An outdoors kind of weekend Part Two

Today turned out to be another great day, with clear skies above and the second Velo Family group ride in the early afternoon. We set out shortly after lunch from Commercial Drive, through Strathcona, along the Dunsmuir and Hornby separated lanes to our meeting point at Canada Place. The theme of today's ride was for the kids to dress in whatever they thought would be good for a ride on their bikes. Of course, that meant all the girls showed up in skirts or dresses. It's pretty fantastic how simple something like biking in a skirt can seem to a kid, and strange why we make it more complicated than it needs to be when we get older. But I digress...

Daddy and Etienne cruising through Strathcona, ready to ride

Our group set off from Canada Place and along the seawall towards Stanley Park. While I was technically our ride organiser, our leaders for the first part of the ride were my daughter Coralie and our new friend Diane who joined us for the first Velo Family Ride. I love seeing that confidence in young people, knowing that all the adults and the rest of the riders are following them. 

Our riders:

Julie, Des and their daughter, Diane, Martha and her daughter, Jenika, and,

of course, Coralie, Etienne and Chris and I

Our seal friend just on the right,
enjoying a midday snack

From Coal Harbour, we took the long way around Stanley Park's seawall. Because it was sunny, it was busy on the seawall, but we just cruised along at a pace suited to our younger riders. Going at a slower pace allows you to really take in the views, and along the way you can hear the kids calling out about seeing the float planes, the boats and one very special surprise. Just past Lumberman's Arch we saw a group forming, and in a moment saw what they were looking at. A small seal had come onto a rock to take a bit of a lunch! All the kids were so excited, as was I, since I have had yet to see a seal in my five years living here.

Coralie, our little trooper

We set on again, with the destination of Third Beach. It was pretty smooth sailing, until Coralie slipped off the cycle path ledge and fell off her bike. She got pretty banged up, and has a couple of battle wounds to brag to her friends about, but thanks to a kind passerby, she got a few bandages on the more serious scrapes.  Then, she got right back on her bike and rode the rest of the way with little complaint, knowing that she had little choice but to grin and bare it, being we were so far from home.






Finally, we reached out the beach and everyone got a chance to cool off in the water and play in the sand. We really are quite lucky to have access to all these beautiful beaches here in Vancouver. It's a nice reminder that no matter how much we want to travel to new places and experience different cultures, this is still a pretty awesome place to live. And so ends a busy weekend, and another successful ride with a great group of people.

The young riders playing in the sand after a long and exciting ride!