Category: General

Each summer, Matias of Stridsland bikes and his family return to BC from Denmark to visit with his parents and other family, and it’s become tradition that a big group ride or two is organized during this time. Through mutual friends I’ve become friends with Matias the past couple years, and thus I’ve been able to get out for some smaller group rides with Matias and the crew as well.

When I got the text about going for one last ride before they head back home the next day, I was enthusiastically in, especially because I was afforded the opportunity to incorporate some of the west van route I’d developed for Bike Portage Club. Mara, a decorated route-master herself, wanted to do Millstream trail and perhaps more from her Cookie route. We ended up combining the two, linked together by a short stretch of light trespassing required to get from one to the other.

There were five of us going on the ride, three of whom would be on Beachcombers. I may not (yet) have my own Beachcomber, but I was at least representing 26+: eight of the ten tires on this ride were WTB Ranger 26×2.8’s.

We collected at Matias’ folk’s place and headed off from there. The two non-26+ tires were a pair of Rene Herse knobbies on a custom WZRD single speed, below left. A righteous bike as well!

The first bit of the ride was a challenging road climb to get to the top of the British Properties, where Millstream trail begins. Millstream is one of Mara and I’s favourite local trails – it starts out as a wide and relatively smooth dog-walker type path, gradually becoming more narrow and rough until you’re on pretty technical singletrack punctuated with wash-outs, before culminating in two deep ravine crossings.

But immediately after the second rather brutal ravine crossing, you pop out at the Cypress lookout – going from scrambling in the woods to being surrounded by tourists within minutes. The lookout gives credit to all that climbing done over the past hour:

There is a little-known trail directly below this lookout that we took next, bringing us to lower elevation and connecting to the Caulfield loop’s western section; namely the lookout the route is built around. The sun was low in the sky at this point and the wildfire smoke to the north and west brought a copper hue to the air. Thankfully the air quality where we were wasn’t too bad.

The route has a series of trails that connect really nice, but the trails themselves are often quite challenging or not rideable at all. Some would find this frustrating while others find it joyous; thankfully this group is unanimously in the latter camp. The route seamlessly takes us to a few old growth firs found in the middle of west van, below left. After this, we were back on ‘normal’ roads and headed home.

It’s hard to believe that there’s not a lot more summer left, although with the recent wildfire smoke, I’m quite eager for autumn to arrive. This post summarizes a few outings that didn’t really warrant a standalone post. Mostly bikes, but not always bikes.

The first image, below left, was actually July 31st – a ride with Matias Stridsland and Simon. I took them to this, one of my favourite local spots, which connects (somewhat awkwardly) down to an unmapped trail. Below right was taken August 1st on my way to the grocery store. This good boi has a genetic condition that makes his hair grow long despite being a short-haired breed. What a cutie! Don’t worry, I provided lots of pets.

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I wanted to check out some areas of Coquitlam for an idea for Burnabop XL day this year, which also gave me opportunity to ride a couple favourite spots along the way.

Fast-forward a week, and I’ve freshly assembled my new Stooge Rambler mostly from parts on the Evasion previously. I wanted to get out for a short shakedown ride before dusk, and chose Trout Lake because it was easy. I totally forgot Bike Rave was happening, and also that it started at Trout Lake, and I ended up showing up just as people were gathering for it.

Heck with it, I joined, despite not having dinner yet. Quite a memorable shakedown ride! Ran into a few friends in the process, too. That was Saturday night. Sunday I got out for a full Seymour valley loop which I’ve posted about already.

Above, right: I finally saw the green heron at Trout Lake after trying probably around ten times – this time it was just cruising the dog park beach, easy as can be to spot!

On Tuesday, I got word wildfire smoke was on the way so I got myself out for a ride despite not feeling too great. It did the trick, by the time I finished I felt a lot better! Just over the bridge and onto some of my fav little trails:

The smoke never got too bad, thankfully, so I was able to participate in Wednesday’s parkbagging as well as Thursday’s Hotdogz group ride. In the first six days of having the Rambler built up, I’ve ridden it 170 km!

Since spring of 2025 I’ve been convinced that the Stooge Rambler would be my ideal adventure bike, suited perfectly for the sort of mixed terrain all-day ambles I like to ride on any given weekend as well as weekend trips to the Gulf Islands and some bigger bikepacking routes I have ambition to ride. It’s been sold out until now, so I’m finally realizing this dream almost a year and a half later.

I received the frame on Friday afternoon and started building it up straight away. Saturday morning I made a trip to the local bike shop to get the last bits I needed, then took it for a ride in the evening – joining up with Bike Rave with hundreds of illuminated bikes taking over the street. Quite a shake-down ride! On Sunday I took it up Seymour valley on my favourite loop, making sure to stop at all my favourite spots.

I don’t homebrew anymore, but I always make a point to attend the annual summer BBQ put on in one of the founding members’ backyard. In addition to seeing a lot of old friends, the quality of food and beer is better than most restaurants in Vancouver. The main course is pulled pork, which is smoked overnight prior to being prepped immediately before the event.

It starts at 4pm, so in keeping with tradition, I went for a loop around Pacific Spirit park first. Riding through Jericho, some country music festival was going on, so I pressed on to get away from the noise. I could still hear it when I reached the UBC grounds, several kilometres later. While it was busy around there, by the time I was at the west end of Spanish Banks, it was very quiet:

I took my favourite route from the northwest corner to the southeast corner, passing through several different biospheres. While there’s no old growth in Pac Spirit, it does contain some of the oldest second-growth in greater Vancouver.

I arrived at the BBQ around 5pm as intended, and it was already pretty packed. Food was predictably excellent, and I went for a second helping (not pictured). The beers were great, as well as some great ciders from friend LA and vermouth from another friend dave. There were excellent meads going around too, but I mostly steered clear to keep myself out of trouble. It worked!

Despite getting home after 11:30pm, and having who-knows-really-how-much beer, I felt quite good the following morning – and the weather was cool and properly wet. The pups love this weather (and, to be honest, so do I) so we got out for a two hour walk including a stopover at Burrard view:

Matias, owner of Stridsland, lives and operates out of Denmark but grew up in North Vancouver and visits in the summer. He’s started organizing a big group ride when in town, and this past Saturday was the 2026 edition – combining forces with Boneshaker MTB and pals Hotdogs on Wheelz. I also rode with him and the other organizers, along with a small group, on Thursday evening. These snaps are from Thursday:

Now onto Saturday. This first photo was taken on the morning dog walk actually, but I quite like it so I’m including anyway. The ride was predictably well-attended, and a lot of fun. I got a lot of wheelie practice in, and have been steadily improving – and the hype from the ride (and a couple beers) helped me take my chances with some higher speed shenanigans.

I joined a FB group for Vancouver area birding, and recently have been noticing that some cool birds I haven’t seen before were being regularly spotted at ƛ̓éxətəm (previously Colony Farm) in Port Coquitlam, so today’s goal was to ride out there with my new Lumix ZS300 and get some bird photos. Being just a point-and-shoot camera with 1″ sensor, the photos aren’t ever going to be that impressive, but good enough for ID for sure.

I’ll put the bird photos and bird talk at the end, and talk about the ride first. I just received this cross-body strap from Nocs the day before, which really unlocks the ability to ride with the camera and get photos on-the-fly. It worked great.

The loop tallied to 72km, with my birding destination about 30km from home. A lot of it was along paved parkway or bike route, and included sections of trail to connect things up.

Here’s a photo from the camera in the clearing after a section of trail, approaching my destination in the distance.

Fast-forward to when I’ve left the area (I spent close to 2 hrs there) and climbed up to Mundy Park; a brutal hill to get up there, but I figured it was more interesting than just going back the way I came. This cute little pollinator garden was a bonus:

A couple photos from Mundy below. There are two small lakes in the park, and I was also surprised by the bird activity which turned it into a second wave of birding I wasn’t really expecting.

Onto the birds! So, my inspiration for riding out to ƛ̓éxətəm park in PoCo was from recent sightings of Eastern Kingbirds and Lazuli Buntings. The latter are a very exotic blue colour, while the Kingbirds aren’t too exciting but a new bird is a new bird! I didn’t see any Lazuli buntings, but I did get three new birds.

Well before I arrived here though, I heard brown creepers along the Brunette River on the bike path. I’ve come to recognize their sound, which reminds me of trees rubbing against each other in the wind, except higher pitched. I think most people who walk the woods around here would be familiar with their call, even though most won’t have seen them since they’re pretty well camouflaged. I took quite a few unsuccessful photos before I managed this banger of a pair of what I believe to be juveniles:

Once in Colony Farm proper, I walked a 600m long no-bikes path and found this bare shrub tree that provided a rotation of birds to view to reward my patience. Among others, I saw a beautiful American Goldfinch, and to my great excitement, I finally got a proper view (and photo) of a common yellowthroat!

About 40 yards away was this Eastern Kingbird chilling. It would fly a loop and land back on the same perch, affording me enough time to get a decent photo. This was at maximum zoom for the camera including digital zoom (30x), so while the photo isn’t super detailed, I’m very pleased to be able to get a photo at all from such distance.

An unexpected new bird for me was the northern rough-legged swallow, of which I saw many – three pictured here, with the parents nearby.

Moving onto Mundy Park, I noticed a lot of birdsong when I got into the woods so I pulled out the ol’ Merlin app to see what was around me. It quickly picked up red-eyed vireo, brown creeper, western tanager, and chestnut-backed chickadee. I have only seen western tanager once before and they are very exotic looking birds so I was keen to get a photo if possible, and I’d never seen a red-eyed vireo so that was motivational as well. Sadly I didn’t see either, but I did get to watch this cedar waxwing which Merlin never picked up:

I also got a fleeting look at a western flycatcher but no photo. After this, I rolled westward to Dageraad for a burger and beer before making my way back into town. I left the house at 11:30am and returned just before 7pm – a good full day out!

My only plan today was to check out the Shim’s Ride crit race happening about 5km from home, but I left the house almost five hours before the races I wanted to see without much of a plan. I did have my new camera with me, a Panasonic Lumix ZS300, which replaced the ZS99 I owned for 13 days but decided the image quality was just too poor. The 300 has only half the zoom, but a much larger sensor. It also cost about 60% more, so I hope I get my money’s worth out of it.

Having this camera with me, I figured Iona would be a good destination; it’s about 28km each way, and is a local hotspot for birds as I’ve covered before. I decided to ride out to the far end of the northern spit, which is mostly hardpack but does get sandy in spots:

The tide was really low, and the sandy beach extended as far as I could see – and was firm enough I was able to ride around on it for a while! Pretty fun but also pretty tiring – and pretty hard on my drivetrain, I imagine.

As for the photos I got with the new camera, the birdwatching wasn’t too exciting but here are some images off the camera. I’m pretty happy with them considering it’s a 15x zoom point-and-shoot.

It’s July now, but you’d never know it this day. While much of the world is grappling with heat waves that fill my heart with despair, Vancouver was about 13C and rainy all day. At this time of year that’s kind of novel, so I decided to go for a ride up to Rice Lake where it’s always most beautiful – and quiet – in the rain.

The north shore mountains should be visible in that photo above, but they were fully socked in. I chose the poncho rather than the rain pants and jacket, partially as I thought the rain would taper off. It did not.

I rode Fishermans to start, then climbed up to the paved parkway. Both were especially lovely with the rain and bit of fog.

I hardly saw anyone in the forest, but the birds were especially numerous. Lots of Swainson’s Thrush up for the summer; they’ll head to South America for winter. I went to probably the best spot around the lake, which is often occupied in fairer weather but today it was mine:

The rain was light but persistent, creating a shimmering effect on the still lake. There were a few people walking around the lake, their conversations carrying easily over the water.

I passed through some thicker fog on the way out which made the forest look even better, above. Below shows just how much rain had fallen today – the rains never got that heavy, but they also never let up.

I had only ridden one day so far this week, and set aside all day on Saturday to ride with little other plan. This time, I didn’t want to set any distance expectations and instead just wander on the Bombadil. The Bombadil is not made for speed, anyway. One of the reasons I chose the Bombadil for this ride was the potential for precipitation, as it currently has fenders. Alas it actually turned out to be a bit of a hot and sunny day.

I took a pretty indirect route but eventually ended up along the Spirit Trail in North Vancouver, and I was anticipating this collection of wildflowers near the brewery district from prior years:

I noodled up from the bike path along what’s well-established now as my preferred route to Cypress Bowl Rd. It would be confusing for a first-timer, but once you’ve done it a handful of times, it all links up naturally and keeps one off busy streets almost entirely.

Then it’s a short push up a steep right-of-way to the highway fenceline that Rob found a few years ago now. It’s been well maintained despite being so well hidden – I have to assume it’s a favoured local connection.

Next up is the lower Cypress lookout located at the first hairpin. Behind me in this photo is a busy open patio of folks enjoying pizza and beer. I considered it, but wanted to press on before I lost steam.

The next bit was steep, but the payoff is good once you reach the Nelson Creek FSR. It’s chunky in spots, as noted below, but it’s also relatively flat.

The FSR ends with a steep connector trail down to the popular Whyte Lake trail, but just before that is Brown Teacup – a relic from a forgotten era, it’s pretty steep and hasn’t been popular in probably twenty years, if it was popular at all.

The trail doesn’t look bad in the photos I took, but I was too busy clamouring down the steep rooty, rocky chutes that define the trail to take photos for the most part. Short bits were rideable on the Bombadil and I enjoyed every foot of this.

It was a pretty long ride back from essentially Horseshoe Bay back to town, but nothing noteworthy to photograph. A key part of my ride plan, and just about every West Van ride plan between May and September, was a stop for fish and chips at the Boatshed. I wish we had more of these concession stand type setups around town – perfect for someone like me who wants to spend all their time outside.

Back in January, a friend caught wind of this bike event happening in the new Southlands development in Tsawwassen and signed up for it. I jumped on the bandwagon and signed up as well – it was free to participate but limited to those who had registered – and it filled up in five days!

Fast-forward to this past Saturday and the event was here, and the weather was sunny but not too hot – perfect for a big ride. I headed off at 9:20am for my 1:30pm start time, which gave me about an hour of dilly dally time along the way.

The Hillborne’s recent rebuild into a more sporty and lightweight version was perfect, since it was going to be well over 100km round trip and include a fair bit of gravel. The ride involved following the bike route along the SkyTrain into New West, then a couple bridges to get into Delta, the latter of which (Alex Fraser) is a doozy.

But once in Delta I was able to almost immediately hop into the woods and ride a series of forest paths that run along the bog that separates South Surrey and Delta. I heard a variety of songbirds through here and tried to use my new camera to get some good photos, but no luck – and I had to keep moving, because there was still a ways to go.

After the north-south forest paths, it’s a long ride along the beautiful Boundary Bay dyke to get to Tsawwassen. I think it’s around 15km, but feels longer due to the monotony. I also had a headwind, but it’s hard to be mad when the path is lined with flowers.

The ride itself was about 15km, which we extended by about 3km to ride to the other, original Four Winds location at the far side of Delta, before turning around and heading back south to the Beach House location. By the time we finished the charity ride I was over 90km into my day and was at the furthest point from home!

The event itself was a great success it looks like – well organized, especially considering it was the inaugural year. Bands were playing, with local legends 54-40 headlining later in the evening. We left about two hours before they were going on, though.

I didn’t take a lot of photos on my 50 km ride home, but here’s one mid-span of the aforementioned Alex Fraser, complete with sunscreen filter on the lens. The ride finished up around 145km in length, my longest ride in a couple years I think, but I felt fresh and energetic right through the end, to my surprise!