Diversion Fisherman Excursion

Diversion Fisherman Excursion

The Fisherman’s trail to Spur 4 is an all-time classic gravel ride in the lower mainland, and it’s earned that status for a number of reasons. Once you’re past the Homestead turn off, it’s stays relatively quiet, it’s rideable year-round, and it’s a beautiful stretch of high-quality gravel. The ride is as hard as you want it to be, so don’t be intimidated by it. You can easily turn around at any point, if you haven’t made it out to try this ride, we would highly recommend it.  

 

 

 

From road to gravel, the changing seasons and weather provided an opportunity to explore one of Vancouver’s classic gravel loops: Fisherman’s Trail.
Fisherman’s is the perfect trail for riders of all abilities and experience levels to get some miles and enjoy some freedom from the city. It offers a mix of undulating terrain with a few single track options without being too challenging or requiring a lot of technical experience. 

Under overcast skies, our small group of 4 riders departed Enroute. Once we arrived at Stanley Park we navigated the Stanley Park trail system before crossing Lion’s Gate Bridge and descending into North Vancouver.

The goal of today’s ride was to hit as much gravel as possible so we set about exploring Mosquito Creek. We did our best to give space to other users on the trail system but not without a couple close encounters with off-leash dogs dashing dangerously close to us. The last part of Mosquito offers a challenging 15-20% kicker that left us all gasping for breath and regretting some off-season eating choices.

Once we got to the top of Mosquito Creek we regrouped and refuelled. We took Demsey across Mountain Highway before descending into the demonstration forest.

After navigating the recent washout we experienced a noticeable drop in temperature. With numb fingers and toes we kept the pressure on the ever increasing uphill gradient. On the way back we explored some single track before finding an opportune location for some photos.

With a total ride time of 4 hours, we covered 78km gravel and road. We were glad to have layered up, starting with a thermal base layer, bib tights, a good jacket and gloves as the balmy October weather brings temperatures starting to dip below 10C.