Another milestone: Vancouver to Whistler!

Epic Ride!

I spend a fair amount of time in Vancouver during the summer. It's a glorious city when the sun is shining. My folks live there and I grew up there. I decided at the beginning of this year that I was going to ride my bike from Vancouver to Whistler. My brother thought I'd lost my mind. I tipped the scales at 240+ pounds at the time.

It's been about 7 months since I added the Vancouver to Whistler ride to my bucket list, and in the intervening months, I've seen the nutritionist, got really serious about weight loss and have had great success in shedding the tonnage. That story to come soon.

I was planning to enter the Vancouver to Whistler Gran Fondo in September, but it turns out that the event is so popular it sells out within days of the previous year's Gran Fondo. It was a huge disappointment not to be able to enter, tempered a bit by the thought of not having to pony up the expensive entry fee. It was the great motivator for shedding the pounds. Since I couldn't do the Gran Fondo, I decided to ride the route yesterday. One of my uncles was in town visiting from Sydney, Australia and my wife drove him up to Whistler for a tour while I rode up on my wife's bike (mine was in San Diego).

Although I felt I really should shed a few more pounds before attempting this mostly uphill, 70 mile ride, I decided to go for it. I now weigh about 212 pounds and with my mom's cooking in Vancouver, I had to do something to offset the food intake.

Along the way, waterfalls!

After a climb!

I decided to start the ride on Vancouver's North Shore, in West Vancouver, so I wouldn't have to battle the weekend traffic through downtown and the Lions Gate Bridge. I started out in a little community called Horseshoe Bay. After a couple of miles of easy riding, the fun began! The route was rolling, mostly uphill 5% to 6% grades with a few 9% and 10% grades thrown in for good measure. But the climbs were usually followed by short downhill stretches and the scenery was amazing. Between Horseshoe Bay and Squamish, you ride the Sea to Sky Highway along the waterfront, with beautiful views of the inlet and islands on the left. On the right it's forests as far as the eye can see. It was chilly in the morning and I wasn't dressed for it, so when I got to Squamish, I found a bike shop and bought an undershirt for warmth. Turns out the owner spends a lot of time riding in San Diego during the winter and knew some of the riders I knew. A good omen, I thought.

That's kilometers; only
25 miles to go!

After leaving Squamish, the ride still seemed relatively easy... For just a couple miles as it turned out. Then the fun began. The highway turned uphill, and although the gradients weren't huge, mostly 6% to 9%, they were relentless! There were a ton of cyclists on the road, too. There was a mountain bike race going on at Whistler and many riders were on their way to catch the races. About an hour into the ride after Squamish, my cell phone rang and it was my wife. She had just driven up a long, steep grade and got worried about me. So she called to warn me about it! By that time, I'd already climbed it and I was only about 10 miles behind her. By the time I got within a few miles of the Whistler Village, I was going so slow, I think I might have been going backwards! When I got to Whistler, my trusty Garmin GPS told me I burned about 3,000 calories on the way so I headed to the nearest White Spot and had the first burger and fries I've had in a long time. Life is good!

The ride took me about 5 hours to ride; it wasn't the entire 70 miles because I started closer to Whistler than I'd originally planned. It ended up closer to 45 miles and about 5,000 feet of climbing. My average moving speed, counting the downhills and uphills was a little bit below 12.9 mph. I thought that was pretty respectable for an old, overweight guy like me. More than anything, that ride gave me the confidence to tackle just about any hill. I'm already planning for the next item on my bucket list: Climbing Mt. Palomar in northern San Diego county. I know I need to get well under 200 lbs for that one!