoy the ride and hang out with friends – and have a couple more beers at a couple more parks.
The next day I rode out to Kitsilano to pick up a dog trailer – the second in our household – so that Sunny has her own chariot. Now between Aimée and I, we can tow a dog each and the whole family can go for outings.
Speaking of the dogs .. our summer included some guests staying over, namely Lou (left) and Bernice (right). Bernice stays with us regularly during the day, and occasionally overnight. Lou is welcome any time as well, but we only have her over a few times per year.
The next weekend, after some rather unseasonal rains, I got out on the Bombadil and headed to North Vancouver. I rode through the former Blair Rifle Range where there’s still signage around about potential explosive munitions – which keeps me on-trail! The recent rains and rather unseasonably wet August to date also maintained the lush green in the forest, something I did not take for granted.
More dog stuff – as always, lots of time spent at the dog park, and we know all the regulars and many of the occasional visitors by this point. We also got out for a proper family ride with both dogs – only about 6 or 7 km, as we didn’t want to push it too far for an inaugural outing with the trailers.
August 17th was New Tires Day for my trusty Bombadil, replacing the very worn and UV-damaged Ultradynamico Rosé, which treated me quite well for 2+ years but were clearly ready to retire. This was my second set of Rosé, a tire I ran on this bike from the start in 2020. The replacement is Continental’s Terra Trail gravel tire in 650B x 47mm, though it measures a bit smaller. I write this on January 3rd 2026, about 4.5 months later, and they’ve been great over about 850km so far. I did get a flat tire on the very first ride on them, but haven’t since. They’re both more quiet and I believe faster than the Rosé, though their off-road cornering grip isn’t quite as good.
The new tires got their first proper test a week later, with the Bombadil fully loaded up and destined for Pender Island. While the island itself is small, the ride to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal is over 50km. I rode there with my friend Stephanie, while the others who were also coming on this trip mostly opted for transit to shorten the ride – an option not available to Stephanie given the size of her cargo bike. I wrote up the trip here, so I won’t get into too much further detail on this post – except to say, it was a wonderful few days on Pender camping with friends!
The past few years have been plagued with wildfire smoke, an unfortunate new reality with the state of climate change, but this year had been quite good so far. We did get a bit this last week of August, but thankfully just enough to accentuate the sunset without causing significant AQI concerns. This park, below, attracts residents from a few blocks’ radius for the sunset each evening when the skies oblige.
On the last day of August, I got out for a “bike portage club” style ride with Tay and Rob. The first bout of silliness occurred when Tay and I (en route to meeting Rob) decided to try some trails around McKay Creek near Hwy 1, which proved to be overgrown and, in some cases, almost non-existent. I would say it was all worth it though because we came across a concrete tunnel that the creek passes through under the highway, tucked away where few people would see it.
Once connected with Rob, we made our way to Cypress, climbing some little-known trails and then traversing a personal favourite, Millstream trail. From there we worked our way back east via a combination of trail and side roads, finishing the ride at a friends’ backyard party. The ride itself was 52 km and 1050m elevation; a proper effort on the single speed Wombat!
In terms of riding, I finished August with 577 km logged over 22 days on the bike – plenty of riding, though generally not quite as long of rides as in spring. Partly this was due to the heat of summer. Still, plenty of activity!
Leave a Reply