Unofficial Beach Ave Bikefest Sept 27 2020

Family rides on Beach Ave Bikeway
Photo: Lucy Maloney

UPDATE!!

Looks like we need to reschedule the Unofficial Beach Ave Bikefest 2020 due to the air quality. [Sad trombone] We will try again in two weeks, Sunday, September 27th, 3-4pm again! 🤞 for good weather/air!

Unofficial Beach Ave Bikefest 2020

Choose a costume! Organise your cargo! Bring the family! Come on down to Vancouver’s most popular and scenic cycling destination for some healthy outdoor fun!

The inaugural unofficial Beach Avenue Bikefest will be taking place on Sunday 13  27 September between 3.00 and 4.00 pm rain or shine!

This event will be Covid-19 compliant - there will be no gathering and no giveaways, just laughs from afar at costume-clad cyclists. All you have to do is choose a costume, and/or decorate your bike, and/or load up your trailer and ride up and down Beach Avenue. Don’t have a trailer? Just dress up and/or decorate your bike.

You can post your own photo on Twitter using #BeachAveBikefest, pause for a photo on the grass triangle where Beach Ave and Pacific Street meet at Jervis Street when you can safely distance or just smile at one of the roving photographers.

“Judging” will take place on Twitter at #BeachAveBikefest on Sunday evening or as soon as we can manage it. We will be awarding creativity and hilariousness of cyclist costumes, bike decorations, instruments played, and loads carried. Choose a theme! Make us laugh!

And if you love riding on Beach Avenue Bikeway and in Stanley Park, fill out the City of Vancouver survey on Making Streets for People by September 7, sign the HUB Cycling petition to Make #BeachAveBikeway Permanent and fill out the Park Board survey on Space for Cycling in Stanley Park by September 13.

Please note, this event is not associated with any organisation, we just think it might be a bit of safe, healthy fun in these dark times - participate at your own risk.

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#Modo Love Story

I joined Modo in spring 2003. At the time, my main transportation was transit. I biked sometimes & walked a lot too. I thought it might be handy to have a car sometimes, but had no desire to drop tens of thousands of dollars to buy a good one, or deal with a cheap but unreliable beater. Modo was a great solution!

Suddenly having access to a whole fleet of cars was pretty exciting, as I'd never owned one. I'd never  had my own vehicle waiting for me in my driveway 24/7, so the concept of making a booking online, then walking a few blocks to pick up a car wasn't a big deal for me. 17 years ago I wasn't thinking about reducing my carbon footprint as much as I do now, so I probably drove a bit more than I really needed to because it was such a novelty. Still, I rarely used the cars more than once a week.

Getting Hitched With Modo

In the fall of 2003, Oliver & I got married. We used a Modo car (our favourite one at the time: a little blue Volkswagen Beetle) to travel up to Squamish, where we hiked up to the Third Peak of the Stawamus Chief.

...

To read the rest of the love story, head over here to Modo's website. 

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Insider Tips for the Vancouver Christmas Market

Browsing the realistic looking fruit soaps at the market

This year is the 20th Anniversary of Vancouver's Christmas Market: can you believe it? The market is has returned to Jack Poole Plaza, bigger & better than ever with more than 80 huts of European sweets, treats, & treasures.

We're pretty much veterans of the Market now, & have been going since the very first year, so I thought I'd share some of our "insider" tips to make your visit more fun!

When to go

Open daily from 11:30am to 9:30pm, (11:30am to 6pm an December 24), the Market really shines from dusk onward. Tuesdays adult admission is just $10 for the 10th Anniversary. If you want to save even more, it's only $8 if you head to the market by 2pm weekdays. Despite being outdoors, it's actually not bad to go in the rain because there are awnings at the huts, umbrellas over the tables in the food area, plus the Alpine Lounge & Wunderbar are also covered & heated.

Bronte loves a good carousel ride

Special Events

Kids Day December 1: Youth 12 & under get in by donation to Children’s Wish Foundation all day, Carousel rides are by donation, snap a photo with Holly & Jolly our gingerbread mascots or your favourite princesses from Enchanted Events Vancouver, & meet Santa Claus

What to do

Obviously, shopping! The Vancouver Christmas Market is a great place to browse for high quality & unique gifts, traditional German holiday decor, & a wide variety of handmade items. However, it's not just about the shopping. There are dozens of options for sweet treats, hot & cold drinks, alcoholic & non, plus some great lunch, dinner, & snack choices. Check out some of my favourites in Eating My Way Through The Vancouver Christmas Market.

Kids can get creative in the free Kinder Kraft Igloo, explore the market and win a prize by completing the Treasure Hunt, & of course there's always the classic carousel to ride on!

Family selfie time!

What to bring

A fully charged phone or camera to be ready for All The Selfies. The market is decorated with Christmas trees everywhere, surrounds the iconic 2010 Olympic torch, & features a massive walk-in Christmas tree with over 36,000 lights.

Reusable shopping bags for the gorgeous tree decorations or other gift items you'll end up buying.

A plastic bag: if you want to keep your souvenir market mugs after you have some Glühwein, you'll want a way to get them home without dripping hot drink remnants into your other bag. Some soft packing material isn't a bad idea to get the ceramic mugs home safely if you're travelling by bike or bus, particularly.

Linny enjoyed the hot apple cider

Warm clothes for wandering outside after dark. A hot mug of Glühwein or a snack in the heated Alpine Lounge tent will help, but you'll want to bundle up nonetheless.

How to get there

Biking is a great way to get to the Market! It's located just off the Seaside Greenway & within a block of the Hornby/Burrard protected bike lane. There are some well lit bike racks & a Mobi station at the Shaw Tower right across the street from the Market entrance. The Market is also a short walk from the #19 bus on Pender street or Burrard Skytrain Station. There is cheap parking next door at the convention centre, $10 for the evening after 6pm.

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Bike the Night 2019 with two kids & our Tern GSD S10

This was our fourth year at HUB Cycling's annual open streets event, Bike the Night. If you haven't heard of it, the nonprofit cycling organization plans a 10km route which is closed to motor vehicle traffic. There's a two hour event in the park ahead of the ride with music, lots of free samples, food trucks, free basic bike maintenance, & other goodies.

Bronte wanted to ride her own bike & Linny chose to come as a passenger on the back of our Tern GSD S10. We met up with some Vancouver Family Biking friends & rode together most of the route. Mostly with another family at our school, with six kids between us: three on our two cargo bikes, three kids on their own bikes. The other mom or I would have to stop occasionally for a kid's stuck derailleur, or to check on someone else along the route, or for one kid to stop to scratch under their helmet, then the other mom would zip off to try to keep up with the kids who were pedalling ahead.

This was easy for me with the Tern GSD, that thing is so much faster from a dead stop than me on the Bakfiets!

So not the most relaxing evening--is it ever really relaxing with six children between two parents?--but definitely enjoyable to have the streets just for us for an hour. Every year that we go, there are more children & more cargobikes on this ride. I like how the event has evolved over the years--my kids spent quite a bit of time at the Vancouver Aquarium booth, handling at their collection of  specimens, puppets, & getting an airbrush octopus tattoo. There were many snacks to be had, with Clif Bar people roaming the event & handing out free bars from a Metrofiets cargobike.

Bike the Night allows families & slower riders to start the ride a bit early, so we all headed up out of Sunset Beach Park lined up on We definitely had a lot of fun. If your kids can stay up that late, or sleep on your family biking setup, it's well worth going next year!

I made a little Instagram story, saved to my profile, about the whole experience, if you'd like to head over there to watch the video. :)

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Decisions, decisions: Carsharing, Biking, or Transit?

Our Honda Fit got us to Richmond in about 25 minutes

When you're going out for the day, how do you decide how to get there? We have quite a few options for getting around, including biking with our own bikes, bike share, walking, transit, carshare, & car rental. The vast majority of the time we just hop on the cargo bike--that's how we take the kids to school, to appointments, to playdates. It's how we get groceries & run errands. But when we're going places outside our neighbourhood, I usually think about how to get there a bit more.

Almost showtime!

I thought I'd share with you how I decide which mode to use when I'm planning a day out like we did today.

My decision-making process for a recent outing went something like this:

Getting a kitty painted on her arm

1. Google Map the location: Silver City in Richmond, then the Pacific Autism Family Network.
2. Compare the directions for cycling, driving , & transit: cycling would take about two & a half hours round trip, driving would be about an hour, transit would be almost three hours.
3. Estimate the costs of each method of travel: free, $45, $18.90. 
4. Cycling comes out as the winner for cost, though it takes twice as long as driving. So next I'd look at the route, hilliness, what cycling infrastructure there would be, if any. Richmond is pretty flat, but getting home again up & over Vancouver is a bit of a slog with a cargo bike full of kids. As for bike infra, there wasn't really a great route all the way there. I've biked to the Pacific Autism Family Network before & it's really not great getting on & off Sea Island.
5. What is parking like? Are there bike racks near the building we're going to? In this case, yes for PAFN & not sure for Silver City. Is it a high bike theft area? I wasn't too concerned with this for our outing to Richmond, but a number of places in Vancouver are fairly risky, so I'd be more likely to use bike share or another mode, rather than our own bikes. 
6. Next question is will we need to bring much stuff with us? We didn't need a lot of gear for a movie & lunch, but we did come home with a few prizes from the event. Not something that would preclude cycling or transit though.
7. Last question would be how much do we want to walk? My hip is currently sore & the weather forecast was for fairly warm, so I wasn't keen on walking far. Transit would involve the most walking, Modo would mean walking a couple blocks to & from the car to pick up & drop off. Biking would be the least walking.

Heading home with way too much candy & a short-lived balloon animal

So for this trip, as you've already seen from the photos, I decided to book a Modo for our trip. Since I wasn't sure when exactly we'd be heading home, I just made it an Open Return booking so we didn't have to worry about getting back by a specific time. The kids really enjoyed the movie, the treats & the games at PAFN & we were able to get home quickly in the comfort of an air-conditioned car on a warm, sunny day. 

Disclaimer: As a Modo Blogger Ambassador, I receive driving credits in return for posting about carsharing with Modo Car Cooperative. 

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Bike to Work & School Week & Bike to Shop Days Results

Bike to School Week ridealong with Deputy Mayor of Vancouver Lisa Dominato & School Board Trustee Janet Fraser

Bike to Work Week 2019 celebration

Did you bike to school &/or work last week? This year's Bike to Work & School Week (BTWW) was one of the most successful yet, with record breaking numbers of new riders. 3,292 new riders signed up to participate, which was an 87% increase over last year! 11,400 people registered for BTWW this year, logging 61,059 trips & riding 578,188 km across Metro Vancouver in a single week. More details here on the Bike to Work Week page.

"The continued growth in participation shows that the ongoing investment in cycling infrastructure & education across the region is having a direct impact on the number of people commuting by bike. It’s really great to see such a measurable increase (+87%) in the number of participants who are brand new to biking to work this year" explains Rowena Farr,  Bike to Work Week Manager. “Many Celebration Stations were located near recently improved cycling facilities,” she adds.

The bike racks were stuffed full for Bike to School Week

124 Metro Vancouver area elementary & middle schools registered in Bike to School Week this year. Schools organized morning celebrations, breakfasts (we continued the tradition of the waffle breakfast this year), cycling skills events, bike parades, family biking workshops & more to celebrate cycling & active travel.

“We really see school communities come together this week & it's because they recognize the benefits of active travel, like school zones being less congested & students arriving energized & ready to learn” says Jel Kocmaruk, HUB Cycling’s Bike to School Week Coordinator. "& the beauty of Bike to School Week is that every school celebrates in a way that keeps with their school culture & needs”. Our school typically has a dozen or so bikes in the racks, with another dozen or so parents dropping kids off by cargo bike, trailabike, etc. In May & June these numbers swell to fill up the large bike corrall & racks at the other side of the school.

Tracking bike trips to school for BTSW

As part of wanting to connect directly with students riding to school to hear about their experiences, HUB Cycling hosted the inaugural Bike Reels: Student Video Contest as part of Bike to School Week this year. Prizes for top student videos in all age categories to be announced next week on the Bike to School Week page.

School results are still coming in, but HUB Cycling anticipates that students took over 33,000 trips last week, with winning schools likely reporting participation rates of up to 71% of their school population & up to 55% cycling mode share throughout the week! Our school had the Bicycle Valet for the day on the Biker's Breakfast day & checked 72 bikes, with more kids & parents locking up in the racks.

Bike to Shop Days participation increased 34% since last year. For the first time, Bike to Shop Days was made a part of Bike to Work Week, encouraging people to continue making trips by bike throughout the weekend. The event hosted four guided rides, discounts at local shops & farmers markets. Celebration stations were set up across Metro Vancouver where participants could get their bike tuned up & get tips on carrying items by bike. “The event shows people that cycling to their local market, to get groceries or do their daily errands can be easy, fun, & comes with free parking!” said organizer Tracy Wilkins. Get further details about Bike To Shop Days here.

Bike to Shop Days station

Bike to Work & School Week & Bike to Shop Days successfully encourage people to try active modes of transportation & the hope is that participants continue to use their bikes to get around beyond these events. “Our surveys show that more than 70% of people who hadn’t biked to work before Bike to Work Week are still biking to work two months later,” adds Farr. “We encourage people to continue using their bike for all sorts of trips - not just the commute to work, but trips to the store, to visit friends. Getting around by bike saves money, supports an active lifestyle, & helps us connect with our communities.”

A little more info about HUB Cycling:
HUB Cycling is a charitable non-profit that has spent two decades removing barriers to cycling in Metro Vancouver, while cultivating the health, environmental, & economic benefits that active transportation can bring. HUB Cycling has educated thousands of people, motivated thousands more, & championed improvements that benefit current & future cyclists. HUB Cycling’s mission is to get more people cycling more often. For more information, visit bikehub.ca.

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