21 adventurous souls met at the Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal on Sunday morning to catch the 9:35 to Galiano Island. 8 riders had started the morning with a nice 35K warmup ride from Victoria. Jason and Duncan provided drive-and-park service for 8 more. The rest had got themselves to the terminal by other means.
It was a pleasant 1.5 hour ferry trip to Galiano Island at a very reasonable $13.50 per person (including $2 for the bike) with a bonus stop at Pender Island to provide some mid journey entertainment watching people unload and load.
Arrived at Galiano at 11:10. The island is fairly flat around the ferry terminal but to get to our Montague Harbour destination required slogging over a 200 M ridge. Everyone made it under their own power. The descent to Montague was exhilarating with some of us hitting over 60 KPH.
A snack was enjoyed on Shell Beach with a bit of exploration then it was back up that hill and another great descent to the Hummingbird Inn for lunch and bubbly refreshments.
We caught the 4:30 ferry back to Swartz Bay arriving around 6 and the riders dispersed to their various destinations by various means. A group cycled back to Victoria by the light of a beautiful full moon. Everyone had a great time and most concurred that a longer trip would be warranted next year, perhaps an overnighter at Montague Harbour Provincial Park campground.
Maps and charts from Ron E's amazing GPS and a note:
You can clearly see in the elevation profile how the second hill (on the east side of the Island for the return trip to the ferry) was a less of a climb than the hill we did enroute to Montague Harbour; something to consider for a return trip. The third hill was the one down to the east side beach, but even looking at the “downside” portion of both those hills, still a lesser grade and not as high as that big hill that everyone else did twice.
I’ve also calculated from the map the distance cycled by the various groups:
- The ride from the ferry to Montague Harbour and return works out to approximately 16.62 km.
- For the four that headed over to the east side of the Island, which is the GPS map and Google Earth in the attached images, the return to the ferry worked out to 30.5 km.
- For the group that cycled up from Victoria, adding those legs plus the Montague ride works out to 83.92 km. My ride with the east side of the Island was 97.35 km.
Link to the "live" page for this data. Try the "Player" option and run the ride again virtually.
Pictures from Reg
Pictures from Simon W.
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