Passes & Canyons Blog

One of the OFMC guys emailed us all asking if we wanted to go for a ride on Sunday (yesterday). I replied that yes, I was planning to ride, but I wouldn’t be with them. My Sunday ride was in British Columbia.

On an Electra Glide Classic, rented from EagleRider in Vancouver, we took off on a loop east through Hope, up to Lytton, to Lillooet, and up and over and down to Whistler. I know, you’ll need to look at a map to see this, or maybe I’ll have to figure out Google Maps and set up a link. Suffice it to say that a) it was a terrific ride, and b) it was an exhausting ride. The thing with Whistler is that there’s only one road and to go anywhere you either go and backtrack or you take a very long loop. We did the loop. It was dark by the time we got back to Whistler.

So the first thing I have to say about riding in British Columbia is that it’s different than riding in Colorado. In Colorado we have some canyons but mostly we go up over passes, down through valleys, then up over more passes. In BC you basically go up one canyon, up another canyon, down another canyon, and on and on. And the big difference is that their hills here are so steep they make ours look like bunny slopes.

Picture this. You’re riding along a highway that is cut into the side of a steep slope. The river is 1,000 feet below you and then as far ahead as you can see the mountain rises 4,000 or 5,000 or 6,000 feet above the road. And it’s all at a very steep angle. You do some climbing, and you do get down to water level on occasion, but mostly it’s following the shoulder of the hillside on and on, with lots of curves but little climbing.

When we did climb it was up over the pass between Lillooet and Whistler. By then it was getting dark and it got cold. And as we started to climb we started accumulating raindrops on the windshield. Oh, oh, we don’t need to get wet now. But it was never more than a few drops so not so bad. I still got a minor bit of hypothermia that had me shaking once we got to Whistler until I got some hot tea in me. But we got here. At last! And we have the bike for another day so we have to go riding again. And there’s really nowhere else to go but back over to Lillooet and do a loop over there. At least that will allow us to see all that in daylight.

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Biker Quote for Today

Get on your knees every Sunday and pray the road throws you another curve.