Entering the Highlands on Ross-Durrance Road

Peninsula 300
Permanent #32 Report
by David Campbell

David Campbell
Permanent #32, 301 km
February 28, 2014
15:28

I was able to sneak in a beautiful ride on the Peninsula 300 Permanent yesterday. What a beautiful day and an interesting route - it zig-zags its way up and down the Saanich Peninsula four times. The weather was beautiful, though it was a little blustery at times. This made for some headwinds heading up the peninsula but tailwinds coming back into Victoria, so I guess it all evens out. There was still a bit of snow going through the Highlands, but nothing compared to Etienne's ride earlier in the week! Made for some chilly riding though. I was a bit lazy on my start time, which meant that it was pushing a bit late into the night by the time I finished.

I wasn't sure about the information controls so made up my own question/answers. At the visitors centre: Who staffs the visitor centre? Volunteers (see pic). At the Douglas and Superior/Southgate corner there is the Beacon Hill park sign. Q: What is next to the sign? A: an anchor.

At the end of the route, Oak Bay Ave was closed down due to some filming of a television series "Grace Point", so I was unable to get to he proper finish (plus I suppose Starbucks was closed at half-eleven). The road closure started about a block and a half away, so I just got the security guard to "check me in" there. I've attached a gpx track [ed: sorry, not available] of the route (though I am not sophisticated enough to be able to trim off the extra bit of travel from my house to the start/end (though in future if I was thinking about it I would do this one starting mid-route as at one point at the end the route passes within about 100ft of my house, but I managed to sneak in an extra 5km commuting to the start/finish).

The winter training seems to be paying off. This is only my second time riding a 300km, but felt pretty good. Hopefully I didn't trash my legs for the Chili 200 Sunday!

Stats: Start time: 8:05am, End: 11:33, Total Time: 15:28

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March 2, 2014