TL;DR: great route, great group of riders, would definitely ride again.
On Thursday morning I decided on a whim to head from the Okanagan to the Lower Mainland to ride the Early Bird 200. South Okanagan weather had been decent enough for outdoor riding since Mid-Feb, so why not?
I brought along full rain gear but Saturday morning turned out gorgeous, albeit quite chilly. Close to 30 riders rolled up to the start, much more than we get for the brevets in the Interior. I knew Andrew (Andrzej) K. and recognized Mike G. from last year’s PoCo Alouette 100k Gravel Pop, but the rest of the riders were all new faces to me. The Early Bird 200 route was, for the most part, new to me too, as I’d only ridden the parts in Langley and Ft. Langley before. We didn’t really encounter much traffic riding out of the city and once we crossed Westminster Hwy in Richmond, the real fun began. The road conditions were great for the most part, even the brief gravel sections posed no challenge for road tires (post-ride, I realized that I’d picked up a tack on my front tire and a shard of glass on my rear – so hooray for tubeless and Stan’s sealant!)
As always happens on these rides, the large group I was riding with split several times and by the 130km checkpoint, I was riding with just Chris C., Doug Q., and Andrew K. By then, the temperature was up to 13C with hardly any wind. Traffic through Surrey got a little busier but, hey, it was Saturday afternoon and 1st day of spring! Richmond went by quickly and we hit the last segment from South Vancouver to the finish – that was probably the most challenging part because Springtime Saturday afternoon traffic was in full swing with everything Vancouver drivers have to offer. Our group of 4 rolled in around 3:35pm with all of us feeling pretty good – and hungry for more!
Many thanks to Nigel P. and everyone who volunteered and helped organize this ride.
