We’ve been fortunate that our host, Steve, was willing to lend us a few bikes for our stay in Victoria. These didn’t come with the original booking, but were offered up after Jan asked about where to buy a couple of cheap bikes. It never hurts to ask!
Only one problem…Steve is a 6′ something dude and I’m 5’4″ and not a dude. I can ride the bike just fine, but sudden stops have been my bane. Just yesterday, I took a three-point landing while trying to do a slow-motion turn resulting in a bruised backside AND a scraped up shin. On an earlier ride, I was following Jan a little too closely at an intersection and took a full jolt to the lady bits. Over-sized dude-bikes are evil.
Bike issues aside, the biggest challenge has been acclimating to the elevation changes in the neighborhood. The bike trails around here are great, but to getting to them involves some steep churns up and down hills. It may sound like I’m complaining (a little), but we’ve been here for a month and a half and ya know what? It’s getting easier. Training in the gym was nothing compared to the results I see from a few weeks on these hills.
We biked over to Thetis Lake after my fall, and it wasn’t as hard to do as it was a month ago. I was sucking wind, but I didn’t have to walk my bike up to the parking lot. Success!
There are more bikes in our near future, but I think B.C. has prepped us for any elevation changes we may see with future destinations. To give you some idea of what we’ve been doing, check out the speed versus elevation chart from our last ride:
Oh, OUCH to the lady bits jolt, butt bumps and shin scrapes! Glad you were able to push past these temporary wounds to best the elevation and enjoy the lake ride.