Beaches, parks, snow-clad mountains and excellent cycleways: Vancouver is great for cycling. Photo / Simon Wilson
From lush forest trails to art deco bridges, Vancouver is a city best explored on two wheels, writes Simon Wilson.
It was a rainy Saturday when I picked up a bike from Cycle City in downtown Vancouver, but that hadn’t stopped a queue of people forming out the door.
First thing I did was head southwest across town, on the dedicated cycleway on Hornby St, because I wanted to ride the Burrard Bridge.
It’s famous. Well, it is to cycling nuts like me.
Built in an elegant art-deco style, with a central arched truss and concrete piers, the Burrard is a bit like a scaled-down Sydney Harbour Bridge. When it opened in 1932, cyclists were supposed to take their chances on the six vehicle lanes; later, they were directed onto the sidewalks. There were crashes.
In the early 1990s, the city looked at adding cycleway extensions to the sides of the bridge, adding another deck or building a whole new bridge, before deciding on the boldest option: taking a lane from the cars and giving it to bikes.
You can imagine the fuss. In 1996 they began a six-month trial but motorists were so enraged, it was cancelled after just a week. In 2005 the council voted to re-establish the trial, but was promptly voted out of office. The new council favoured expensive bridge widening but was itself voted out in 2008.
2009 brought a new trial and more fuss, with retailers reporting steep drops in sales. But cycling rose sharply and vehicle trips did not take longer. There was a 53% rise in bike thefts, but this was not, the police insisted, because angry motorists were stealing bikes.
The trial became permanent. Another lane was taken. By 2019, the Burrard was the busiest bike route in North America and even the Downtown Business Improvement Association had become a fan. Cycling infrastructure, said the group, had turned out to be good for business: customers and employees used the bridge all the time.
And that is why it is famous. They had the courage to make it work.
The bridge has seats along the central section, where you can stop awhile and admire the snow-covered peaks to the north and imagine you’re looking at the wild and free North American wilderness.
I rode it many times, because it connects to many cycleways leading to places worth visiting. And on my last morning, a wet Monday, I went down and watched streams of bike commuters and four lanes of traffic next to them, coping perfectly well.
Vancouver is a cycling city. There are bike-hire shops all over the place and the streets are fun to ride. An e-bike makes it easy, but the city is pretty flat, especially if you stick to the coastal routes.
There’s a big network of bike lanes, most of them uni-directional: one on each side of the street. With right-hand driving rules, if you’re turning at an intersection, you do have to keep reminding yourself which lane to head for.
The city centre is on a peninsula pointing north, with a big inlet called False Creek to the south, almost cutting it off from the rest of the continent. This gives the city a very long coastline, strewn with gorgeous beaches.
And at the north end there’s the very large, densely forested Stanley Park. You can ride through the woods or go anticlockwise all the way around the coast. You share with roller bladers, but there aren’t many of them left. Walkers have their own path so you can go fast if you want.
On that Saturday, the rain quickly gave way and the day turned hot and sunshiny. I got sunburnt because it was early spring and I had not expected that, but everyone else seemed to know. Thousands of people were out making the most of it, all the way late into the evening.
There were signs warning about hungry coyotes, but I didn’t see any. Just squirrels in the trees.
On False Creek, an inlet ringed by playgrounds, parks and apartment blocks, they have toy ferries: tiny e-boats that scoot from landing to landing, as if they’re on a toot-toot mission spreading cheer wherever they go.
The cycleway winds its way all the way round, past outrigger canoes and rowers in training, Canada geese with long strings of Canada goslings paddling behind them, and everywhere cormorants and crows. All along the way, here and on other parts of the coast, there are coffee carts, food trucks, cafes and restaurants, museums, tourist villages and other attractions.
Beach volleyball is the thing, with dozens of courts set out on the sand. Over the weekend, I didn’t see a single one empty, from morning till night. Many people had set up their own nets on the beaches and the grassy reserves.
It’s easy to see the attraction: volleyball is fast, fun, skilful, energetic, a small-team sport that doesn’t take much space and doesn’t cost anything.
In Vancouver, it’s played by punks and sports jocks, hippies and normies, all leaping high and sprawling in the sand. All you need is to be young and addicted to a bit of fun. The bike racks were full and many more bikes leaned against trees, laying where they’d been dropped.
There’s one more reason Vancouver is such a good city to cycle in: the traffic is unfailingly polite.
Everyone gives way to pedestrians and bikes. Cars approaching an intersection see you and slow down until they know what you’re going to do. Few intersections have right-turn lights: the traffic is just careful.
This is a different way to drive. Our road use is governed by right-of-way, which is established by road rules and turn lights and easily devolves into I’m-bigger-than-you-so-get-out-of-my-way.
I don’t think I’m being overly romantic about this, but in Vancouver, the governing principle appears to be respect. The more vulnerable the user, the greater the care for them.
I did see three Tesla Cybertrucks, looking for all the world like the machines of some grim army of enforcers moving through the streets. Which I guess is the point.
Out to the west you can do a long lovely ride, past Kitsilano and Jericho beaches, up into the hills and then back again, spoilt for choice at the end of the day about where to stop, with food and something to drink, music drifting from here and there, ships moored in the bay, people settling onto picnic blankets, the last games of volleyball finishing up as the evening settles in around you.
Get the bike shop to put lights on your bike and you can stay out as long as you like. I did.
VANCOUVER, CANADA
GETTING THERE
Fly direct from Auckland to Vancouver with Air New Zealand.
DETAILS
Bikes for hire: Cycle City.
Cycle City reckons “bike rides are better when shared with friends”. Their guides know the city and its history and are trained in storytelling. Bookings are advised.
What to do: Destination British Columbia.
New Zealand Herald Travel visited Vancouver courtesy of Destination British Columbia and Air New Zealand.