Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition - Moving Victoria forward in cycles

It must have been due to the Thanksgiving Day long weekend but we were down to only 3 riders for this ride. A great time was had by all anyway.

Simon and Jim departed Selkirk Station at 7:00 a.m. We decided to take the road rather than the Galloping Goose as the registration for the SSFC was set for 9 a.m. Though we had some worries about the hills and traffic, it turns out the hilliest section is right at the very beginning - Craigflower road in View Royal. We hit the high point of the ride at 19K without even realizing it. Such a gentle slope up and then we were headed down again. Traffic was very sparse as it was early morning on a Sunday. We got to the Galloping Goose crossing of Sooke Road at 8:30. This is the 43K point of the GG and would normally take about 3 hours. We had covered hardly 30K in an hour and a half due to better road surface conditions and despite the hills.

We were joined in Sooke after a hearty breakfast by Jim's wife Cathy and proceeded to explore Sooke and some of the events of the Sooke Slow Food Cycle including trying out recumbent and electric bikes at the Collective Transition Symposium.

After a late lunch and some suds at the 17 Mile House Pub Jim and Simon returned to Victoria on the Galloping Goose while Kathy returned by car. The short cut from the pub to the GG down Gillespie road turned out to be the steepest hill of the entire day.

The weather turned out great. By afternoon it was shirt sleeve weather and stayed warm for the entire return to Victoria.

The road route to Sooke proved to be fast and not too challenging and will no doubt be incorporated into future GVCC Recreational Rides!

Route map and elevation chart from bikemap.net - move your cursor through the terrain chart to see our progress on the route map:

Pictures from Simon:

2 Panoramas