False Creek

M headed back to the hotel when we finished our loop, but I kept going. I've always wanted to ride the Seaside trail all the way around and out to Spanish Banks and this was the perfect opportunity.

I've been doing long rides every Saturday all summer - motivated by the new bike. Our basic loop around Stanley Park was 7 miles or so, but by the time I made it back from the far end, I'd put on more than 30 miles.

The trail is great. Most of it is dedicated bike path, usually segregated from the pedestrian path it parallels. The biggest challenge was the volume of traffic and the number of riders with very little road sense. I can forgive the kids - but still have to watch out for them. And at least the Brit who swerved left when he should have swerved right (dangerous, but understandable, given their conditioned responses to oncoming traffic), was very apologetic (in a very polite British way). But the walkers staring into their cell phones while wandering down the middle of the bike lanes and the tourists on rented bikes who seemed oblivious to basic road etiquette, or even to the presence of other riders, was a little terrifying!

In Kitsilano (okay - we're not on False Creek anymore, despite the title of the post), the trail shifts away from the shore and onto well-marked bikeways through the Point Grey neighborhood, before hitting the long stretches of Jericho Beach and Spanish Banks, where you lose pavement. The trail completely peters out as you approach UBC, but I kept going up the hill on the road before deciding to turn around. I took a break and walked down to Acadia Beach, which sort of marks the transition from the broad sandy beach at Spanish Banks to the cobble foreshore of Point Grey and Wreck Beach.

Spanish Banks - quite a ways beyond False Creek - looking back at the city