Following my trip recap, and since I’m stuck inside for a few days with the flu,
I started the year with a new bike – the Bike Friday I bought a few days after Christmas – and on January 5th I got out for an all-day ride on it. I believe I was staying out of the house because Aimée was feeling sick and wanted to isolate. I ended up selling this bike to a friend part-way through the year – it was a great bike, but I just wasn’t able to find a way to make physical space for it, so I went back to N-1.
At this time we only had Leia, as we lost our Aussie, Dodger, to cancer in summer 2024. We dog-sat a friend’s pup, Cheddar, for a few days. Also, a couple pics from a scenic winter morning at the local dog park. The tree on the left of the right-most photo has recently fallen from a windstorm. Pretty sad.. glad I have this photo of it.
On January 11th, I got out for a West Vancouver loop – riding to a lookout near Horseshoe Bay, then taking a series of trails (some rideable, some not) across to Cypress Mountain. Rob’s famous fenceline makes an appearance, as it has in several of my ride posts. It’s not famous. It’s actually barely known at all. A hilly 50km day to tire the legs out.
The following day, January 12th, I rode out to Burnaby to pick up a Marketplace purchase – and took a rather silly way back, tracing through the woods along these older paths that don’t seem to get a lot of traffic, leading to Deer Lake, where I toodled around for a while.
January 13 to 15: errands on the Twenty, which happen frequently but rarely warrant a photo; night time dog walk photography, and a very crisp morning commute to Richmond. My commute is 14km each way and I typically do it once a week.
Speaking of my commute, my route home deviates slightly from my route into work, taking me along Trout Lake – the water level was quite high and a lot of the low lying areas flooded. As I write this (Dec 20, 2025) the flooding has returned to similar levels.
A few days later, Saturday January 18th, I delivered the polished Velocity Dually rims I purchased for the Stooge up to Kissing Crows Cyclery – and then traversed the south side of Vancouver eastwards into Burnaby and visited one of my favourite ponds, tucked within Everett Crowley Park. It was quite cold, and a thin layer of ice had built up on the pond.
On my way home I passed through Trout Lake again and found it was similarly icing over. Also, the crows had recently starting collecting here to roost in the evenings, and the noise and atmosphere was quite something.
As I flip through my photos I’m impressed how much riding I got in for January! The next day, Sunday the 19th, I was back out there again – delivering my Bike Friday front triangle to Firstlight Frames to have a Brompton block welded on, and then riding around for a couple hours while he did his work.
Thomas’ shop is located near the Downtown Eastside, and from there I passed through downtown and stumbled upon the demolition of a historic building I had heard was happening – I watched for a while alongside a bunch of others with a sadness in the air.
I then made my way to the north shore and linked up with my friend Tay, and we rode to a small lookout on Cypress Mtn. This was probably a little ambitious, and I got back to the shop to pick up my modified frame a little later than intended. I was still able to get home and excitedly re-assemble the bike though! This was probably about a 50km day.
It started to get colder over the next few days but I managed to ride to work on the 23rd in sub-zero temps, taking advantage of the Bike Friday upgrades to carry my work gear in the Brompton bag. The same flooded benches from above were now in ice. Oh, and a photo of Leia for good measure.
On Saturday, January 25th there was an edition of parkbagging, which I rode the Bike Friday to. It was very chilly but we got a good turnout. I only took one kind of crappy photo though, below left. On the Sunday though I got out for a loop of Burnaby Mountain while it was below freezing, and with the north aspect, it was well frosted. I also spotted something flitting about in the shrubs, a Ruby Crowned Kinglet it turned out! I followed it along for quite a while, trying to get a good photo. They never stop moving!
I took all the little detour trails available to me, and explored a new-to-me route on the east side that paid off with some nice views and interesting sections of trail. As many of my Burnaby Mountain rides do, I ended up at Dageraad for a cheeky beer (and a bit) before travelling home.
On the final day of January I went for a walk with Leia at QE Park while Aimée had a routine specialist visit. It was absolutely soaking this day and just above freezing, but it was undeniably beautiful. It was really nice to spend a good while just exploring with Leia.
Needless to say, January was a good month for me in 2025 when it came to getting outside, despite the cold and often wet weather. Per Strava, I rode 465 km and spent 34 hours on the bike. I lucked out with a lot of clear skies, and it really only dipped below freezing a few days. My mileage was mostly between the Hillborne and Bombadil, both of which saw 50+ km outings, with the Bike Friday coming in third.
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