This Saturday morning at 7 am, close to 4,000 cyclists released their brakes and started to freewheel down Georgia Street. It was the first few blocks of a 120-kilometre journey that would end, hours later and much elevated, in Whistler.
This was the first Vancouver GranFondo – a “Big Ride” – for a large number of cyclists of various skills. With the attraction of a separated lane on the Sea-to-Sky Highway, the ride sold out in weeks.
So what do 4,000 Lyrca-clad riders look like all in one place? Well, only partly like this:
That’s just a few of them. I stood at Georgia and Chilco and watched them ride by, in flanks of a dozen, filling two lanes up Georgia to the top of the hill at Burrard. For ten minutes. And then fifteen.
After twenty, I left, and they were still coming.
Four thousand cyclists is an impressive number – not something you see every day. Even though, more or less, it occurs every day.
Because, according to the City’s transportation statistics, more than 3,500 cyclists commute to work downtown every morning. Approximately 60,000 trips are made on a bike every day. You just don’t see them in one place.
I was there, it was such an amazing time. This one lady and I kept passing each other, and in the end it turned out she won the womens age 70+ age group. At age 76 she beat me the 28 year old! Epic!
i’d like to know how many of these 4000 regularly commute by bicycle to work and/or don’t have a car
stats give me stats 🙂
…Roland “I commute by bicycle to work rain or shine, just not in snow and use my car on weekends” Tanglao
Not sure of exact year for this statistic from city’s web page:
“In the West End and Yaletown, nearly 40% of households don’t have cars. This compares to other multiple-family, medium density areas across Vancouver where 11% of households are car-free. More people in an area does not automatically mean more cars.”
http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/transport/livable/ecodensity.htm
The residential population downtown has mushroomed in past decade. And most of it is high-density new buildings. Not surprising there are alot more cyclists all over the place downtown. Or at least, more pedestrians.
In the highrise building where I live downtown, I am now fighting for bike parking space every few days to park my bike to lock up within a caged underground bike parking area in our building because someone else grabbed it. This never happened over the last 7 yrs. since I’ve lived here.
This problem has resurfaced only 8 months after the strata management managed to get rid of 60+ unclaimed /forgotten bikes by building residents. (donated to charity)
Given a captive residential customer base that is growing, not decreasing, why not make our retail streets more accessible, attractive for transit, bikes and pedestrians?