Vancouver (Stanley Park, Canada Place, Lion's Gate bridge, Yaletown)

We saw a lot of cyclist while we drove through Stanley Park in Vancouver the first time so we decided to give it a try the next day. We found out there are many bike rentals near the park on Denman St:

• Spokes Bicycle
• Bayshore Bicycles

We ended up renting from the first one as they seem to have the better bikes: my daughter got a Giant mountain bike while I got a Sedona 24-speed "Comfort" bike

Underneath Granville Bridge

View of Vancouver from Stanley Park

Lions' Gate bridge

Middle of the bridge

I have studied the maps and googled quite a bit the night before but I couldn't find much good info on routes for biking over Lion's Gate bridge. So hopefully this post will be helpful to those interested in riding it. Since we biked for 12-miles in Monterey just one week before and we have more time available this time so we decided to do a 18-mile route, which means in addition to looping around Stanley Park + crossing the Lion's Gate, we tagged on more: to and from Canada place and the bottom of Granville bridge.

Note that the Stanley Park bike path is one-way (counterclockwise) So, once we realized that we missed the "exit" to the Pipeline Rd/Stanley Park Drive (which lead to the entrance to Lion's Gate) there's no turning back. We ended up going all the way to the Second Beach and "exit" to the Bridle Path (unpaved gravel road), which ran across the park, to the Lake Trail. Finally we got back on the Pipeline Rd! Bicycles and cars use the same entrance to the Lion's Gate bridge but bicycles ride on the same sidewalk as pedestrian. Once we reached the end of the bridge, there's an underpass to crossover to the way back. After exiting to the park, we got on the Prospect Point Trail (opposite direction from the Prospect Point), then Bridle Path, Rawlings Trail, and Bridle Path once more to exit to the Second Beach. Then got on the Seaside/Seawall path and rode to underneath the Granville bridge. Then we turned back and exit to the Chilco Street and Alberni Street and got back to the bike rental. To celebrate the ride (and regained the calories burnt), we went to the nearby Dairy Queen :P

Some final notes:

• the signs for the trails inside Stanley Park are quite inadequate. We ran into quite a few junctions with no sign whatsoever and we had to guess. 
• it turned out it was a good thing that we missed the Pipeline Rd exit the first time or else we would not have been able to complete the loop around the park!

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Monterey Bay Coastal Trail

We decided to have a family biking outing on this Memorial holiday. The first challenge came from my daughter: she refused to ride her undersized 18" bike anymore. So her mom got on the Craigslist immediately and we struck a deal within 2 hours. That's probably the only event without delay for the whole day :P After loading up six bikes (yes, including this "new" used 24" bike that the new owner was going to enjoy for the whole day), we drove down to our first stop: Santa Cruz downtown. The traffic was not so bad and it took us about an hour (15 min more than usual?) to get there and park. We're actually not as familiar with the area as we thought since we usually went straight to the Boardwalk and the beach. Just when I was trying to feed the parking meter, the shopkeeper went out from the store near it and stopped us. He pointed out to us the sign and it actually listed Memorial day as one of the free parking day :) Very nice of him! Next, we saw a Walnut Avenue Cafe with a fairly large crowd outside, which was a sign for good food (and also for long wait) and indeed the wait was 45min-1hr. So we headed to the famed Hoffman's Downtown (which I originally found on Yelp) It was on the popular show Restaurant Impossible in 2011 (in which the expert from Food Network helped renovated the place and transformed the business and become the "selling point" of the place) We found the food and service not as bad as the comments said in Yelp. I liked the music played (jazz), the paintings on the wall (some portrayed musicians playing jazz), the board with a flow chart for choosing the right wine, the free scone, the pancake/waffle and most importantly, the short wait (15 min) Then we had a quick post-meal walk around the interesting downtown (heard some live jazz, which is not surprising as jazz is big in Santa Cruz. Kuumbwa Jazz Center, where big names play often, is right there) After another 45 min of driving, we arrived at the starting point of our bike route: the parking lot next to the mall with Sports Authority (and behind Costco, not the one for Costco customer though) on Metz Avenue in Seaside (it's the name of the city which is of course on sea side :P) There is a Target nearby too, which would be a good place to stock up food/water at the last minute.

View of the Pacific Ocean from the Lovers point

The two streets, Metz Avenue and Tioga Ave, actually connects two sections of paved bike path of the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail. At the top of the mini-climb up Tioga, there's the entrance to the paved bike path towards Monterey. This rolling section went along Sand Dunes Dr and ends with a 180-degree turn. It's all flat after this. The path (which intersects with many local streets and need to cross carefully) went past the following landmarks: the Naval Postgraduate School, the Wharf, the Cannery Row, the Aquarium and we ended our ride at the Lovers point (where there were many tall rocks for your Kodak moments) It was 6pm when we got back to the car and the highways were so packed with holiday traffic that it took us 3 hours to reach Cupertino from Seaside :( Still, it could have been worse if we (1) chose to start at the Cannery Row as originally planned. The parking was not free either! We would have started 30 minutes later and needed to add at least that much to the above drive time for the trip back. (2) took Hwy 1 all the way to Santa Cruz and Hwy 17 out of it instead of the short-cut, Soquel San Jose Road, which BTW looks like a fun road biking route.

At the end of the day, it was all about great scenery and fun ride. Mission accomplished!

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Lake Chabot loop

I had a discussion with my son about the relationship between talents and passions while watching F1 on Sunday morning. We all know how talented and passionate those drivers are. They are the best-of-the-best in the world after all. Of course there are people good at doing stuff that they don't care for and that's certainly not a lot of fun. And the last case: no talent but has passion perfectly describe me and biking. By no means I'm good at biking, road or mountain. For many years I try riding as much as I can but confined to flat routes only. A lot of them are paved bike trails. I didn't start riding more challenging roads until several years ago. And I finally bought a real mountain bike 2 years ago and honed my climbing and turning skills at the nearby Arastradero Preserve. (My climbing skill I got from road biking was useful but it takes more to climb mountain biking trails) One of the first trails I wanted to ride was this Lake Chabot loop.
So, why do I have a thing about this route? Check out these pic from 7 years ago (with my old Costco bike!):

The first picture was where I stopped and turned back on the East Shore Trail. The reason was shown in the 2nd picture: it was way too steep for me in 2007 (August 31st to be exact) Fast forward to today, this climb was no longer an issue. (Still, there are other sections that I have to get down and pushed the bike, e.g. parts of the Honker Bay Trail which looks like cracks on a palm. Also, parts of the Logger's loop which I couldn't get any traction on the rear wheel because of loose leaves and tree trunks) The bigger challenge was actually not to get lost.

Here is the map of the route:

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My map showed I did ~18 miles. It would have been about 13 miles without my 3 detours:
- the quail trail
- the logger's loop
- the sections of grass valley trail and Brandon trail after the stone bridge bypass.

I started the ride with the East Shore Trail. When this trail ended, there's a sign about continuing onto Cameroon loop. Just keep going and soon there's a wood bridge.

This was actually taken after I crossed the bridge and turned left immediately, which was the wrong way! I should have continued on until the next junction, then turn left to the Honker Bay Trail, which was along the lake. After the climb that gave me trouble, the trail went through the campground and there was a gate/office with attendants. I mistook an entrance to a trail before the gate as the one for the Brandon trail but in fact it was the quail trail. I won't recommend this detour at all. From my biking experience, you always feel bad after taking a wrong turn downhill because you need to waste more energy to get back up, which was the case here. I got smart after getting back: once I saw the gate, I asked for directions to the Brandon trail :) In less than a mile there was the logger's loop on the left. The loop was ~ one mile detour that I rode counter-clockwise.

Lots of loose, dried leaves and wood sticks on the ground. Not a bad experience but I might skip this loop next time. In less than 2 miles there is a stone bridge, which I chose not to cross as I saw on one book there's a grass valley trail after the gate which I could ride. It was a fun section even though there was water and mud and I got it all over my bike and legs. After 1.5 mile, there's another gate.

Exit the gate and turn back for 1.3 mile on the Brandon trail again. And you will be on Goldenrod trail. This trail has a tricky junction:

Of course I went the wrong way (right) and got into the Lake Chabot Golf course :P Once I got back and turned left. The rest was simple: followed Bass Cove Trail and West Shore Trail along the lake and you will soon see the dam and lots of hiker. And in no time there's the marina!

Biking Bangkok to Angkor Wat

I was chatting with my sister about places to travel while we are still (relatively) young. For some reason Angkor Wat immediately came to my mind (maybe it's because I watched the TV program "Seven Wonders of the Buddhist world" recently) This seems like an interesting biking trip.

Pinkbike

Just saw Pinkbike, a mountain biking site, being advertised during the telecast of Red Bull Joyride. I've never heard of it before and I ride a pink bike almost everyday. I'm well known for this at the office building. And most don't realize I actually have 2 different pink bikes :P And because of this show, I just learned that this discipline of mtb called freeride that features tricks done on downhill slope course is one of the most popular.

Five European bike rides for amateurs

I came across this article on CNN last year around the time I went biking in Europe. All of them sounds like relaxing ones. Probably a bit lack of challenge for me but might be good for taking the family! I definitely wanna bike in France on one of the TDF route or Spain (Seville has a good system of bike paths)

Mt Tam revisited

I rode up to Mt Tam and the Seven Sisters from Fairfax with a group of experienced riders before (just realized it's two years ago. I've learned a ton from them that time) and I kept bragging about it in front of my biking buddy. So the only right thing to do was to ride up with him too :) (BTW, I've also bragged about my Mt Hamilton and Mt Diablo rides before so eventually we would go all big 3) I found this route on MapMyRide and it seems more fun for an all-day ride than the morning ride I did before. Learned from last time, we parked in the narrow but long free public lot opposite to a garage (auto mechanics) on Sir Francis Drake road in Fairfax (the lot is on the intersection of Bolinas Rd between Sir Francis Drake and Center Blvd) The ride started from Bolinas Rd, through the neighborhood via some local streets to Olema Rd and back onto Sir Francis Drake towards North. Then we turned right into Nicasio Valley/Reservoir. Quiet and open country road there. Nice! Next, we turned West to Point Reyes Station, which I haven't visited for more than 10 years! Last time we came here for oyster. Actually the whole area has quite a few restaurants and we passed by many of them, e.g. Bovine Bakery, which was highly recommended by my co-worker but was closed that day. Instead of going South on Hwy 1 immediately, we took a detour northbound to Inverness. Again, nice ocean view! We turn back from there and passed Point Reyes National Reserve on Hwy 1, which was famous for bird-watching. I saw a black bird with a big red dot on each of its wings (probably a red-winged black bird.) Doesn't seem to be common everywhere! Finally we saw the ocean again (~40 miles into this route) and it was time to turn left and ride up Bolinas-Fairfax rd (small entrance, easy to miss!) It's a long 4-mile climb 'til we reached Ridgecrest, i.e., the famous Seven Sisters. Each sister represents a rolling section of the road (more than 7 of them!) The last "sister" was a hard 3 mile stretch before reaching the East peak. The original map didn't have this section so our planned 64 mile ride became 70! Nevertheless, we really needed to go up East peak because of the water fountain there to refill our emptied bottles. We still have 16 miles to go after the East peak by retracing the Seven Sisters in reverse and go down the other side of Bolinas-Fairfax rd. This part overlapped with what I rode 2 years ago but my memory was vague. I still remember the dam at Alpine Lake. That was a steep downhill with lots of sharp turns. Our arms were tired because of the descent but it was only ~2 mile long! Then we had 2 more Cat-5 climbs after the dam. Those are usually pieces of cake during our regular training rides but they felt like killers after riding 63 miles (including 1 Cat-1 climb!) We were completely exhausted after we made it back to the car. Nevertheless, we had a great time. This will be one of the rides that we talk about for years to come.

So here is the map of the route we did:

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