Rides and Such

Another Saturday afternoon outing similar to a few recent ones, looping around Burnaby Mountain. I was expecting some rain today but the forecast cleared up and I completed the ride dry. Temps were cool, about 6C. First up, I rode from home to Dageraad Brewing (I know, this is becoming a theme…) to try their […]

After yesterday’s rainy ride, today was looking a lot more dry and I had a new personal challenge in mind. I had noticed on Strava’s global heatmap, when turned to ‘All Sports’, had an image of a small shelter that was constructed on the north side of Burnaby Mountain in a rather random area. There […]

Late November around here means rain and cold, and getting out for a ride in these conditions can be motivationally challenging. After getting thoroughly soaked on a long dog walk first thing in the morning, I figured I’d spend the rest of the day inside in sweats – but then I remembered a trip to […]

This is the second ride on my newly built up Crust Evasion, and the first one with freshly installed fenders. The weather was looking drizzly but not overly rainy, and cool but not too cold – about 7 or 8 degrees Celsius. I had noticed a trail on heatmaps months ago that piqued my curiosity, […]

I felt like my quiver was really settled, and there was basically nothing on my bike wishlist anymore. But then a friend who’d just purchased a Crust Evasion frame set had some unexpected financial and health challenges come up that necessitated selling it, and I got to thinking. I had never considered an Evasion despite […]

On this particular Sunday, I set off on a mission to see some salmon at the hatchery at Cleveland Dam, which is located at one of the two watershed lakes in North Vancouver. I didn’t take a lot of photos of the ride up except the one below left after hoofing my bike up a […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Booked in haste as soon as reservations opened this past spring, I had a site at Shingle Bay campground alongside a handful of friends for August 22 – 24. Shingle Bay is a secluded campground along a particularly beautiful bit of coastline, accessible only by foot or bike, and with a minimum of services: no […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Onto my fourth bike of six, I chose the Brompton today because the weather forecast was iffy at best and the route was going to be reasonably urban. It was Saturday, Dec 28th 2024, and it was also Park Bagging. Park bagging was started by a bike pal and has been running since May 2023, […]

Day one was the Raleigh Twenty, day two was the Hillborne. Day three, Dec 27 2024, was also Friday: the day of Camp Coffee Club’s morning meeting. This week was at the OG location, Waterfront Park in North Van. I show up quite irregularly on account of the early hour, but I got myself out […]

Quick recap of the challenge: instead of Festive 500 from Dec 24 to 31, I challenged myself to ride each of my six bikes a minimum a 50km over the same period. Part 1 was my old Twenty on Christmas Eve. I took Christmas day off to spend with my partner and pupper. But as […]

I hadn’t considered doing the Festive 500 this year, though I’m quite familiar with the challenge. It wasn’t until a friend proclaimed they would attempt it that I realized I could put some time towards such a challenge since I had the week off work. I wanted to put my spin on the challenge and […]

Two weeks after I rode this route on the Susie, I went back out on the Bombadil with clearer skies – thankfully, since this time I had no fenders. It was cool but not especially cold; maybe 7 or 8C. The snow line was still pretty high and I only saw the odd patch near […]

Rob and I are two peas in a very peculiar pod. These rides Rob and I have been doing where we try to find the sneakiest, least likely routes up mountains have “inspired” me to create Bike Portage Club because despite failing spectacularly on a consistent basis as rideable, they’re still really rewarding days out […]

There is a popular trail along the west side of Mosquito Creek that starts just off the busy Marine Dr in North Vancouver and heads north to Montroyal Ave. Beyond that it does technically keep going to the powerlines, but it quickly devolves from wide dog-walk friendly path to technical hiking trail, complete with climbing […]

We are gluttons for punishment, clearly. Armed with a fresh idea of how to get up to the sub-alpine ski area of Cypress Mountain using as few roads as possible, Rob and I took advantage of the long daylight hours and headed towards the mountain. I took the trust Wombat once again, this time featuring […]

This year, local bike shop Kissing Crows hosted an official Swift Campout overnighter to Saysutshun (Newcastle) island just outside Nanaimo BC. I don’t typically camp in big groups but it’s really fun to do occasionally, and this was a really good group and a perfect destination for the large numbers. It was an early morning […]

With the bike park coming to Grouse next year, access to ride all the way to the tourist area, with grizzly bears and beer on tap, was about to disappear. So we made one last go at it. It was also the very first ride on my new Stooge Scrambler, which replaced the Tracker I […]

It’s not a great name. The reason it has this name is because it’s at the base of what is called suicide bluff, a predictably steep and treacherous bit of topography along the west side of Seymour mountain. Nevertheless, I had this far-fetched idea to try to connect from the end of Suicide Branch, a […]

I’ve written up previous experiences of this loop, but this day I rode a bike that I’ve only had a month that is extremely well suited to the terrain: the Susie Longbolts / Wolbis Slugstone, a “hillibike” by Rivendell. The name ‘hillibike’ is to signify its suitability for trail riding while distancing itself from today’s […]

July 13, 2024 My pops lives in Chemainus, a small town along the coast of Vancouver Island between Nanaimo and Victoria. I’ve ridden to his place before a couple times now via a combination of paved MUP and quiet roads with a few kilometres of highway shoulder. But I hoped to find a way to […]

In February, a friend noticed that all three of the small cabins at Sooke River Campground, a campground I was entirely unfamiliar with, were available and for a very reasonable rate during an April weekend that they had available. Impulsively, I booked one while friends booked the other two. Given that April is typically a […]

The Seymour valley, also referred to as the LSCR (Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve), is a valley that I’ve spent quite a bit of time. There is nowhere else like it locally, providing a true wilderness experience just outside the city. By mid-March, when this ride took place, winter is easing its grip on Vancouver. But […]

This is being written in Dec 2023 as I think back to the beautiful and challenging 200k brevet I rode in March 2022. I believe it was either my third or fourth 200, and I still have not ventured to longer brevets. I’m not sure if I will or not! I rode to the start […]

Every year, Swift Campout is organized worldwide on the same weekend as my partners’ birthday. Since going as a family is not particularly feasible for a few reasons, some years I sneak off to join friends with a quick overnight camp and some years I don’t. This year I did, just joining for the first […]

The Discomfort Zone route was put together by friends at Love Machine Cycling with Scott, who is both a strong road & gravel rider as well as talented mountain biker. The confluence of these skills can be found in this route: it’s difficult in many respects. I chose to ride it on my Stooge Speedbomb, […]

First of all, “CJR” stands for Classic Jason Ride and was coined some years ago by my regular riding buddies as something you’d mutter under your breath when forced to once again get off your bike to carry it over an unrideable section of trail or up a flight of stairs. It wasn’t that I […]

This report is tangentially related to my post about the Tripleshot Crossfondo event in Victoria. Rob is one of several of my friends who have done the event, most of them twice now – I did not partake the first year, but the notoriety it had was infectious and got me out the following year. […]

In mid October 2023, I rode from home to Chemainus BC, visiting my dad, then the next day getting a lift to Victoria BC for a rather unique and challenging event. The day after the event I rode home from Victoria to Vancouver. The result was four days (three riding), about 235km, and all upon […]

The Burnabop XL route came about after the stoke of putting together the original Burnabop route. Burnabop is a 42km “666m” (actually more like 800m) elevation route around Burnaby’s lesser known trails and cheeky pathways that I had shared with Max of Love Machine Cycling to get the word out to like-minded wanderers. The standard […]

The Wombat, as you may already know, is the signature frame of Garrett at Crust. It’s the kind of bike that only exists when someone is allowed full creative control to bring their passion project to life: a totally unique bike that doesn’t really align with anything on the market already. What makes it unique? […]

I had the opportunity, fortunate timing, and reckless spending habit to purchase my size from the V1 prototype samples of the upcoming road-ish bike with ‘swoop tube’ technology from Rivendell dubbed the Charlie H Gallop. Each size was painted a different colour, and the 54cm that fit me best happened to be silver, which was […]

My second custom build from Dream Cycle, five years after my Salsa Vaya build. In the couple years prior I bounced between 700c (the Vaya, a Surly Ogre) and 26″ (Surly LHT) and finally landed on the goldilocks 650B wheel size, which, in retrospect, is pretty obviously the optimal size for my stature. I wish […]

Of all the bikes I’ve owned, this is the one I’ve had the longest at this point: about 12 years and counting. I bought it off a friend for $100 and it was completely stock. It was 2009 and I was immersed in the teachings of Sheldon Brown, which led me to spend more on […]

This was my first full custom, shop-built bike that wasn’t a mountain or trials bike. It was built in 2011 by Dream Cycle, and if I had just realized that I could do 650B on this bike, I might have kept it a lot longer (I sold it in 2013 or 2014). I never did […]

I started doing tricks on my 20″ Kuwahara around the age of eight, taking jumps, riding no hands, standing on the saddle, etc. My parents upgraded me to a Trek Antelope which I took my skills to the next level as I learned to wheelie for long stretches at a time. I also started doing […]

My second Rivendell was purchased only two months after my first – during the holiday break in December 2019, Rivendell put the 45cm Clem H on web special of $750. At the time, I was riding an old Nishiki MTB as my around-town bike and it was fine, but a Clem Smith Jr would be […]

Ride date: Dec 19, 2021 I co-planned this ride with a pal, but ended up not being able to join the 8am start – instead, I found myself walking the dogs at 9:30am, and every paved surface was so icy that I was constantly nearly falling and choosing to walk on grass whenever possible. I […]

This was my first Rivendell, bought not too long ago at all, really! Ordered in October of 2019 (and received in November), in the first two years I had already put more mileage on this bike than any bike previous (about 5800 km), despite having had many others for longer. The parts, initially, all transferred […]