Bike Trip 2010

Day 1, May 25, Nanaimo-Horseshoe Bay-Whistler, 107 Km

Caught the 6:30 a.m. Ferry. Brother Don dropped us off. Rained lightly on and off all day, temperature was cool, we're guessing 10C. Left Horse Shoe Bay at 8:15 and had a flat tire within an hour. The ride along Howe Sound was flat on average, with a coast down following every uphill. The road itself is excellent with a nice bike lane all the way to Whistler. Nevertheless the experts are right; wherever there is a bike lane, the drivers tend to drive closer to you than they would on a road of the same width with no white line. Squamish has really changed; it used to be a small village with gas stations and couple of restaurants on the main street which was also the highway. Now it's a bustling place with a controlled access highway running through it. The ride from Squamish was a steady climb especially the 6.5 km through Cheakamus Canyon, but you have to make up the elevation at some point. The coasts downhill were a welcome break, but you always knew that you would have to pay with an equivalent uphill ahead. Whistler has changed a lot since I ski patrolled here in 1969-71. Now it's as you see on TV but then it was an unorganized group of buildings around the original ski lift. I was able to recognize the main runs on Whistler plus a few that have been added. After we checked in a the hotel and were walking around town, we saw two black bears eating grass on a Blackcomb run. The Whistler Inn and Suites is very nice with a covered locked area for bikes. The village is interesting to walk through with everything the tourist would need and then some. This is the slow season; it must alive during ski season or summertime.

Booked the room 69 plus tax 81 through the visitor centre. Nice large clean room with hot bath; there was a sauna which we didn't use because Susie had no bathing suit. Bought a few food items at the IGA and ate at around 7.

Day 2, May 26, Whistler-Pemberton, Lillooet, 132 Km

Overcast and 7 C, 7:30. Ride to Pemberton was unexpectly downhill to 670 ft then it was 17 km along 99 to the start of 15 Km up a lot of 15% grade. We walked a lot today, taking 4 hours to cover the 15 km from the start of hill to the summit. We reached the Duffy Lake Summit of 4300 ft at 2:00 where we fixed a flat on Susie's bike. It started raining at the summit and only letup when we got to Lillooet. Going down was great at first, with gentle slopes that pushed us along. When we got closer to Lillooet, we encountered some ups and downs especially through Cayoosh Canyon. Going down the 13% hills forced us to use our brakes quite a bit. Booked into the First Canada Inn, a little tired. The road after Pemberton was very rough places. Lilloet seems like a nice little town with services for tourists like us. There are a number of hotels and motels and a few restaurants.