Biking the Sea Wall

We went and had a family adventure along with some of our friends and their kiddos on Saturday. It has been 3 years since I last rode a bike believe it or not, sadly I do not own one (we have actually been searching for one over that time too but I am picky) so I was really excited to go and bike the sea wall in Stanley Park again.

There is a great bike shop on the corner of Denman and Georgia, right near the entrance to Stanley Park, called Spokes Bicycle Rentals.  You cannot miss it because you will see all of the bikes lined up on the sidewalk. We parked across the street in the big parking lot near the marina and just walked up to Spokes. The staff at Spokes were great and had us all set up with our rentals in no time.

We walked in filled out a little bit of paper work letting them know what sort of bikes we wanted to rent, I wanted a 7 speed cruiser and Jason got a comfort mountain bike so that he could pull one of the bike trailers, and they provide everything you need. All rentals from Spokes come with complimentary helmets and locks. You can even get a basket if you need somewhere to put stuff on the bike and don’t want to be riding with a back pack on. When renting you do have to provide ID and there is a $50 deposit (per bike) just in-case. Once you are done the paper work you will be given a helmet (if you did not bring your own) and locks, and you are given a little white slip of paper to hand to the staff outside and they quickly get bikes for you. For us the staff member brought out bikes over, and the bike trailer and in no time at all it was attached to the mountain bike. We were all set and on our way.

We all headed off to bike around the sea wall that surrounds Stanley Park. The bike path is 11 km long and took us about 1 hour to bike all the way around, and that is including a pit stop or two to check on our kiddos. Now of course the oldest kid on our adventure spotted the water park near Lumbermen’s Arch, we were barely part way around so it took some convince that we would be coming back to it after a loop around, for all of them to play. It was a beautiful bike ride, I really wish  we lived closer so that we could do this bike ride more often. I would love to go again this summer season and make a point of visiting the pool at Second Beach. We stopped at the water park like we promised for the kids on our loop back around. It was a welcomed cool down for all of us since it was a warm day out.

I am in love with the 7 speed cruiser bike that I got to ride. For starters the colour is great, I am a huge fan of sea  foam green, and then there is the fact that it has a great cushy seat. I didn’t get a sore bottom unlike my hubby. The Chariot bike trailer was great. Since we did not need both kids seats in it the seat belts were easily moved to the middle position so Evie could sit in the middle. She has space on either side of her for us to put her dolly, snacks, and water bottle. There was plenty of head room for her, and she easily sat in it with her helmet on comfortably, her head was not pushed forward because of the helmet. The one thing my husband said would be nice to see is a mirror option for when you have the bike trailer on your rental so that you can see the edges of the trailer, and even your kid without having to turn around backwards to check or strain your neck shoulder checking. We were glad we went with the bike trailer, as there is also the option to rent a child’s seat, because we had a feeling Evie would fall asleep in it at some point when she surrendered to fighting her nap. We also appreciated the storage space. We were able to tuck the diaper back, our lunch kit, Jason’s hoody, and the trailer lock into the back of the Chariot and still there was lots of room left over. I was actually worried that we wouldn’t have space for all the stuff you need when you have a younger child, but that fear was soon put to rest.Sure enough Evie did fall asleep towards the end of our time out biking.

Returning everything was also super easy, the staff outside were quick to spot us coming back and got the bikes from us. All we had to do then was take the helmets and locks back inside. Easy! If you are looking for something to do either with your family, on a date, or even on your own go bike the sea wall.

 

 

 

Thank you to Spokes Bicycle Rentals for providing us with our bike rentals, we will be back again soon.