Thetis Island Bike Tour 4/16

As a surprise for my turning another year older, O planned a full day bike tour out to Thetis Island. 

Rode the Jake with trunk bag so I could carry some shoes for a mini hike if sun was out, and some gear, cyclocross tires are noticeably slower but more comfy short term. 

We headed out at 1030am, over to Cedar road then down to hwy1, hit chemainus road and followed that to the ferry terminal. Great ride, but didnt feel too spry after last nights hard 15k run. Awesome bakery in town though that got murdered by myself. Rains flirted with us the whole ride, never too wet though. Bakery lady told me it hailed hard just behind us from Nanaimo southward, nice timing.. 

Chemainus

Ferry is just a tiny vehicle raft more or less, fits 20 some cars, tiny room for passengers, no prob. Chilled in there and some random little girl chatted us up. 

Obviously the leg warmers aren't working

Beautiful roads on Thetis

Beautiful hill climbs on Thetis

 Onto Thetis Island for our first time ever, holy hills. From sea level up to 130m in first 4k, then steep down another 15% grade to the point (end of road). It was sllooowwww. Like cranking the big rings at a cadence of about 20 and going 5-6kph slow. Hit the point and did some quick timing with the ferry, decided to boot it back but that meant a hard climb up the 15% again on the out n back. Hit the hill as two other cyclists were coming by, some cyclists can be serious douches, elitist weirdos these two were. Got to the ferry and waited 4 minutes tops for the 250pm back. 

Back in Chemainus after the 25min ferry and was at 48k point, needing 30 to get home, tired. My legs started to get sore and my right ass/hip muscle tightened up harsh. Pulled over a couple times on the hwy1 with the rush of cars deafening me to stretch. Rained almost the entire way back, started to defeat me. Very very sketchy point in the final km from home where you have to cross 2 lanes of traffic where cars are going 90 around a blind curve, dumb dumb dumb setup. I told O about it before we approached it. As we got there I looked, no cars, started across the 2 lanes, a truck comes flying in inner lane and O is behind me crossing slowly. Truck starts honking and my heart went out ,too close. If she had panicked or swerved there would be a very bad ending there. 

Got home to clean the bikes off and then scrub the bbq of 5 yrs of mold and grit.  Most excellent ride!