It’s the August long weekend and time to get out of the city.  My brother and road our bikes down to Granville Island to catch the water taxi across to Bowen Island for the day.  Now I’ve cycled there before, a long time ago, when I was in much better shape.  I know it’s an island of hills that rocket off and plunge down rather than roll.  The first hill is in the town, almost as soon as you disembark in Snug Cove.  It’s probably a 7% grade by the top and it hurts.  We decided to ride out to Tunstall Bay, the guy at the info centre said it was a relatively flat ride.  “Relative” means relative to a vertical incline.  Every time we got to the top of one hill I rejoiced on the descent only to remember that meant it would be uphill on the way back.  Finally we got close to Tunstall Bay and the last descent of the morning.

I popped into my highest gear and tucked in for the fastest potential speed down.  Just as I passed the old man biking up the hill who yelled, “It’s not fun coming back,” I had to slam on my brakes because a chicken was crossing the road.  At first it was meandering slowly along but as it noticed me trying to brake to avoid turning it into my evening dinner it sped up in that weird chicken-flapping-can’t-fly thing and barely made it out of the way of my front wheel.  Lucky thing.  We sat on the beach yapping and watching the paddle boarders until there was no denying we’d have to go back.  Slow and steady makes the climb, I guess those old people really are onto something.  We cycled back to Killarney Lake and sat in the shade for a bit before finally returning to town and a burger and the most excellent tasting beer of the summer.  And that completes my one and only summer day out in nature thus far.