Today has been the best biking day of the year so far, so much so I felt the real need to get out and make the most of it, the rest of the week does not look so promising :-)
Recognising it has been four months since my last entry - it has been a really crappy winter with endless rain, no job, no woman to speak of... winter blah's all around - NO MORE.
Winter's like this are not good for bike riding morale, but days like today make the long winter of discontent worth it. I am still car free and that is a good measure, although I almost caved and bought a small truck at one point. I ended up spending the money on a quick trip over to the UK - only to land in the heaviest UK snow fall in twenty years. I was contemplating some London bike riding, once the snow was down though pretty well ended that plan.
These last four months have seen me bow out of politics completely. I am no longer involved with the Green Party; around January I was asked not to run in the May election and whilst I am still puzzled as to why, I know where I am not wanted. I also bowed out of the STV campaign, also scheduled for May 19th. I reckon being around the Work Less Party showed me the GPBC had become too much part of the political process and less of the activist process - too much for my liking at least. I gave Green politics eight years of my time, attended 7 or 8 annual general meetings; saw a lot of changes, especially in the last 8-10 months that questioned my support.
Since losing my job at SFU in June 08 I have been ambling along courtesy of the federal gov't and I even qualified for the Stephen Harper five week extension. Inevitably, this has come to an end and with no real job prospects in sight things are looking somewhat lean. It is ironic I don't qualify for the job I did at Rogers 20 years ago [I applied at Shaw as tech support]. I get the feeling I am on some sort of journey, no idea where it will take me or the source of its energy - but certainly feel the push. I do have an interview at the Vancouver Auto Co-Op this week maybe that will be fruitful at least; I have been a member since 2006.
Today, I took a three hour break from all of the above and I never left East Vancouver. I took the partially completed Central Valley Bikeway from Boundary Rd to Clarke Dr where it kinda disappeared, headed up Commercial and Victoria over to Powell; then over to the Seaside route in to New Brighton then on the Trans-Canada trail to the Burnaby/Vancouver border and back along the Cassiar route back to my house. At one point at Cassiar and Hastings as I waited to cross the street, three single occupancy SUV's pulled up to the light and it occurred to me the battle for the streets is ongoing; competing with single-occupancy SUV's is an ongoing thing. Maybe it is time to make a switch in that respect.
What a beautiful day - the first of many I am sure. The bikeway along the Millenium route is a much needed route of access for cyclists. It is relatively flat since it follows the Still Creek/CN railway for the most part. I'm not exactly sure what happens to it at Clarke Drive, it seemed to fizzle out with no signage present to tell you otherwise. The trek out to Burnaby and beyond would be well worth it; I have seen the work going on around Burnaby Lake and that will be a really nice stretch of the route.
as you can see from my photos I made a circular route over to the Seaside/Trans Canada trail path and snapped a few pics under the Second Narrows bridge, followed by a nice little hike back up to the base of Boundary Rd North. Here is the map of the route and I thoroughly recommend it for all skill levels.
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