My Newish Passion

I have always enjoyed biking but I am am enjoying it now more the ever. For as long as I can remember I have had a bike and when growing up I would use it to get around my small home town of Bowen Island. I never got that serious into biking, it was mainly a way to have fun and to get from point A to B when there was no parent available to give me a ride. When I was about 11 I fell off my bike and put a huge cut on my forehead, deep enough to see the skull, that required 11 stiches. You can still see the scar today, but that did not stop me from biking.

I have mostly been interested in mountain biking up until 2 summers ago when I decided I wanted to buy a road bike. Sure I enjoyed mountain biking a lot but I wanted to go farther and faster and the only way to do that was on a bike designed with that in mind. It took a while for me to build up the strength and endurance required but after a few months of practice I started to get pretty good at going some distance. This last summer I increased that distance even farther and started taking the bike out for longer and longer amounts of time.

Then I decided I wanted to take it to the next level by buying some camping gear which would allow me to go out for more then one day at a time. My first trip was with some friends where we traveled to Pender and Galliano Island. For my second trip I wanted more of a challenge, this would involve me traveling from Vancouver to Nanaimo then south down to Victoria where I would catch a ferry back to Vancouver. The total trip would take 2 days and total more the 220 km. And of course the entire time I was carrying all my camping gear.

My long term goal would be to bike from Vancouver to Calgary and back. That is still a long way off, I still need a lot more training. Part of that training involves biking up the road to Cypress Mountain, a climb of almost 1000 meters. That is one very hard climb that takes about 2 hours to reach the top. But the feeling of accomplishment when you arrive is totally worth the pain. And the riding back down an amazing reward.

Bonus Stuff

I know that I have not been posting that much, I have not even posted my top ten movies lists for the last 2 years. So I have decided that instead of doing a big write up I would simply attach the lists below.