Derby Reach Trail Opening and Group Ride

Metro Vancouver, Trans Canada Trail and the Township of Langley are sponsoring the official opening of the Derby Reach Trail and are inviting the public to the opening ceremonies at the main Derby Reach Park location on Allard Crescent near Edgewater Bar. This is a new section of trail that winds through forest, fields, nears the Fraser River and winds through active farmland to join up with the Edge Farm Trail and Fort to Fort Trail. The trail was constructed with the cooperation of Trails BC, Metro Vancouver as a part of the Experience the Fraser Project, the Trans Canada Trail and local farmers. This section has now been added to the Trans Canada Trail sections that connect from Maple Ridge over the Golden Ears Bridge to the Derby Reach Trail via 102B Street. It then joins onto the Fort to Fort Trail to Fort Langley and connects to the eastern Langley sections of the TCT. This provides another connection in their goal of connecting the entire  22,000 km Trans Canada Trail across Canada by 2017. Here is a map of the new trail section.

More information about the opening ceremonies can be found on the Metro Vancouver Event Calendar.

Group Ride Details

In support Valley VeloRiders is organizing our weekly Saturday Group ride around this event. As usual we will be meeting at the Fort Langley Cyclery at 9-9:30AM and leaving by 9:30. We will follow our normal route go onto the new trail at the 208th trailhead and from there continue on to the Derby Reach site. There the group can stop for lunch, enjoy the opening ceremonies at 1:00 PM or continue on the rest of the route back to Fort Langley. The decision on what to do from Derby Reach will be made by the group at the time.

Date: Saturday, July 23
Meet Location: Fort Langley Cyclery, Fort Langley
Meet Time: 9:00-9:30 AM
Ride Pace: Leisure (15-20 kph)
Route: http://ridewithgps.com/trips/308457

Ride On!
Richard.



Edited 7-21-2011 4:06 PM - Clean up of some of the wording.

Ride Report - Tynehead Park and Perimeter Trail ride

The day was a bit wet to put it mildly, but we left on time from the Fort Langley Cyclery which allowed us the time needed to be at Tynehead for the ribbon cutting ceremony. There were only three of us on this ride, no doubt due to the wet weather but it would have been nice if a couple more hardy souls could have joined us. In spite of the weather we had a lot of fun on the ride and were able to join up with other groups cycling their from Surrey and Maple Ridge. We all got a bit wet, but it was warm and easy to tolerate the poor weather because the route and the company was great.

It is great to see new and family friendly cycling (and walking/hiking) facilities like this become available that allow us to enjoy the outdoors and cycle safely away from traffic so the more people who turn out to support such events only encourages those in decision making positions to do more of the same.

For a more detailed write up on the ride with photos and route map check out the entry on my personal blog, Comfy Cycling along with Alex Pope's report and photos on his Living in Maple Ridge blog.

We hope to see everyone for this coming Saturday's ride to the Derby Reach trail opening. There will be more details about this event in my next post.

Ride On!

Group Ride - Tynehead Park and Bicycle/Ped Overpass opening

Event - Tynehead East Perimeter Trail Opening

This will be a ride from the Fort Cyclery that I will lead that will take us along the Trans Canada Trail from Fort Langley, through Derby Reach to 208th and then onto the Golden Ears Way multi-use path to Tynehead Park on Saturday July 16th. The pace will be a leisurely 15-20 kph (level road speed) and will be a very family friendly route. Because the route will take us along the Trans Canada Trail from Fort Langley to 208th Street which has a gravel surface, road bikes or bikes with skinny racing/training tires will not be suitable for this ride. Hybrid, mountain, kid's and recumbent bikes or trikes (adult) will be suitable and welcome. Round trip the ride will be about 40 km long.

The event is the opening of the 5 km Tynehead Trail and new cycling/pedestrian bridge over the Hwy 1 from Tynehead park. Metro Vancouver Parks are host this grand opening of the bridge and the new Tynehead Park multi-use path. We will be riding this path on the way there and back. Except for a kilometre or so the entire ride will be off the road on trails or paths specifically created for cycling and pedestrian use. This new trail and bridge along with other planned cycling improvements in the area will open up many new route options away from traffic including access to Barnston Island via the Tynehead overpass which is a very pleasant and scenic ride

You can find more detail about this event along with some maps of the various routes at the following links.

Metro Vancouver Parks - http://tinyurl.com/68lrnvd

Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition - Surrey Chapter - http://www.vacc.bc.ca/gold

Meet: Fort Langley Cyclery

Time: 8:30-9:00 AM (we leave by 9:15)

Please RSVP ( Richard Edge ) ride so I know how many are interested. I will then send that number to the VACC to let them know that there will also be a group ride coming from Fort Langley. If you are intending to join us on this ride but find yourself a little late, or have RSVP'ed but can't make it at the last minute, please contact me by phone at (604) 807-8508.