A Spin around Vancouver

I spent day two in Vancouver exploring the city on a bike rented from the kind folks at Reckless Bike Stores. I headed out from their shop and in just a few blocks I was on a bike path that would allow me to follow the shoreline for the next 20 miles or so. First it took me around False Creek with great views of the downtown residential and office towers. Then a a spin around the perimeter of Stanley Park. The first half of the seawall path around Stanley Park provided me with excellent views of a very active working harbor including; container ships, cruise ships, sailboats, power boats, tugs, barges, ferries, and my favorite float planes taking off and landing. Around the back side of the park I passed under the Lion's Gate suspension bridge and a more rugged section of the park with longer views out to the Strait of Georgia before the western suburbs swung into view. Besides the fabulous views a great feature of most all of these bike paths was the the bikes and pedestrians/joggers were on separate paths - making it much safer. After the park I followed the shoreline of those western suburbs passing a handful of beaches - taking a lunch break at the last of these - Spanish Bank - the low tide here creates massive shallow water perfect for the skimboarding.

After leaving the beaches behind I followed Marine drive up through the park land that seperates the University of British Columbia (where we were staying) from the rest of Vancouver. It felt good to climb a bit after the mostly flat seawall - it was also great to be off the path and on the road which meant I could finally ride fast - which I did over the next 10 miles with virtually no traffic lights. After that I decided to try out some of the designated bike routes through the western suburbs. These routes are typically offset from the major arteries by a block or two with various measures taken to make them safer and more efficient for bike commuters - these measure seemed quite effective and I'll be missing them as I head back to commuting in Baltimore. Where these routes intersected major arteries car traffic was forced to turn right(to keep traffic low) and bikes are provided with a crosswalk button (to stop traffic and keep you going). At smaller intersections they have installed circles to slow the traffic or put in stop signs for the side streets. Since these routes don't always follow the same street all the way across the city - they each have their own names which appear on yellow signs on top of the street signs making it fairly easy to follow them. The Cypress St. route took me to the Ridgeway route which delivered me to the highest point in the city - Queen Elizabeth Park. From there I dropped back down to the water on the Ontario St. route. Realizing I still had a bit of time on my hands I followed the shore back out to Kitsilano Beach and relaxed in the sun for a while before returning the bike. More Photos HERE
And as a Slideshow HERE

42+ Miles on the day
1678 YTD

Easter in Houston

SUNDAY 23 MARCH 2008

Spent 4 days in Houston attending the USITT conference and meeting of Production Managers from around the country hosted by the Alley Theatre.
The highlight of the conference for me was a session led by set designer George Tsypin surveying his career primarily focusing on a few different approaches he has taken to Wagner's Ring Cycle - but the most interesting part to me was his design for West Side Story at the Bregenz Festival. One aspect of this summer festival is an outdoor stage that sits on a lake - the stage is actually a barge in the lake with a huge amphitheater on the shore. The sets are so massive that they only do a new show every two years with the set left on the lake for the winter and them perform the same show again the second summer.

Also managed to catch up with a lot of old friends/colleagues over tex mex and beers.... (and pie - thanks kelly)

After 3 days of meetings and tex mex I was ready for a ride... luckily one of my colleagues at the Alley was willing to lend me her bicycle - saving me not only money, but also the adventure of trying to find a bike shop in Houston on an Easter Sunday morning...

I set out from the Alley which is located in the shadow of downtown Houston...
I followed a bike path along the Buffalo Bayou... Which for some time meandered along under the freeways, much like the JFX/Jones Falls trail here in bmore, but perhaps a little more scenically...
that quickly took me out of downtown and afforded me this view of the Houston skyline....
On the west side of downtown is a huge park with lots of singletrack - this was my first bit of mountain biking in years - made all the more adventurous by the borrowed hybrid that only sort of fit me.

All told I managed to squeeze in almost 20 miles.

318 miles total to date