There comes a point where both the bikes and the riders need a bit of maintenance. With bikes, it’s fairly easy, new tires, fresh oil, and they feel more or less ready to go in a span of about an hour. After dealing with that in the afternoon, we spent the evening catching up with a new friend.
The weather was lovely, the shades of pink and purple in the sky were indescribable as the sun slowly made its way down below the horizon. It’s not just the days that are long in the summer as you head north, the transitions into night also seem to take forever. Of course, it’s the Pacific coast, so the sunny weather changed the next day. We almost got caught in the rain as we stopped for breakfast in another lovely Mexican eatery. That “almost” disappeared when we made our way to the Canadian border. It was overcast skies and rain all the way to Vancouver, BC. The border crossing was not as smooth as we had hoped. The city greeted us with construction, incessant traffic and its signature gloomy weather. Here we planned to shift gears, rest for a bit and prepare for the next part of our northbound journey.
One thing that’s been intriguing me near Vancouver was a riding area called McNutt mountain. It was a great opportunity to ride some beautiful single track without the weight of the luggage. Admittedly, I didn’t do as well as I used to just a couple of months ago. Aside from steep loose climbs and sharp turns, my main mental nemesis turned out to be the bridges. People who built this network of trails took care to protect the numerous tiny creeks flowing down the mountain by installing short narrow bridges over them. They are narrow and slippery enough that you can’t stop and put a foot down in the middle. The sight of the first such bridge made me deeply uncomfortable, especially because I approached it from a very unfortunate angle. End result: my nerves gave in and my bike fell into the creek before the rear tire even touched the bridge surface.
I can’t say that was the only time I dropped my bike, but it was the only one where a bridge was involved. For the next ones (there are over a hundred of bridges here), I made sure to plan and look a little further ahead, and they posed no issues.
Eventually, it was time to get on the water again. BC ferries make hourly crossings to the Vancouver Island, and that’s where we headed next. Having heard so much about the area, we were excited to finally see it for ourselves. We boarded the ferry with just a minute to spare before the departure, and braced ourselves for more cloudy skies.
