Weekender Bender Part 2

So I’ve planned to do the Northshore Triple Peaks for a while now and I decided on Friday that today would be the day. It wasn’t exactly ideal having ridden for 5 hours on my mountain bike in Squamish the previous day but other than that, the getting was good so I decided it was on.

I left our place at 7:15 after sending a few heads-up emails to Markezzy in hopes that he would meet up with the train (it was a very short train, just me in fact – har har har) as I passed Hwy. 1 on the way over to Seymour.

Unfortunately I found out later that he had set his alarm for Friday instead of today so we ended up missing each other and it looked like I would be doing battle with the peaks on my own. This is what I thought until I heard the whining scream of a crotch rocket coming flying down Mt. Seymour Rd. bearing none other than Sizzle! He gave me a wink that said “I’m going to gas this baby up, be back in a bit FC” and with that I continued my slog to the top. At the summit, Sizzle was waiting for me and gave me the great news that he would head home, swap his rocket for his pony and come back out to guide me through the second half of my ride, up Cypress and out to Whytecliff.

I turned around, blasted down Seymour and made my way across North Van doing the Hills Route and then climbing the remainder of the flanks of Grouse Mountain up to the base of the Grind. From here it was back down to sea level to continue on to the next hors categorie objective.

At this point I decided I should fuel up again and refill the water bottles so I selected the Savoury Island Pie Company as my feed station, and a good selection it turned out to be! Whoa…if you haven’t tried their cinnamon buns, let me assure you, you’re missing out on life. I thought I had found the best buns in the city at Sully’s Bagelry on Broadway but these new buns will definitely give Sully’s a run for their money.

Shortly after getting back on my bike, I saw Sizzle roaring down the road towards me heating up the tarmac with his big engine. Together we began the 12+km climb up Cypress keeping the pace impressively high for me. Hitting the summit and still feeling reasonably spry, we turned around and headed for Whytecliff, the final objective of the day. It was a good thing Sizzle came out for the second half of the ride and bombarded me with encouragement because I was starting to get pretty bored and my butt was killing me from the day before on my hard tail up in Squamish.

All told the ride ended up taking 6 hrs 40 min, covered 170 km and climbed a total of 8615 ft of elevation. You can check out the elevation profile on the mapmyride website by following this link:

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/ca/bc/vancouver/430124388614489573

All told it was a great ride and after taking yesterday off, I think I’m ready to try and drill it again in tonight’s criterium up at UBC…Gentlemen, start your engines!!!