Tripleshot Cycling

While I was drinking on a barge last night, Garth C. appeared before me like a vision, waving a phone filled with maps, wiggly lines and bright ideas.

Join us* for a 6:30 a.m. departure from the Alpha St. Starbucks to explore new vistas in Saanich and the Highlands. Probably hitting coffee by 10:30. Knobblies recommended. Kitties optional.



*Garth's participation dependent on not having shredded his legs too badly in today's Awesome Grand Prix Provincial Champ crit in Mt. Pleasant.

Sounds good Rolf, but let's hope that Garth shows up. After a few drinks on the barge this is all I remember of him giving directions,



And, just to double check. You do mean the Starbucks on Alpha Street, right?

Yes, the one across from the behemoth of consumption that Mayfair mall has become.

We had a really fun morning, courtesy of Garth's trail-running background and superb guiding skills. Thanks, Garth!

From our Starbucks meet-up to our Fry's Bakery post-ride coffee, we rode 47.7 km over about 3.5 hours. We hit the usual Goose and Colquitz River systems, but also explored miles and miles of (new-to-me) single track past Thetis, up to Munn, past Mt. Work and around Hartland. Some of it got a bit technical, some was grind-y climbs, but much of it was spent whizzing over a carpet of bliss, through verdant trees, golden sunflakes dancing through the branches and landing lightly on our grateful and sweaty brows.

Tallying up all the small connectors between the various trail-heads, I came up with only 7.5 km of road out of that 47.7 km total—leaving 84.3% of our ride on trails!! Also: nearly 2 km of that road total was the sweetest, swoopiest, downhill section of Ross-Durrance—which is probably my favourite road to ride in the whole region.

Chuck in the 5 km warm-up from home to our meet-up, and a leisurely 10 km spin home from coffee, and it made for an almost perfect ride, door-to-door. We are truly so fortunate to live in this cycling paradise (and to have our health and cross bikes to ride!)

In hopes of inspiring any of you CX fence-sitters, and to remember the day, here are a few photographs (you can make up your own captions). Our next adventure may check out Hazlitt Creek, the Hydro Road connector to Finny Arm, and maybe some Bear Mtn. on the return. Come join in the fun!

To you fence sitters out there, childcare is not a legit excuse,

That was such a great morning of CX riding!
Really enjoyed exploring the trails on the bike (can cover way more on the bike than running).
Looking forward to putting some more routes together for Sunday rides