Steveston is a quaint village in the south west corner of Richmond that has some great cycling along the sea front; and cycling was the order of the day.
What to do on a searingly hot Sunday morning? Air conditioned mall? Nope. Relax by one of the numerous lakes around here? Nope. A 3 hour round trip on the dykes to the west and south of Steveston? Check!
Steveston as a settlement has been around since the late 1870’s and became renowned in the area for its Salmon canning. There’s still an historic cannery in the village, but it seems that today the big earner is tourism and, in particular, whale watching tours from the likes of Seabreeze Adventures.
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However, this trip was more about 2 wheels and sight seeing rather than getting in to the local history. Steveston is around a 45 minute drive from PoCo, so bikes were thrown in to the back of the car as I certainly wouldn’t be riding there, as much as I love cycling. Rather than head downtown Lesley and I decided to park a few Km away near the west dyke recreational route.
Which reminds me, these British Columbians adore getting outside whenever the sun shines. Walk, cycle, skate, board, whatever it takes to get mobile, BC’ers will do it. It makes it virtually impossible to live a couch potato existence here as one is just shamed in to activity.
Our route took us along the west dyke and in to the village proper. The views are, just like most views here, pretty spectacular,.With the mountainous northern vista’s to the beautiful blues of the Gulf of Georgia to the west and south, the scenery is the complete stress buster.
Arriving in the village, the relaxed pace changed to serious speed as we’d happened across the inaugural Steveston Sockeye Spin. A multi-lap 900m circuit around the downtown area provided some additional entertainment before the ice cream stop beckoned – it was after all, very hot work watching the real cyclists.
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Our ride continued along the south dyke until we decided to loop back and take a quick wander around the street market. The market is very much a farmers and artisans affair and I’ve never seen so many local organic coffees on offer in one place.
I can thoroughly recommend the ride, it can be as vigorous or as relaxed as one wants to make it as the route is flat, very flat and even though we didn’t tackle the complete dyke circuit, it was smashing morning out. I’m certain that we’ll be back to finish of the missing sections of dyke another day.
