Bicycling breaks out

This morning was only 5C. Every morning the overcast just keeps getting heavier than the day before. The weather channel keeps lowering the expected highs (only 10 again today) while raising the probability of precipitation (up to 60 percent today) with 10 mm predicted for today, more for tomorrow.

Naturally we decided on a bike ride.

There are several bicycle rental shops over on Denman Street, we checked out three of them before settling on one. We headed back to the hotel to optimize gear choices and committed to the ride.

We stopped at the running gear store on the corner to try to buy a cheap pair of gloves for the Guest Rider as 5 promised to be a bit chilly on exposed fingers even at the reduced speeds that our rental comfort bikes were going to allow. It wasn't as easy as buying cotton gloves in Hibbing I will tell you. They had some running gloves but no cheap ones. The cheapest was $20 and they had one pair which didn't fit GRider. They had several choices at the $30 level but the most choices seemed to be $49. I like gear as much as the next guy, but . . .

We were trying to devise a strategy, like perhaps she wearing my gloves and me buying the $19 gloves which looked like they might be an OK fit for me. The sales guy noticed our plight. He commented that he thought they had some $10 gloves but an inspection revealed that that particular item was sold out. He said, "Let me check the free box," which I am pretty sure in this case means the lost and found. The phone rang and he had to answer it but he tossed a pair of used gloves to GRider which she found to be a good enough fit to allow riding comfort.

That's today's gear story.

So off we went.

I had only walked as far as the point of the island park visible from out hotel room (Brockton Point) but on bicycles we quickly zoomed around the corner and into uncharted territory. The one way bicycle path at sea wall level is about 9 km, a distance we judged too far to walk but a very, very easy ride, even on fat tired rented by the hour bicycles.

This one is called "Girl in a Wetsuit".I am not making any of this up, I don't have to.

I suspect that yellow stuff in the background is yesterday's referenced sulfur.

Here's a view of Lion's Gate Bridge, the passage over the narrowest point on the entryway into Burrard Inlet and Vancouver Harbor. The lions reference is to pair of mountains on the north side of the narrows.The figurehead is a replica of the figurehead of the S.S. Empress of Japan, a for obvious reasons very recognizable Vancouver commercial vessel from 1891-1922.Guest Rider for scale.

Here's the lighthouse at Prospect Point, beneath the Lion's Gate Bridge. The book says that the narrows have tricky currents with aggressive tides running at times over 6 knots. There are also shallows and very little maneuvering room at this point. In such a place a light house is a much needed aid to navigation.Here's the Guest Rider and our bikes with Siwash Rock in the background.The plaque says that according to First Nations legend the pinnacle of rock stands as an imperishable monument to "Skalsh the Unselfish" who was turned into stone by "Q'uas the Transformer" as a reward for his unselfishness.We had a two hour rental and plenty of extra time so we went outside the park and rode on down to the English Bay beach where the burghers made another appearance.Encouraged by her antics, other tourists began encouraging the small child accompanying them to mimic the Guest Rider. The small child was not quick to grasp the concept. She didn't want to do it. Personally I think the small child was missing out, the Guest Rider appears to be enjoying herself.

It is Vancouver but I do love Paris so we had lunch here, right next door to our bike rental place.The menu was at least partly in French and we got to merci, au voir ourselves out the door. The charming madame wished me a bonne journée in response.