Vancouver’s serious cyclists may tell you that the scene a decade ago was relatively bleak. However, since 1990, the city engineering department has added or defined i6 distinct cycling routes, covering a total of about 78 miles.
And while this isn’t Amsterdam, the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition (www.vacc.bc.ca) says we now have a relatively bicycle-friendly city The basic grid system makes it fairly easy to get around, says spokesperson Richard Campbell. If you get lost (and aren’t enjoying the experience), you only have to look north to the moun¬tains and you’ll get your bearings — most streets run pretty much north-south and east-west.
Vancouver’s i6 bicycle routes are designed to get cyclists oflTthe noisy, smelly, and aggressive main arterials. A current star of the show is the Midtown/Ridgeway route. It bisects the city, east to west, at its highest elevation, following East and West 37th Avenue for much of the way.
Routes defined as “bikeways” share low- to modest-use roadways with motor vehicles, although sometimes these routes veer onto paths or major arterials. Intersections have signals designed for cyclists’ use. However, some routes, like Midtown/Ridgeway, are also defined as greenways, meaning they’re designed for pedestrians as well. Among the added amenities of a greenway are benches, fountains, mini¬parks, and, in particular, eccentric public art.
For example, Backstop: A Stage for Wordsworth, at 37th Avenue and Cartier Street, reveals a theatrical baseball structure inspired by the poet’s words: “This city now doth, like a garment, wear I The beauty of the morning; silent, bare I Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie I Open unto the fields, and to the sky.”
“Pole art” installations on this greenway inciude an oversized garden rake (at Oak Street); multiple copies of some kind of metal parachute thing (Cambie Street) titled Macbina Metronoma; and two giant perfor¬ated bicycle seats (at the Ontario bikeway junction). For details on the works, including their creators, go to www.city.vancouver.bc.ca and do a search for the public art registry.
This stretch of the Midtown/Ridgeway greenway intersects with the north-south Ontario bikeway, among the routes Campbell recommends. He also likes the Cypress route through the west side ( incorporating winding Angus Drive in Shaughnessy); the crosstown ioth Avenue route (in the process of becoming a bikeway); and the Seaside bikeway and greenway, which hugs the foreshore of the downtown peninsula, including False Creek and Stanley Park. The Seaside continues west through Kitsilano to UBC, where it connects with other bike routes.
Another nice little route, says Campbell, is Portside, running from east-side Lakewood Drive, along Burrard Inlet, past the grain elevators, to the Second Narrows (Ironworkers’) Bridge.
The BC Parkway route, while rough in patches and not for the novice, pretty much parallels the Kingsway arterial southeast through Vancouver into Burnaby and through Central Park, connecting with the Central Valley Greenway. Campbell also recommends the municipality of Richmond’s Shell Trail, which follows Shell Road past the Richmond Nature Park and into blueberry patches where cyclists can restore their energy in late August and early September.
A map titled Cycling in Vancouver is available at city hall (453 West 12th Avenue). It is also downloadable at www.city.vancouver.bc.ca (under engineering and cycling).
Some city buses carry bikes: they include the #99 B-line along Broadway; the #135 between Simon Fraser University and Stanley Park; and #404 to the Tsawwassen ferry. Bikes can also be carried on West Vancouver—bound blue buses and the Seabus to North Vancouver. For bike rentals, see “Inline Skating.” You can also pick up a modestly priced rebuilt bike at Our Community Bikes (3283 Main Street, East Vancouver, 604-879-2453). Run by PEDAL (Pedal Energy Development Alternatives, www.pedalpower.org), the workshop provides space, tools, and advice, and does repairs for a modest fee. It also works with Latin American farmers to create low-tech farm machinery employing used bicycle parts. Further, it’s something of a hub for alternative types, and it has strong connections with other groups into sustainability and related issues.
Another full-service, non-profit bike shop is UBC’s The Bike Kitchen (604-827-7333). You’ll find it in the northeast loading bay of the Student Union Building.
You can also check out Bikeworks, run by an organization that recycles beverage containers, United We Can (39 East Hastings Street, Downtown, 604-681-0001). On the way to the shop, you’ll pass through a seemingly chaotic warehouse in which dozens of under¬standably grungy-looking people are unloading and counting thou¬sands of smelly containers they’ve picked from Dumpsters, bins, and ditches, and for which they’ll receive the small deposit paid on pur¬chase. This is a socio-cultural phenomenon and income-generating industry that embraces the lanes, parks, and nooks and crannies of the entire city. At Bikeworks, they repair huge, sturdy three-wheel tricycles with big wooden boxes used for big-time container collection from restaurants, hotels, and bars.
Some years back, Canadian Tire hosted a wildly popular bike race that traversed the brutal cobblestone streets of Gastown. In 1991, cycling hero Lance Armstrong was among those who showed 30,000 specta¬tors how it’s done. However, the race died shortly afterward because, say some, Canadian Tire didn’t feel cycling was cutting it, image-wise.
Happily, in 2002, the race was revived by the owner of Steamworks, a brew pub and restaurant at the western end of Gastown. Local businesspeople are behind Eli Gershkovitch’s pet project: “anything to revive interest in a tourist district that’s had plenty of troubles” is the prevailing attitude. People involved in United We Can clean up after the race, and no doubt benefit. Best of all, the Steamworks Tour de Gastown has re-stoked the city’s passion for rough-road cycle racing. The race runs in mid-July.
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