Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits [?]

Mark: “I enjoy riding my bike. I haven’t had this much fun exercising since, well, ever.”

Last night I biked from work over to the lions side of the Vancouver Art Gallery and participated in my first Critical Mass. Billed as a decentralized large group bike ride with no pre-determined route featuring anybody with self-propelled commuting, Critical Mass enjoys a 15 year existence, starting in the streets of San Francisco. My bike, a few months old and newly tuned up, performed brilliantly, but I can't say the same for my girlfriend's. She lost a part somewhere along the way, and was unable to shift, making her fearless gearless, though thankfully with brakes. We biked down Robson, turning left on Jervis, making our way down Davie (I think), then crossing the Burrard Street Bridge, riding down much of Broadway, and finally turning onto Yukon where we got off at 11th, where we were jokingly called "splitters".

You know how people exaggerate the olden days by saying they had to walk to school uphill both ways? Well my biking commute is almost like that: on the way to work it's downhill most of the way save for an uphill climb at Lakewood Drive, where on the way back it's uphill approaching Commercial, then downhill after Renfrew and then back uphill, then, saving the worst for last, a steep uphill climb at Boundary and Union in Burnaby. Like Roland, I drew my bike route on Google Maps, but I drew both my to and from work routes. (To work is in red, from work is in blue.) According to Google Calculator, my commute to work is 10.8 KM, and 8.5 KM back home. (I typed in "6.71 miles in kilometers" and "5.31 miles in kilometers" and rounded off the answers.) Because there are more hills on the shorter route, both directions take about the same time, from 45 minutes to an hour each. Two Google maps after the break.