I’m not sure if this was the first bikepacking trip I did, but it was certainly one of the earliest examples. I had bought a Salsa Vaya the year before, and had completed the Ride to Conquer Cancer from Vancouver to Seattle on it about two months prior. I had transitioned from primarily riding fixies and mountain bikes to taking a sudden and unexpected interest in touring bikes.
At this time my partner Aimée and I had a sheltie, Esme, who was about 11 years old at this time. Since Aimée was much less into riding hills and longer distances than I, I carried much of our gear as well as the dog trailer. My setup was therefore quite the truckload.
To make the trip more accessible, we drove to and parked at the long term lot by the ferry. In order to transport all the bikes, I swapped my Golf with my dad’s Tacoma for the weekend. My Golf was just a few months old at this point, my first new car. My dad hit a bear with it during the two days he had it. Thankfully, the damage was largely cosmetic. The bear ran off after the event, hopefully their injuries weren’t too severe.
The setups! My Vaya fully truck’d out, Aimee and Erin’s matching Linus bikes at right.
I don’t have any photos of the rest of the ride out, it seems, but that’s probably for the best. The ride is about 25km, and I had never done it before this trip. Knowing my partner Aimée had limited endurance, I studied the route’s elevation carefully. I knew it had some hills, but most of the route was below 100m elevation, so how bad could it be?
Turns out, quite bad. The rolling hills are pretty steep and never-ending. But what made matters much worse is that I missed an in-land turn, and we ended up descending down to sea level on a dead end road. Tears were shed and very few words were spoken as we climbed back out of that situation, as everyone was already exhausted.
Thankfully, Ruckle campground delivered vibes that quickly reset everyones moods. I’ve been many times since, but this was my first Ruckle experience.
This was also Esme’s first camping experience, and she loved it. Exploring the scents along the ocean’s edge was her favourite part.
It was hot, which also contributed to the toughness of the ride out, but the ocean provided wonderful respite.
Esme meets a starfish. She knew it was a living creature, but she could not figure out its deal.
We made fires and did all the camp stuff.
Note Esme on the bench, tired out after such an adventurous day.
On the ride back, we took full advantage of both farm stands and lakes that we passed along the way. Best way to beat the heat!
A long-ago ride that I’m writing up many years later, but since it was such a wonderful experience, I remember it well. It was the first camping trip on my Surly LHT, which replaced a Salsa Vaya. In retrospect, I should have kept the Salsa and went 650B for more tire clearance, but I hadn’t considered that at the time.
We camped at the private campground by Seal Beach Cottage, and the first night we learned that the name is appropriate, as seals kept us up half the night with their noisy shenanigans. The campground is lovely though, with a short hike into secluded camp sites in the trees.
We had a day to explore the island, checking out the lighthouse and generally enjoying the slow pace of the gulf islands.
We also hiked up to the high point of the island during an unexpected rainy morning. Mount Parke offers a rather stunning cliffside after a fairly technical trail ascent. The bikes did not come with.
Erin did an excellent job curating vegan camp food. I become so utilitarian when it comes to food, but appreciate better options.
We checked out the quaint museum as well as the surprisingly well-stocked bookstore.
Farmers markets are a gulf island specialty, and Mayne’s is especially good. Being from the city, leaving a bike unlocked was too foreign for me so I locked the back wheel – but most others simply leaned their bike somewhere and went in.
I’m writing this over a decade later, so the details are a little more sparse, but this trip remains a core memory burned into my soul. It remains the most beautiful terrain I have ever experienced. It’s also the only time I’ve seen grizzlies that weren’t separated from me by a fence.
I went with my friend Nick, just two of us, though we’d hoped another friend or two would join. We drove up in my Golf, driving north to Lillooet then west to reach the Chilcotin mountain range. It’s a long drive, so we drove up the day before and stayed in Tyax lodge. This also afforded us a lovely dinner, as well as a filling breakfast before we set off on our bikes the next morning.
Tyax Lodge
Day one was riding from the lodge to Spruce Lake, where we had booked the glamping tents operated by Tyax. We skipped the option to be flown into the far end of the trail network, but instead put that money towards accommodations for the two nights we’d be in the backcountry. It was very worth it, but more on that later.
The first ten kilometres or so were on FSR and reasonably flat. This was Gun Creek Rd.
After that, the FSR ends and Lower Gun Creek trail begins. It’s 12 km long, following Gun Creek as you can imagine, so the climb is consistent but not too steep.
As we got closer to Spruce Lake though, we had to turn off the creek and head up Gun Meadows trail, which ascends 300m in about 3 km. Neither of us were in endurance shape, so this was a big push late in a good day’s ride.
The views were welcome though, the first real views of the trip so far. I was already in awe, and we weren’t even really up there yet. We started the day at 1000m, and after about 32km of riding we ended the day at just under 1600m.
We rolled into Spruce Lake tired and hungry. We found the campground immediately but that’s not where we were staying. Having not seen anyone all day, we felt the remoteness.
We also couldn’t find our camp, and began to get stressed out since it was quite late in the day at this point. We started calling out, finally locating camp just around the lake a bit further than we expected.
We were greeted by our host, who would be making us dinner, who had fresh watermelon and assorted fruit for us. It was absolutely glorious, and the $200 cost of this camp night already felt worthwhile. There was even an option to have beer brought to camp for you, which we happily paid the premium for. They were cooling in the creek when we arrived.
We spent the remaining daylight exploring our surroundings a little bit before settling in for dinner.
Dinner was cooked and served in a dining tent a little ways from our sleeping quarters for obvious bear-related reasons. I believe it was a chicken curry, if memory serves, and tasted great after the day’s ride.
Our sleeping tent shown below. I suppose that fabric would not stop a grizzly bear in the slightest, but it gave us comfort somehow anyway.
The next day involved climbing up to Windy Pass, the high point of our route. The trail we took was aptly named High Trail, climbing 600m over only a few km, along a mostly treed flank of what turned out to be a gorgeous valley once viewed from near the top of the trail. Most of this climb was spent pushing our bikes as the grade was unrelentingly steep.
A grouse that gave us a good scare
Below was down near the bottom of this valley; the second photo viewed from after a bunch of climbing. Note how much of the mountains in the background opened up.
The above photo was taken just before we would climb out of the trees, and up to the saddle shaped pass.
It was also taken just before we noticed grizzlies on the hillside across from us – at first we saw one, then realized there were a whole crew of grizzlies on the open hillside, hunting marmots.
They were across the valley from us, roughly 500 feet away, which felt somewhat comfortable – until I saw one run, and realized they were in fact only seconds away from us. As a result, we kept moving pretty quick until over the pass, where we felt a comfortable distance had been put between us. We had bear bangers and bear spray at the ready.
Up top, we were truly above the tree line, and it felt like another world.
It was a shame that we didn’t feel comfortable lingering on the pass, because the panoramic views from above the tree line were perhaps the best of the trip. It was actually going to be our lunch spot, until we felt like we could also be lunch. We stopped long enough to get photos of us on top of the pass (below), then kept going.
The climb to this pass was about 4km, mostly hiking, and the descent was about 2km into the flatter meadow area. The descent was awesome, and if we hadn’t stopped for photos, it would have been over in a flash.
Above, the final stretch of riding on the moon before returning to more substantial vegetation. The photo below is taken along the trees in the distance of the above photo, with the pass we had just crossed over in the distance.
At the bottom of the hill, the valley opened up into a beautiful sub-alpine meadow. Below is the split between High Trail to the right, and Taylor Creek to the left.
Owing in large part to how little time we spent up on the pass due to bear activity, we found ourselves on the final couple km of our day’s ride barely after noon, so we took our time and soaked in the beauty of the meadows.
We reached Eldorado cabin in the early afternoon, where a beer each awaited us. Our options were limited to what was available at the Lillooet liquor store, but I was completely happy with a decent pale ale given the circumstances!
Eldorado cabin is a popular backcountry ski spot in the winter, but an equally great bike or hike spot in the summer.
Day three was riding from the cabin back down to Tyax, which meant we only had one small climb to start and then it was all downhill, and we didn’t have a ton of ground to cover either. We descended Lick Creek trail.
The final descending became a little more steep and loose, adding a bit of spice after a couple days of pretty non-technical riding. The views of the lakes were excellent.
Back at Tyaughten Lake, we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon with early dinner at the lodge.
In the end, it was about 65 km over three days with somewhere around 2500m total elevation. Neither of us were riding more than two hour MTB rides on the local hills at the time, so we played it pretty safe on route ambition. The first day was plenty, but the second and third days we could have easily combined into one. I’m bummed that I was not using Strava/etc at the time, so I don’t have that data to aid with reminiscing, but the memories (and these photos) are plenty.
I hope to go back in 2026, this time aboard my Stooge Scrambler. My endurance and general fitness are well above my 2013 level, so I think I could pedal my way to Lorna and back with the same time frame.
Like most cyclists who like to go camping by bike in southwestern BC, the southern gulf islands hold a special place in my heart. I try to get out to one of the islands two or three times a year, which is the most I can seem to manage in balance with the rest of life.
Saturna was the only island with a campground that I had not yet visited. It’s one of the southernmost islands along with South Pender, bordering US waters. It is even less populated than most other gulf islands and has particularly few amenities. Narvaez campsite has no fresh water, and the only general store is at the opposite end of the island from the campground.
I knew that Saturna was several friends’ favourite island, so I was eager to see why. Knowing it was particularly untouched, I decided to go on a weekday for an even quieter experience. I headed off towards the Tsawwassen ferry at 8am on Thursday; a 50km ride out of the city and along farm roads. I grabbed a burger on the ferry to fuel the rest of my journey.
My friend LA was joining on Friday, giving me an evening to myself followed by the better part of a day of exploring together. Well, a big chunk of Thursday was spent waiting: I arrived at the Tsawwassen ferry terminal at 11am, and I didn’t land on Saturna until 4:35pm. So, five and a half hours of either waiting for the ferry or travelling on the ferry. But it was well worth it!
The lone general store closed at 5pm and was located up a steep hill from the ferry, so getting there quickly was my top priority once on the island. All I bought was a four-pack of IPA; that’s all I needed.
Other than the campground, which is very small itself, Narvaez Bay Rd only accesses a handful of rural properties. As such, it is a wonderfully quiet road, and I only saw a single car over the course of 45 minutes. It’s pothole-filled and minimally paved, but keeping the speed down is necessary due to the abundance of deer who love to jump out of the woods at the most inopportune times. The final stretch towards the campsite is on a dirt path with no vehicle access, bench cut into a very steep slope down to the bay.
Arriving at my campsite, I was pleased with its position in the small campground: well spaced from other sites, with a nice view of the small north bay. Shaded as well! The only other site that wasn’t too far from mine was booked by LA. For the record, this is campsite 4. There are only 7 in total, but an overflow area is provided for those who don’t have a reservation.
I did a quick walk around the campsite after pitching the tent while I had some “dinner” (just a variety of snacks). It was around 6pm at this point, but I wanted to ride up to the southern ridge before dark; only about 5km away but almost 250m in elevation.
The road towards the ridge was dirt double track that ascended rather rudely from the main road before levelling off into a really pleasant ride.
I took the photo of my bike, below, and checked the map to see how much further it was. What I found was that I was totally off-course – I was supposed to be on the other side of a very deep ravine to my right. I was surprised, as I had not seen any sort of trail off this road.
Backtracking and keeping a close eye on Trailforks for where the trail branched off, I realized why I hadn’t seen it: there was hardly a trace of a trail, just a grassy meadow. After a bit, it did develop into a more distinct trail, and shortly after that the ocean views started to open up as I reached the ridge.
The climbing continued, as the trees became more sparse and the view continued to improve.
A short while later I was surprised by a small herd of goats, the goats also surprised by me. The adult males were being protective of their young, sending snorts and little foot stomps my way, so I made sure to give lots of space and spoke nicely to them. I stayed back, thinking this might be my turnaround point, but they shuffled off and allowed me to continue.
I made my way slowly behind them, hoping to find a sufficiently open view of the ocean to sit and have my beer. I settled in the spot below, with a dozen or so goats on the ridge in the distance. One stayed back and watched me for some time, clearly unimpressed.
I figured my time with the goats was over, but as I drank my beer, they started to slip back over the ridge and head towards me en masse. These are feral goats, and I figured that was my cue to leave.
The descent out went by quickly, and soon I was back in the camp area. I checked out the bay on the opposite side of camp, where I watched a pair of otters play for a while from up on the rocky ledge.
Back at camp, I spent the rest of the daylight hours observing and admiring the nature around me. I hadn’t brought my monoculars but I will next time; while I’m no bird expert there is such a variety here to admire. From hummingbirds to bald eagles, and everything in between. I couldn’t positively identify most of them, but at least five or six different songbirds, as well as a resident raven or two.
I climbed into bed before dark so I could get a head-start on what was bound to be a sub-par night of sleep. Lots of deer activity throughout the night kept me awake at times, but by 7am I felt rested enough to start my day.
Given the limited capacity of my two-bag setup as well as the lack of water at camp, I chose to leave my cook kit at home and brought only ready-to-eat items. For my morning caffeine, I brought a can of cold brew coffee for each morning. I enjoyed my coffee with a stroll down the small peninsula, exploring the mossy coastal woods.
After my coffee and some food, I headed out to walk the Monarch Head trail, a ~3km hike to a nearby viewpoint. The walk was in meadow-like forest, and within the first five minutes I encountered two deer who were very curious about me. In fact, they started to approach me after I’d stopped, so I gently shooed them away.
The viewpoint was nice, with sweeping ocean views of the San Juan islands on the other side of the border. I slipped around the fence to get a little closer, but not too close, to the cliffs which plummeted nearly to sea level.
I forest bathed my way back out, returning to my bike locked at a rack near the trail head. At this point I had explored the entirety of the local trail network and it was barely past 9am!
With more than two hours to go until LA arrived in camp, I walked the coastline and did more observation. I found a lot of blooming native succulents along the threshold between dirt and rock along the water:
I fashioned a primitive bench from a piece of driftwood off the water edge, and walked among the lush salal bushes.
LA rolled into camp shortly before noon after some mechanical issues along the way. After setting up and having some food and a beer, we hatched a ride plan based on the options I had been mulling over during the morning.
The one thing I knew I wanted to do today was check out Mount Warburton’s peak; at 400m it is only exceeded by Salt Spring’s peaks in the southern gulf island range. More to the point, I wanted to traverse the ridgeline trail that I had visited yesterday, which followed the cliffside for about 3km.
The climb up involved a lot of pushing, as the grade was rarely below 12%, and sometimes over 20%. Our legs were tired already from the prior day’s travels which didn’t help either.
We were greeted with howling winds as we reached the open peak, in addition to a heck of a view.
I scanned around for the start of the ridge line trail and was somewhat horrified to see how exposed it was along these high cliffs. It’s not very evident from the photos, but the slope towards the cliffs is steep enough that it would be hard to stop if you were to take a tumble. To make matters worse, the trail surface was a slippery combination of marble like rocks over hard pack earth.
On the flip side, the views were non-stop breathtaking – not just the ocean views, but the plains and coves below gave a sense of just how high up we were.
With abundant caution we made our way along, riding sections that weren’t too high consequence, and walking as needed.
The photo below is as close as I was able to get at conveying the exposure of this line through photos. This was a goat path, and goats are notorious daredevils when it comes to cliff sides. It was not a single sheer drop, but several vertical cliffs punctuated by steeply sloping fields of grass which only the goats can safely traverse.
The outlier trees which grew on the open plains were dramatically wind swept, with countless broken limbs overcome over the years.
As we approached the end of the ridge I was starting to worry we wouldn’t see the goats, but they were there to greet us at the same spot I had seen them yesterday. Once again they seemed quite unsure about us, so we walked off-trail to give them space as we passed.
We descended to the camp and I calmed my height-fearing nerves with a beer. I didn’t take any further photos for the night as I had underestimated my battery needs for the trip and needed to conserve. In fact, my battery would have been dead by this point if it weren’t for LA’s preparedness with extra battery packs.
The next morning I was up before 7am again, as I needed to leave camp around 8 to make the ferry. Re-packing the bike at the end of a trip is always more chaotic than the initial packing, so despite having less food to carry, the bags seemed fuller. This was also a pack-in, pack-out campsite so a small bag of garbage was tucked under the flap of my huge saddle bag.
I left with enough time to appreciate the sights along the way and arrive before anyone else for the ferry. The trip back involved two ferries with a short layover on Mayne.
Once back on mainland, I opted for the long gravel path along Boundary Bay and up along Burns Bog; while this added some distance to the trip it also kept me away from traffic. It was a clear, sunny day with temperatures in the low 20’s Celsius, so I was happy to spend extra time in the saddle.
I spent a few miles riding with three old guard randonneurs, easily in their 70s, who kept a solid pace even on the trails despite being on road bikes. I detoured once again around New Westminster to get a smash burger and hefeweizen at Steel & Oak, and tried unsuccessfully to catch the tail end of a bike event, Rileys Rips, that I had to miss today.
It was an extremely rewarding trip with no mechanicals, good health, and even better spirits. The three day tally on riding was 168km and 2010m of elevation, more than half of which was off-pavement.
I see why Saturna is a favourite among my friends, and I’m inclined to agree. The roads are extremely quiet, the humans are few and far between, but the goats and the deer are plentiful. The views along the south ridge are the best I’ve experienced in the gulf islands. Next time I’d like to explore the north side to the lighthouse, and perhaps visit the winery despite the challenging road to reach it.
Post-Summary Fit Check: Bombadil
While it’s changed a handful of times since I bought it in 2020, the Bombadil is currently configured with drop bars, fenders, and a 3×9 drivetrain. This makes it my ‘gravel bike’ as well as my touring bike with the Nitto R-10 rack mounted up to support the large Fab’s chest on the back paired to a small Fab’s chest on the bars.
I don’t know how many litres the two bags combined offer, but for my gear it does prove to be a challenging space constraint. In the big rear bag I fit my entire sleep system in the main compartment: MEC Spark 1-person tent, inflatable sleeping pad, Hammock Gear 30F quilt, and MEC camp pillow. I also fit my puffy jacket in there. In the side pockets were a Nalgene on one side due to the lack of water at camp, and the other side carries my toiletries and sundry camp items.
The smaller front Fabs housed my food collection, comprehensive tool roll, and all my clothing. The side pockets housed my small bike lock, sunscreen, battery brick, and stuff like that. I brought very little extra clothing; a pair of pants, an extra tee, and socks and undies. I didn’t even bring a second outer layer beyond what I wore out of the house. There was no cooking stuff in my kit at all, due to both space and water constraints. I would need to add some storage capacity to bring that stuff, such as my Randi Jo Big MUTs (need some sort of rack for them to run on this bike, though).
Lessons Learned
Once again I underestimated how much battery I would use on the trip, and I learned the hard way that my new phone’s battery is much larger than my old phone, and as such, my 10,000 mAh brick is not enough. I’ll purchase a 20k+ model before my next trip.
I brought too much food again, and made some questionable hasty decisions like throwing an entire jar of ‘Wow Butter’ in my bag. This would take me a week to get through easily! Partly this was being unfamiliar with what would be available on-island, so next time I can plan accordingly.
Otherwise everything performed well and I didn’t have too much stuff that I didn’t use, or would risk leaving at home.
Chemainus is a smaller town on Vancouver Island about 45km south of Nanaimo, known for its murals and artsy vibe. It’s unique for southwestern BC in that regard, as most of our small towns are conservative and rather devoid of culture. It’s also the town that my dad moved to a few years ago.
I’d put together a route last year which I rode in the heat of summer, and while it was overall successful in its goal of avoiding the highway and taking some trails, by the last 20 km I was firmly in ‘type two’ fun category due to the combination of heat and exhaustion combined with unexpectedly challenging climbs and descents both.
This time around I opted to ride through Ladysmith instead of taking the rotary club trail along the powerlines above town, but left the rest as I rode it last July.
I rolled out at 8am, and the photo going over the Lions Gate was taken at 8:30. I had a sunny day ahead of me with mild temperatures, so I couldn’t ask for better in that regard. I had slept well and was feeling good despite being quite ill with a stomach bug a few days prior.
I heard an eagle as I pedaled along West Vancouver and it took no time at all to spot it in a treetop nearby. Otherwise, pretty uneventful ride to the ferry and I arrived with plenty of time. An older Malaysian couple arrived on bikes for the ferry shortly after and we got to talking – they were 3 years retired and had travelled all over the globe doing some bucket list tours in Japan, Taiwan, and elsewhere – very cool! They were off to ride up island and then back down the sunshine coast.
I have honed my favourite way out of Nanaimo – it’s far from direct, but almost exclusively off-street and meanders through three beautiful wooded areas: Bowen Park shown below, Buttertubs Marsh, and Colliery Dam park. Connecting each is exclusively quiet roads and MUPs.
The waterfall below is in Bowen Park while the gradual climb through the forest is Colliery. The path through Colliery places you directly across the street from the pathway that runs parallel the highway which takes you out of town and into the southern suburbs.
Below is said pathway – it also ducks into the forest a bit more, feeling quite secluded. Perhaps too much so for some walkers.
This pathway ends after passing under the highway in a suburb evidently named Starks. It’s pretty rural at this point, and there are three options I’ve identified to get the next few kilometres: the highway, Cedar Rd, or up the disused moto trail network and down some rural roads from there. Cedar Rd is not too bad, but no shoulder combined with the average vehicle size in rural Nanaimo make it less attractive. The moto trails are in a rather lovely natural area so that’s an easy pick, even though it means going directly up and over a ~80m hill. Pictured below are the forested part of the highway trail (left) and the climb into the moto trails (right).
The climb alternates between rideable and not, and there are a couple places where it’s barely walkable due to the steepness and loose surface.
The fact these are primarily dirt bike trails is evident above – the steep bits are deeply rutted out. Below left doesn’t look bad in photos but it’s actually really difficult to get up at all; I had to walk in the shrubs off-trail to get enough traction for the short section steep grade. Last July when I hit this spot it nearly broke me; I took probably 20 minutes to get up it as I kept sliding down with every movement.
Once beyond the climb though it levels off into a pretty lovely trail to ride, even though its surface is very soft from the dirt bikes. Once out, I made sure to appreciate the seasonal flowers in the rural gardens that lined the streets.
After that, it’s a descent on some country roads and a very brief bit of highway just to get over the Nanaimo River.
The next “detour” from the beaten path is to access West Bush Main, a few kilometres of rough gravel typically travelled by dirt bikes and ATVs.
The first bit is an eclectic mix of terrain, as pictured above, but settles into rough gravel as shown below for the majority of this section. It’s entirely doable on a gravel bike but would be most enjoyable on some big MTB tires.
The truck above is located on the first bit of paved road after leaving the bush. At this point I’m just outside Ladysmith, which is a rather cute town with a historic-looking main drag and a brewery that was packed. I opted to grab a single can to-go and drank it along the tracks between Ladysmith and Chemainus. There is about 10km between the two, and almost all of it is along a gravel rail trail (below, right) that is a joy to ride.
At last I reached my dad’s place in Chemainus, which is ocean front. Shortly after arriving we were drinking beers on the rocky coastline at high tide as shown below.
After two nights at pops’ place enjoying family time in Chemainus, it was time to work my way back home. Leaving just after 10am, I planned to skip West Bush Main, which was a stretch of unmaintained gravel road mostly used by dirt bikers, but still take the remaining off-the-beaten-path connections I took on the way in. I was especially looking forward to descending the old moto trails just south of Colvilletown which I had only ever pushed up before – they are so steep in sections that I was barely able to push up them too.
Rolling out of Chemainus is very pleasant – within a couple blocks from my dad’s I was on a gravel rail trail for the next 8 or so km. I can only dream of being able to go anywhere on this kind of surface!
At the 10km mark I had reached the edge of Ladysmith, where Bayview Brewing is located. Since they are a popular lunch spot, they open early; 11am. It was 11:05am as I rolled up; perfect!
It also turned out to be their anniversary party today so my 12oz pour of Czech style dark lager was five bucks. Pretty good, too. They do good food but I hadn’t yet worked up an appetite. As I sipped my beer, I noticed the sky start to darken. It was blue skies before this with no hint of something else coming, but when I left I saw the dark grey looming overhead and that inspired me to keep the pace up as I rolled out of Ladysmith and northward. Thankfully, I outran the cloud system before any precipitation.
Avoiding West Bush Main meant taking about 7km of highway, but a wide shoulder made it not too unpleasant beyond the noise. It was consistently peppered with gravel though. Once an alternative was available I hopped off the highway and onto quiet rural roads where I saw an assortment of farm animals and some lovely trees.
Descending the old moto trails meant climbing the paved side, which was steep enough for one stretch that I opted to walk. The egg stand above was along this push. The huge arbutus tree, above right, is in the first section of trail along the flat plateau. I’d love to know how old it is, since I rarely see Arbutus with such a thick trunk.
Above are two more photos from this stretch of trail, and above right is along the parkway that parallels the highway just outside Nanaimo.
I had some extra time once I’d reached Colliery Dam park on the edge of Nanaimo, so I explored some of the trail network in the woods (above). Below is the beach, which was busy on Sunday but dead quiet in the middle of a Tuesday, unsurprisingly.
From there, I skipped Buttertubs park that I’d taken on the way out but still passed through a section of Bowen park, including the Rhodo garden which was starting to bloom up.
The ferry was uneventful but sunny and warm on the upper deck. I hung out in the dog area, where a total of three dogs passed through. Mid-day Tuesday in April is a quiet time on the ferry.
Once on the mainland again, I opted to take the rail trail to a push up to the upper bike route, rather than take the more popular Marine Drive. While it certainly means more climbing, it’s quiet and pleasant. I also stopped for a second beer at Beva and marvelled at how far from Bayview Brewing I was on the same ride, under my own power.
As mentioned in the last segment of my holiday challenge to ride each of my six* bikes 50km over the holidays, *I bought a seventh mid-challenge so I took it out on New Years Day.
Now, I only bought it on December 30th, and it was built up but never ridden by the previous owner. Not even one ride, and it sat for a couple years since too. So this was a rather ambitious idea to ride it over 50km as a shakedown ride for the previous owner’s build. But I put my trust in him, and off we went. I did, however, choose a route that never strayed too far from the Skytrain.
The route I had in mind basically followed the Central Valley Greenway out, and looped around New West to the PC Parkway back. It’s about a 42km loop, so some extra spurs were in order. I originally meant to do this route with the Twenty on day one of the challenge, but I made an on-the-fly decision to go visit the old hospital grounds in Coquitlam instead on that ride.
To get those extra kilometres in, I detoured a bit south to Deer Lake, and then back up to the Burnaby Lake gravel trails. The Bike Friday as you see it here is almost exactly as-purchased, all I added was the Jones bar, pedals, basket, and bags. It came with Schwalbe Black Jack tires which are quite knobby but surprisingly low resistance on pavement.
Also, unlike the Wombat ride, my fenderlessness was not a problem today! This whole past week was remarkable in weather – rarely rained and stayed really mild. Alarming but also enjoyable.
And I have to say, the bike has been performing flawlessly. The cheap disc brakes were fine, the Deerhead friction-shifted Campy derailleurs shifted great and looked the part too.
The bike generally rides really well, and riding it over 50km was no problem at all. It rides much more like a regular bike than the Brompton, for example. The bottom bracket on this model is particularly high, maybe that helps?
As I write this in late April 2025, this bike has undergone some accessorizing: Velo Orange fenders, a different bar and stem, and a Brompton carrier block welded on the front with the racks removed. Otherwise it’s unchanged from how the previous owner built it, and it has a little over 500km on it so far.
On New Year’s Eve, I got out for an over-50 km ride on the Stooge Scrambler, complete with 700m climb to the snow line. This completes my challenge, right? Well, it should have, but on Dec 30 I impulse bought a Bike Friday that cropped up for a bargain on Marketplace in exactly the spec I was daydreaming about.
So with this ride I completed what I set out to do, but I now had seven bikes. Since the seventh showed up so late in the game, I gave myself the grace that if I rode it for 50km on New Years Day, I’d have still completed my “ride every bike over the holidays” plan. More on that later though – this is about the Stooge ride!
I worked my way over to the north shore and rode some low-traffic trails near the golf course before winding my way up towards Mt Fromme by way of lower Seymour. Easy trail riding, but nice to string together longer stretches of dirt.
Then I met with my friend Taylor and we climbed up a punchy stretch of trail to get to the main service road (Mountain Highway), which switchbacks up Mt Fromme all the way to Grouse Mtn ski area (now gated). My goal for the day was to ride to the snowline, which was quite high at this time, and we reached it around the 700m mark at the 6th switchback.
From there we took the unofficial “Pile of Loam” trail which snakes through the woods just past this switchback. Kind of a boring trail on a big modern mountain bike perhaps, it’s a hoot on a rigid MTB.
We descended some fun easier black trails back down to civilization, and parted ways as I headed west for a bridge loop. The bridge loop ridden in a more direct fashion is about 32km for me, door to door. The detour up the mountain more or less got me those extra 18km, but I did some additional toodling in North Van to seal the deal.
A short stop at the Murdo Frazer cabins along the way, a popular spot for me to stop for a beer, but I hadn’t picked any up yet. However once down the hill I did stop at Beva Brewing for the very last (!) four pack of the chocolate stout I was eager to try. I enjoyed one along the water on the way home.
In the end it was nearly 60km and 1200m of climbing, a good solid ride for the Stooge!
Over the previous days I’d ridden both my Rivendells and both my small wheeled bikes, each over 50 km. Today was time for the fifth bike in the quiver, and I selected the Wombat.
My reason for this selection was the optimistic forecast. Note, it had actually been quite nice for every ride so far – to the extent I was riding without a jacket and just my wool sweater for most rides! The Wombat is my only bike with no fenders at all, so I tried to save it for the day with the lowest risk of rain.
Boy, that did not work out.
The morning was quite nice, but as I rolled out front of my building with the Wombat, a little bit of rain had started to fall from the sky and it was ominously cloudy. What the heck? Well, I probably just needed to ride out from under this cloud, I figured.
I met with friends Rob and Karen at a park central to us where the rain was still relatively light, but the skies were grey in all directions. It was already the wettest day of the challenge so far despite my expectation of the opposite, and it was only going to get worse!
Rob and Karen peeled off in South Vancouver because it was really coming down, and they had no self-inflicted obligation to keep riding. I continued into Richmond, heading for the dyke along the water.
Garry Point (above) has a large sandy area at its center normally, but today it was a lake. A great day to be a duck! I warmed my hands in the bathroom (below) before setting off once again.
However, one very cool thing did happen. I noticed a nice looking backpack and a tripod ditched alongside the Richmond dyke with nobody nearby. I thought it strange, but kept going due to general misery at this point. Over 100m later I saw a photographer laying on his stomach in the bushes alongside the trail and my eye wandered to where his massive lens was pointed: a massive coyote walking along the driftwood. I stopped to get a potato photo once I was well clear of the scene so I wouldn’t interrupt: this is at full zoom on my Pixel 8, just good enough to tell what it is.
I hit about the 30km mark when I was finally pointed towards home, and up until this point I had been soaked through but comfortable. My hands became very cold over the next 10km; I simply didn’t prepare well for this level of wet. The climb into town solved that issue though, no doubt helped by the single speed.
In the end – 55 km so it counted. Sure wish I rode it any other day though.
Today, Febuary 9th 2025, we adopted a dog. The name she comes with is Sunshine, which we’ve been shortening to Sunny. It’s Sunday, fittingly. Aimée found her locally fostered, her photo was most cute, and she sounded like a perfect fit. They didn’t know her age or her lineage for sure, but pegged her at ~3.5 years old and maybe an Aussie / Corgi mix.
Obviously her stature suggests corgi. Or perhaps Dachshund? Aussie was certainly believable, though she did the ‘stalking’ thing that Border Collies do towards a crow on a fence this afternoon, so now we’re calling that into question as well.
Leia has been enjoying being an only dog and we want her golden years to be as comfortable and enjoyable as possible, so her opinion was very important to us. While she is has some reservations, they’ve gotten along great – Sunny doesn’t really engage with Leia but they already seem pretty comfortable in each others’ presence. I suspect they will become bonded with time.
Sunny is from Turkey, rescued during the 2023 flooding in the area we’re told. She had a litter of puppies, as I understand afterwards (sometime in early 2024 maybe?), and less than two weeks ago she had a large bladder stone removed as well as full dental work including a bunch of tooth extractions. Despite all this, she seems carefree. She loves attention, and doesn’t want pets to end.
She’s already met a handful of our dog park friends (both canine and human) and no doubt will become an integral part of the community in no time.
