I’ve titled this the ‘Mushroom Ride’ but that wasn’t what it was planned to be. I hadn’t been up the Seymour valley for about a month, and I’ve made it a soft goal that I get up there once a month so I prioritized the valley for my route selection on this ride.
I actually set off to ride to mid-valley, but ended up riding all the way up to Seymour lake because the mid-valley connector was temporarily closed and I didn’t want to just turn around and go home.
I stopped where I had taken a foliage photo last time I was up here – the big leaf maples at that time were just newly yellow – and now they’d dropped all their leaves and looked entirely different. Below is Nov 2 vs Oct 7.
It was just a normal ride until I rode past a few folks who seemed to be inspecting stuff near the forest floor along Fisherman’s trail. I started to look around the forest floor once I passed them and realized there were a lot of mushrooms. I stopped to admire and photograph a couple of them, and just like that, my ride had a newfound purpose: to see how many different mushrooms I could spot.
I became quite obsessive from here on out scoping the forest floor either side of the trail for mushrooms. I was quite successful, seeing quite a few types that I’d never seen before. Mostly, I was appreciating the excuse to slow down and pay close attention to my surroundings, which is a very meditative experience that fills me with contentedness.
I kind of felt like I was birding in the sense that I was quantifying the different species I could spot, but unlike birding, the subject matter stays perfectly still – making photography a heck of a lot easier.
While I’m no mushroom expert – heck, not even a mushroom novice – there was one type of mushroom I had found up in the valley two years’ prior which captivated me named the violet webcap. Apparently it is quite rare, and I had just happened upon them deep in the valley previously. I really wanted to find one today.
It took quite a lot of trudging around in the mossy understory to find one, but I did! See below, center. It was alone in this case.
Having pre-rode the course the day before, this was the event! While people were welcome to roll out as early or late as they wish, I encouraged a 9:30 – 10am rollout for two reasons: I could commit to being there to see them off, and they’d likely be racing daylight at the end, which for me at least has become part of the fun.
A few folks rolled through earlier, but I was happy to see a bunch of friends and acquaintances roll up and set off on the course.
As a fairly solitary creature, I felt both out of my zone but oddly in my element playing event organizer. I definitely didn’t know what I was doing for the most part and learned a lot over the course of the day.
I stuck around the start line until just before 11am, when the last of the folks set off. I had no set plans for what I’d get up to prior, but decided to zip across town to Dageraad, pick up some beers, and catch folks along the old Interurban rail trail near New West. I figure since they’ve got the whole north loop before that point, I’d have plenty of time.
On the way to Dageraad I grabbed a sandwich and caught up with one buddy, Lukas, who had rolled out ahead of most others on their fixed gear Surly 1×1. I was set up along a cheeky little connector trail as noted below, left.
There were three early bird riders whom I wasn’t able to catch on-course, but I was in place in a perfectly unexpected spot for the remainder of the riders. It was a last minute plan but I couldn’t have planned better.
I was set up here for a couple hours, and the vast majority of that time was spent alone. I quite enjoyed it though, the setting was ideal. The cadence with which riders came through was quite perfect, too – I rarely went more than 20 or 30 minutes over those couple hours without another group, and each group/rider was happy to stop in for a bit – and many had a beer as well. Next time I’ll have better non-alc options, though it wasn’t an issue this time around.
I spent so long there in fact, I got bored enough to clear a path to my “aid station” and did some scoping of the surrounding forest.
The final group had lost some time due to taking some route liberties that went predictably poorly, so by the time they’d rolled through I knew I had to book it to the finish gate if I wanted to catch the first folks through this aid station. But first, I had to pose my bike with the beauty that is the Interurban rail trail:
Okay, time to roll.
I swung by the brewery again to re-stock as well as grab a smash burger for early dinner. The weather had been behaving remarkably well all day – the forecast looked wet, but I didn’t get rained on until now and it was pretty light.
I didn’t quite catch Lukas, but I managed to arrive 5 mins before Graham rolled down the hill to the gate. Before we finished a beer together, the two Sams and Bjorn rolled in as well. Then, while we were all hanging out, the fixie crew also rolled up! I was surprised and elated by how many chose to complete the course right up until the end. I never indicated I’d be there, and it’s generally not on anyone’s way home.
After everyone rolled out I stayed for a bit to see if the last big group would finish. It got dark, and with it, the rain got heavier. I texted one or two of the riders, and eventually I got back a message that everyone had kind of split up or peeled off. Unsure that anyone would come to the gate, and having lurked in the dark rain for an hour by myself at this point, I headed home.
I later learned that a lone rider from that group, Yannick, did in fact finish – and he arrived a mere 10 minutes after I’d left. What a bummer! It would have been so unexpected for me to be there when he arrived. Oh well.
While the route was created in 2023, this is the first year I’ve organized some form of event around the Burnabop XL. I knew I wanted it to be around the peak of autumn foliage, and I knew I didn’t want it to be too big of a group. This latter point created quite a challenge with trying to organize a sort of ‘grand depart’ event. The main reason to avoid a large group is that the trails that make up this route are often hidden gems that are enjoyed by locals to take their dog or kid along, and I didn’t want a train of bikes to harsh the vibe.
So I set it up as an open window to depart at one’s leisure, whether with friends or solo. More on that later though, as this is about the pre-ride which I completed the day before the event.
It’s a good idea to pre-ride as close to the date as possible to provide the most accurate conditions for event day, but the literal day before doesn’t give a lot of time for any adjustments that may be needed. I didn’t expect anything major, so I didn’t worry about it too much. More on THAT soon as well.
I started the route just before 10am. Foliage was good. It was not raining to start, but rain was forecasted. Winds were a little blustery, adding some risk in the trees – but thankfully they petered off and became a non-issue.
The vine maples were illuminating the otherwise grey day as noted above.
The north loop is challenging and almost entirely off road, while the south loop is longer but flatter.
While the south loop might be overall flatter and with more pavement, it’s also home to the highlights of the whole course.
So far other than a small detour due to construction that probably ran better than the original anyway, things were going great. The foliage was certainly delivering, the trails were running smooth.
Another small detour, no big deal. A hearse was parked in the bike lane, but they were actively carrying a coffin from the funeral service to it, so I let that one slide. Then when I reached Fraser Foreshore Park, a beautiful and expansive sanctuary, I found out it was closed right up the middle with no way through. Bummer.
So a last-minute re-route onto the adjacent road was necessary. Soon enough it reconnected with the trail network, along a creek and then up into Byrne ravine.
I climbed up and over the Edmonds area and down to Deer Lake, connecting over to Beecher Creek as the sun was setting. Beecher is a fun and unexpected little ravine trail that many end up skipping since it’s late in the route.
Being dark by the time I was passing through the North Burnaby neighbourhood towards the start/finish gate, I was able to enjoy some pretty epic Halloween displays:
All said and done: 77 km and ~1300m according to my GPS unit.
For four years now I’ve hosted a small group ride with the same friends on the Saturday of Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, which lands around my birthday. This year it happened to land on the day.
The weather this time of year is far from reliable, but we’ve been lucky in previous years. However this time we got rain – lots of rain – for the first couple hours.
First order of business was to stash the 5L keg of Paulaner lager that Rob graciously provided and lugged. He stashed it down by the river to keep cool, which was somewhat laughable since the air temp was only about 8C anyway.
It was so rainy that even our stubborn selves were recalculating the planned route to reduce the time we’d be out in the elements. We rode out to Cypress Bowl Rd via Rob’s infamous fence line, but bailed on the plans to ride all the way out to horseshoe bay and check out a variety of little connector trails in west van.
Well, we did carry on a bit further from Cypress, up and over a particularly brutal service road climb that dropped us into the Cypress Falls trail network.
After Cypress Falls it was a twisty road descent down to McKechnie park, a beautiful park in West Van that I hadn’t visited in a couple years.
Leaving McKechnie we anticipated the remaining twisty road descent down to the ocean, but noticed a trail off the road shortly after the park – which ended up being a straight-down gravel descent down to the rail tracks, the down a set of stairs and connected right up to the quiet seaside bike route without touching the main road – magic! It was only two blocks long, but it was a great find that I’ll definitely use as a link in the future.
We stopped for sandwiches (and a Märzen) en route to retrieving our mini keg – successfully!
Once we had the keg in hand, we started to scope for a good restful place to enjoy it. After our river-front spot wasn’t quite right, we decided to bring it over the bridge to enjoy in Stanley Park.
However Graham’s derailleur had other plans, exploding as we climbed up to the bridge deck. It even ripped a spoke out of the rim, so instead of trying to rig up a single speed setup we just opened the keg right there on the bridge deck and afterwards, Graham loaded the helpless bike onto the front of a bus.
Not a particularly interesting ride, but a couple nice photos came from it so I’ve decided to upload. This was an after-work trip to Dageraad brewing, taking a noodley string of quiet residential streets out and the parkway back.
I thought I’d beat the weather, but I rode right into it – which provided some pretty dramatic skyline, at least.
The days are rapidly getting shorter and the hours of reliable daylight after work are over. As such, my weekday rides had become fewer and shorter, but this day I decided to ride to the mid-valley lookout in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve (LSCR) even though I knew I couldn’t complete the ride in daylight.
I’ve written about the LSCR, otherwise known as Seymour valley, numerous times. It’s accessed via Fisherman’s trail pictured above, which starts a 10km ride from my door. The trail to mid-valley is about 6km, closely following the Seymour river.
I wanted to see the state of the autumn colours in the forest, and for the first 2 or so km, there wasn’t much to report except the odd vine maple visible off the trail. The yards I passed to get to the trail were full of non-native cultivars bred for their beauty and these were regularly in bright autumn colours, but our native forests were largely still in business-as-usual shades of green.
That is, until I rounded a corner to this scene! A cluster of big leaf maples made my trip feel worthwhile already.
The trail is mostly double track as shown below, though there are a few sections of singletrack with a bit more technicality.
I arrived at the mid-valley lookout about 30 or 40 minutes before sunset, but the sun had mostly passed over the mountains at this point. I watched the sunlight creep up the mountainside on the other side of the valley, and the clouds start to turn pink and orange.
I spent some more time watching the light slowly fade before I figured I should make some progress out before the light fails entirely. I wanted a little bit of night riding, but preferably not the whole way.
Racing the light.. well not really racing at all.
I was down to the last kilometre or so by the time it was properly dark. Once I was out of the trees, I was treated to purple-blue clouds left over from the sunset.
A dry and relatively warm day warranted pulling out my un-fendered single speed Wombat for a ‘bridge to bridge’ loop. This loop, ridden clockwise in this case, is about 32-35km and mostly pretty flat.
The Wombat is my ‘just for fun’ bike, set up with a ~2:1 gear ratio which is a sweet spot between being okay to ride off-pavement without spinning out too quickly on the road. I can comfortable cruise at 22-25 kph which is as much speed as I need.
I rode to Beva Brewing because I knew I’d catch a pal who was riding home from camp there. We had some food and a beer together but then parted ways again afterwards; him to shower and me to toodle in the woods in search of early season salmon. Naturally, I took an unnecessarily inefficient route.
While I didn’t see any salmon (it was clearly too early), the early-autumn forest was lovely to exist quietly within.
Below are three distinct scenes from the ride from my river spot to the ocean. Each very lovely in its own regard.
And finally, as I neared home I was treated to a lovely display of rippled clouds.
This post is of just a rather typical local loop rather than a trip or grand adventure. It was a ‘scenic’ route that I took to one of my favourite local breweries, Dageraad, to meet some friends. The brewery is about 15km from my home if I take a direct route, but this wasn’t very direct.
One of the purposes of this ride was to trace along some of my favourite semi-urban natural areas and see how the early autumn colour was coming along. Late September around here means the show has begun, though is still a few weeks from peak foliage.
Above is a small conservation area surrounded by commercial buildings in Burnaby just west of Deer Lake, which is featured in the left two images below.
From there I wiggled over to the Cariboo Heights conservation area which is one of the most underrated gems of Burnaby. It is a beautiful and quiet forested area that as I understand, runs the risk of being developed. I sure hope not. It’s one of my favourite places.
Now that I know there’s a website and a volunteer org for this unprotected forest, I might just have to get involved. As it is, I try to do my part by maintaining these trails, having brought my folding saw and cleared a few trees downed over the path.
The above images show a curated beauty, but worth noting there is also a fair share of pushing and the odd staircase. Definitely worthwhile though. The route crosses Cariboo Rd (yes, spelled correctly) onto an old rail bed (active from 1911 until 1953) that connects to New West.
Exiting the forest, it was not long before I was at Dageraad with a lovely slow-poured Belgian ale in hand.
From there I rode with the pack of pals back to town, with a stop on the pedestrian bridge below to share a smoked lager that a buddy had brought.
Most people think of the Three Stooges when they hear the name Stooge Cycles, I imagine. Well, there must be something to it, because I have now had three Stooges and feel like I’m where I need to be. My first was the Speedbomb – I was enamoured by the blue-green colour in particular, but the geometry was a close match to the Esker Japhy it was replacing despite being a one-size-fits-all model.
What I didn’t appreciate was that hardtail geometry and rigid MTB geometry should be different – the rigid should be shorter so you can get over the rear wheel more readily. So I made my way to a Scrambler, which came in two sizes, the smaller of which being where I needed to be in terms of top tube length. In between these two I had a Tracker for a period of time, which I’d got in a trade deal as a stop-gap solution until the Scrambler became available.
I received the frame on Aug 26, 2024. I built it up over the next few days and my very first ride on it was Sept 2, 2024 with my friends Taylor and Cat – on a rather epic ride from home to the summit of Grouse Mountain via Fromme. It was a 1000m climb and the ride was over 50km door to door. A pretty massive shake-down ride!
The parts spec was all pretty much carry-over from my previous Stooge, which was carry-over from my Esker Japhy. The only change I needed to make was down-sizing my rear tire from a 2.6 to a 2.4 due to the frame clearance. I ran a WTB Macro, a fast XC tire, which paired nicely with the more aggressive Teravail Kessel to balance grip and speed.
As soon as the frame had arrived, I measured it up for a custom HMPL frame bag in waxed canvas. It took a few weeks to be ready, during which I used my little Lilac frame bag seen above for a few rides. The moment it was ready I bee-lined it to HMPL HQ and fitted it to the frame. I took the bike on a social ride around town shortly after and it was a blast, even though it was a pavement ride.
About six months later, in Jan/Feb of 2025, I had the White Industries hubs re-laced to 27.5″ Dually rims because Andy of Stooge was pretty clear that his preference was 27.5+ for the Scrambler. And I trusted his vision. I started my 27.5+ journey with Surly Dirt Wizard 3″ tires which I bought second-hand for a bargain.
The DW’s were perfect in the snow, but once the snow thawed I realized how incredibly slow they were on anything except mud and snow. My pal Taylor hooked me up with a variety of 27.5+ tires including WTB Rangers and Bridgers. As of Oct 2025, I am running a Bridger up front and a Ranger out back, both of the 3″ variety, and have been since spring – it’s a good setup for this bike.
In Sept 2025, I finally took the Stooge on a camping trip. I had hoped to do a ~330km rugged bikepacking route around the southern half of Vancouver Island this year, but that plan never quite came together – a goal for 2026 now.
More than ten years ago, a Slack group was formed by an acquaintance for local craft beer geeks to discuss the growing local craft beer scene. The group grew to about 100 members relatively quickly, but stopped growing many years ago now, and the slack evolved into a group of friends. As this happened, channels for hobbies and other non-beer topics started to proliferate.
One of the more popular interests was cycling, and our “beer” slack now has multiple bike-related channels. One of them is specifically about bike camping. It was here that a Gabriola trip was hatched last year in mid September by LA. I didn’t go. The first night was solo for LA, and it poured rain heavily all day, all evening, and all night. Thankfully she was equipped with two tarps, but nonetheless it was undoubtedly a challenging time.
This year the weather was looking much better, with rain forecasted for one morning but otherwise sunny, warm but not hot; just perfect. Well – that was the forecast. More on that later.
Some folks rolled out on Friday, but me and two others rolled out as the Saturday crew. We all stayed until Monday. The weather was perfect. I was rolling around 8am, and we caught the late morning ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo. From there it was a few km along the water to catch the small boat to Gabriola, a quick ferry that runs regularly enough to feel like a water taxi.
This was also the first time I’ve gone camping on the Stooge after a year of ownership. Bike-packing was front of mind when I bought the bike, so this felt overdue – even though it was a trip that really did not require such a rugged setup.
The reason I took the Stooge though is that Gabriola has an impressive trail network for a small island, including a double black rated trail! I wasted no time making my way to this trail after dropping off my gear at camp. It was steep, but that was it – no big features, no gnarly rock rolls, nothing to earn such a rating. Obviously a gulf island double black is not the same as a whistler double black. Probably for the best, as I don’t take the same chances I used to.
After the quick loss of elevation riding said trail, dubbed ‘Jack’s Dropper’, we followed a local’s advice about a less known beach on the east side of the island, shown below. It was indeed a good spot.
We hastened back towards camp after a snack on the beach to join the rest of the group at Malaspina Galleries. Despite the name, there is no artwork on display; but the beauty of the natural world is on full display with worn away sandstone creating a natural 3/4 tunnel like a cresting wave. We hung out here for the last hour of warm sun with beer and snacks at our sides. I even stuck my phone in the water for some underwater photos. There were tons of starfish!
It was a beauty day, but the clouds were starting to coalesce and rain was expected by the morning, so we set up our tarps to protect our gear and provide a sheltered spot to hang out.
It was a pleasant evening and our communal camp area was pretty dialed. The campsite is adjacent to a narrow inlet (below, center) that makes for a lovely spot to relax too.
Evening activities included review of our bingo cards (shout out to Graham for making them), drinking beer, and conversation over the propane fire (as the fire ban was still in effect).
The rain started around 10pm as a light sprinkle, and became a light but steady rain throughout the night. The sound of rain on my tent was both relaxing and sleep-preventing. Credit to my modest MEC Spark 1 tent, it kept dry inside except for a small bit by the fly which was probably my fault.
The rain was pretty light when I got up around 8am, and tapered off over the next hour allowing us to explore our surroundings without getting wet while drinking coffee and having breakfast.
I took this opportunity to photograph the area as well, as noted above and below. I haven’t been to a gulf island that isn’t beautiful yet, but Gabriola has a unique charm. Especially the water-worn sandstone along the shoreline.
As we took in the views at the shoreline, a wall of grey could be seen moving towards us looking menacing. I knew there was significant precipitation in that air, and we made our way back to camp without wasting time. Within moments, the rain began and steadily increased in intensity. At this point it was perhaps 11:30am. The wind also picked up, and at its peak it was a proper rainstorm. This was also precisely when our friend Dave arrived on his fender-less two speed bike from the mainland, drenched despite only 700m of travel from the ferry to the campsite.
Once the skies let up, we wasted no time getting out on our bikes as it was already after 1pm and the grocery and liquor stores close relatively early on the island.
While it was my first time on Gabriola, most of my company had explored these trails before. As such, I went along for the ride, following suggestions and recommendations. There was no losing – all the trails were really beautiful. Generally not technical, save the odd root, but they were narrow and immersive.
And they were seemingly everywhere. Gabriola is unique among the southern Gulf Islands in this regard, having a network of trails that are rather unparalleled. A dog walker’s paradise, this island.
By late afternoon, the rain a few hours prior was a distant memory with blue skies and surprisingly dry terrain. We laid in the field above and remained entirely dry.
After some provisions at the store we headed back to camp for more time in front of the propane fire pit, accompanied with an assortment of special beers brought by Dave and Ashley. Managing to not get too carried away with the booze, we were generally all in bed by 11pm.
The next morning was a travel day towards home, but with the extremely regular sailings off the island we were able to enjoy coffee and nature at our own pace in the morning.
After a lovely hour or so of walking around at low tide and marvelling at the eroded rocks, I packed up camp unhurriedly. As previously noted this was my first time bikepacking on the Stooge, but it was also my first time using the Buckhorn panniers and this bag arrangement in general. I was surprised by the capacity, owing in no small part to the tent being mounted atop the rear rack. Despite packing the tarp, my bulky cooking and coffee kit, and a few beers – I still had enough room to stuff a few other items in if needed.
The ride back was pleasant and uneventful. I took the higher, hillier, but quieter route from the ferry to West Vancouver along with Graham, Dave, and LA – and linked back up with Rob and Karen at a West Van park where we enjoyed one last beer of the trip and some final relaxing before returning to normal life.
Oh, but one of Gabriola’s well-fed spiders managed to hitch a ride in my pannier. I moved him to the patio, and a day later he rode back into our apartment on a dog mat I had put outside. I haven’t seen him since; I hope he’s OK but I also hope he’s done with me.
Attendees: Rob, Karen, LA, Ashley, Graham, Dave, and myself.
