Back from Holiday, Galloping Goose Trail, Vancouver Island

Galloping Goose Bike Trail
Vancouver Island Holiday

Enjoying a Peaceful Break

Specialized Turbo Vado
First Long Bike Trip

It's hard for me to take time off from making wind chimes and suncatchers: I love my work! It is especially hard at this time of year; as the USA and Eastern Canada thaw out, and people turn to decorating their outdoor space, and it gets busy here at Coast Chimes. But everyone needs a break. A bike trip proved ideal, especially on Vancouver Island which turns out to be very bike-friendly. From downtown Victoria to the Galloping Goose nature trail, bikes often get priority on Vancouver Island— very different from most of the Sunshine Coast! My new Specialized Turbo Vado performed flawlessly, and the Buzzrack Scorpion H2 car rack was a real treat to use.

We meandered, enjoyed nature, enjoyed the gorgeous weather, saw new things (Bouchart Gardens— worth it!), and also had some fine meals out.

Now back to it. I have a very long to-do list, starting with firing back up my website and Etsy, and immediately producing many sets of copper and brass chimes (I am definitely behind!). Oh! I'll still take time each day for a nice walk / bike ride— that's just he way I work.

Specialized Turbo Vado to the Post Office

Specialized Turbo Vado e-bike
Coast Chimes Orders Headed to the Post Office

Most often in the past, I would put an order inside my large backpack, and strap the others onto the outside, sometimes during the busy seasons also having to add a large garbage bag or two, and hike the kilometres to our local post office. It was easy if the car happened to be home to do the simple thing and drive.

These pretty spring days, it is a pleasure to use my new e-bike. We have many really steep hills here, and I never felt like using a regular bike much-- just too hard on my knees. The e-bike lets me choose just how much assistance I want. Loaded down, steep hill, I can get a lot of help, making even the steepest hill no problem at all. Pleasure riding, or on the flat areas, I can basically turn off the assistance and get some work out.

The only issue is all the narrow, twisting roads we have here, or narrow roads with high speed limits. If there happens to be a bike lane, it tends to be a fairly narrow strip, no barrier, full of sticks, stones, or worse, and also frequent uneven pavement. It seems biking is becoming ever more popular, and I hope everyone puts pressure on the government to improve this situation. I myself plan to advocate for improvements.

I feel great getting some exercise, not contributing to the traffic and air pollution with an ICE. Customers or Coast Chimes may appreciate that I constantly do all I can to reduce, reuse, recycle. Also, I design and build all my creations to last, unlike cheaper stuff often designed for a season or two and to be thrown away.

Bicycle Riding, New Passion

Specialized Turbo Vado, New Passion

It's been a very long time since I've ridden a bike. As a child and teenager, I lived on my bikes. Then I had a pretty terrible accident on the way to school, and never really felt like getting back in the saddle.

Moving to the Sunshine Coast, BC, my wife REALLY enjoys biking around, and has frequently urged me to join her. We have hills here, A LOT of hills, and narrow roads, and well... I did not feel like doing that at all, with memories of my bad crash still haunting me, too.

But then I looked into e-bikes. I do love technology. In fact, my love of technology, and the thought of effortlessly defeating our local steep hills, lead me to getting my e-bike. Never looking back (well, I do have a rearview mirror!), as I quickly discovered it is a lot of fun to explore on a bike.

Above, reaching my destination on an early morning ride. It turns out early morning is a great time to ride, before there is much traffic on the roads. My one gripe is that the Sunshine Coast is very poor, as far as road biking. If there happens to be a bike lane, it is narrow, and generally full of gravel, branches, trash. Most often, there is no special bike lane, and the secondary roads tend to be curvy and narrow-- not ideal. I'm pretty cautious (yes, memories of that accident...), and hope to enjoy this new hobby without incident. The bright green swimming noodle on the back of my bike is an idea stollen from a cyclists in Toronto: it makes me more visible, and encourages cars to keep some distance when passing. I do notice a significant improvement since attaching it.

My Early Morning Route from Yesterday

Abbotsford Tulip Festival, Bicycle Holiday

Abbotsford Tulip Festival, 3 million Tulips

After 50 years of not riding a bike (very bad accident soured me on the whole biking thing), my wife, who adores bicycling, finally convinced me to get back on the saddle. Oh! Also, I love technology (not so much hills) and I decided I might like e-biking. I do!

I got a Specialized Turbo Vado 2.0, and find it so much fun to not break my legs going up our numerous steep local hills. I also researched and found a car bike rack that could support her heavy step-through steel frame comfort bike and my even heavier step-through e-bike. The Buzzrack Scorpion H, available in Canada at the Bike Zone with free shipping, is an absolutely brilliant rack, extremely stable, that locks on the hitch, and locks the bikes on the rack-- truly a great deal at $329 CAD. If you live on the Sunshine Coast, I can not over recommend Elphinstone Cycles for bikes: they know their stuff, and are so nice and helpful.

So I put the bikes on the back of our car, and off we went for our short biking holiday. The Poco Trail was such a pleasure! Next day a biking trail in Fort Langley (the Fort to Fort trail) was even more fun. Kilometers of trails with no traffic made me realize how impoverished the Sunshine Coast is, as far as road cycling. Here we have world class mountain biking with rugged trails galore, but to go anywhere urban is fairly risky, with cars kissing your handlebars: A little too anxiety producing. So to get away to these purpose built biking trails was a real treat.

A short stay in the city at a very comfortable Airbnb, excellent meals out, great biking, fun tulip festival, made for an enjoyable break. The ease of securing our bikes on the car means I am already looking forward to another biking holiday in the near future.

Below is a picture of me, on my e-bike, after so many years away from biking. I like it!

Yours Truly, Clearly Enjoying My E-bike