Monday, March 30, 2009

A bike ride to the Cleveland Dam and back March 29, 2009

There was a dusting of new snow on the North Shore Mountains thereby making a spectacular view all the more so as I headed out on this ride.

A quick stop on the Bridge for another view of the snow capped North Shore Mountains.

Capilano Pacific trail just north of Park Royal - what a great view.

Finally at the watershed fence at the end of Deep Dene Rd - it is a short ride down to the Dam and downhill all the ways back to Seabus.

A view of Capilano Lake and the majestic Lions.

More of the Lake and the Lions.

This is was one of the few times that I have been at the Dam where there has been a strong flow of water down the spillway.

One of the entrances to the Mosquito Creek Park - a multi-use trail that follows the creek down to its end at Burrard Inlet.

The trail is all purpose and has many info signs along the way.

While exploring the new Spirit Trail at Lonsdale Quay I heard the train whistle and got to the crossing in time to catch this photo of a CN locomotive.

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I awoke on Sunday to brilliant sunny skies and had previously said to myself that if the weather was good I was going to do a longer and more challenging bike ride and one that came to mind is the ride up to the Cleveland Dam - one of three dams and reservoirs that provide Metro Vancouver with its pure and tasty drinking water.

The trip would be a loop - taking the Lions Gate Bridge across to West Vancouver and then following the Capilano Pacific trail and Stevens Drive to Deep Dene Rd and its connection to the Dam - from the Dam it would be all downhill passing the Fish Hatchery and then into Edgemont Village where I was going to follow the Trans-Canada trail down to Lonsdale Quay and then Seabus home - for the most part the trip went as planned - I took one wrong turn heading up to the Dam - it is not marked as not being the trail and had to do a km retrace and then couldn't find the TCTrail coming out of Edgemont Village so I stayed on the road until I came to Mosquito Creek Park which is what I wanted.

It was a 30 KM trip with climbing so all in all a good workout.

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Later last night I received an email indicating that our training bike rides for the bike escorts for teh Vancouver Marathon starts Tuesday night so my longer rides will now be limited to the weekends as each of the training rides is around 20 - 25 KM - we will meet at the Plaza of Nations and generally ride the downtown portion of the route through the Downtown East Side - through Gastown and downtown and then around the Seawall to Pipeline Rd and down it to the entrance and then onto the False Creek Seawall and back to the Plaza and a pizza restaurant where a couple of pizza will be waiting for us - we generally get two pieces each and pop to go with it - we train in all kinds of weather - as a returnee I don't have to do all of the sessions but must attend an all day ride a week before the actual event - we are supplied with two way radios as this becomes an important part of the event as we are the eyes and ears of the runners and have to make sure that we can help in any situation that arises.

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Another item on the plate this week is renewing my car insurance - I split mine - the mandatory items with ICBC and the optional with Canada Direct - the latter I can renew on line and the former I can renew at an insurance broker located in this complex.

More later

Dennis

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