September is one of my favourite months of the year – the kids are back in school, so all the campgrounds are a little more quiet, and the weather is still generally good while also being a little less hot out. More recently, Septembers have become a bit more unpredictable, with heat and wildfire smoke being potential issues still. This was the case for the first few days of the month, and air quality was iffy for riding. I did get out for a pretty big ride on September 6th despite moderate air quality, out to Richmond.
I took the Hillborne, and my route was to hop onto the trails near the airport. Given the air quality, I was ready to pull the plug if necessary and turn back around, but made it to Steveston for the Fish n Chips I was after. On the way home the air became a bit worse, and even more unexpectedly, a proper rain storm hit – which I was not prepared for at all. In the end it was a relatively flat 60km ride.
The next day was looking clearer, and I went off on the Wombat to try out the eastern loop of a route I had been working on for Bike Portage Club. It was meant to be rather difficult, but it proved more silly than I had realized – the power of a pre-ride! Of course, reviewing the photos, it just looks like it was a beautiful ride. I suppose that’s true as well!
A few days later I rode the Twenty downtown to meet up with some visiting family, a perfect use-case of the Twenty – without it I’d just use bike share, which would be fine as well, but I do prefer riding my own bike.
Over the next days I packed up the Stooge for the last camping trip of the season, which I’ve covered in detail here.
Returning from the very successful and fun camping trip, it was now the back half of September. The next week we had another edition of Parkbagging, which I combined with errands to make a pretty big loop (over 45 km) around most of Vancouver. Summer-like weather was still holding strong, and we were seeking shade when available:
Over the next week I got out for a few slightly shorter after-work rides, trying to hang onto the longish daylight hours while they last – 25 to 35 km, one to Barnet Marine Park for a beautiful sunset and one to QE park to enjoy the beginnings of changing foliage.
On the 27th and 28th I got out for a couple nice rides, which coincided with when I caught up on blogging, so they each have their own post as well. So I won’t get into too much detail about them.
I finished the month with 452 km on the odometer, a bit down from the monthly average in 2025 due to prioritizing some other life things.
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