Cycling: Just try shopping on your bike

The latest column in the Maple Ridge News by our Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows Committee of HUB: Your Cycling Connection:

Published: February 22, 2013 8:00 AM

Our HUB members are quite excited about the wonderful news that we’re finally going to have a safe cycling connection along Lougheed Highway between 216th and Laity streets, now that funding has been made available by the province, the district and TransLink. The separated path is expected to be complete by the summer.

Another improvement for cyclists is Pitt Meadows’ safe multi-use path connecting Lougheed Hwy. via Ferry Slip Road to the dike system, which is ready to be used. It’s no longer necessary to bike alongside big trucks on Kennedy Road.

We’re often being told to shop local, to support local businesses –meaning small, locally owned businesses, many of which are having a hard time competing with big chain stores.

Our reliance on the car for everything we do changed the way we shop.

Read more...

Pedal power

I would love to have one of these bikes in my kitchen to make myself a smoothie and grind my coffee! It certainly makes you more aware of the energy you use on a daily basis and just take for granted.

It's time to ride!!

If you have not yet hit the roadways and pathways of the regions on your bike, here are a few photos to get you in the mood. All were taken in Vancouver over the gloriously sunny last weekend.
If you don't know it already, Vancouver enjoys a wonderful network of traffic-calmed residential streets and dedicated pathways that make it a very safe and enjoyable city to ride.
To direct your urban cycling adventures, I would recommend you get the "Bike Vancouver - Bicycle route map and info guide". It is a credit-card sized foldout map detailing the entire cycling network for Vancouver city. It is available at the bike repair desk at the Mountain Equipment Co-op  on West Broadway Avenue (among other places).

Stanley Park Seawall at Coal Harbour.
Remember, bikes go counter-clockwise around the park

10th Avenue Bikeway. Great riding!

Stanley Park Seawall bikeway at Siwash Rock.

Glorious treelined street (perhaps 7th Avenue) Kitsilano. 

Doesn't get much nicer!

A great day for a ride around Barnston Island!

A lovely little ferry ride over to the island.
A few other cyclists had the same idea to tour the island.

A 9.8 kilometer circle of virtually carless, pastoral bliss.

Take the whole lane... both of them!

Along the route... reminds us of a Saltspring Island scene.