North Vancouver to Mission

The ride from our AirBNB to Hastings Street was fine, all on residential streets or in bicycle lanes and on bicycle trails, including on the bridge over the river. Hastings, though, was not great for the most part due to no bike lanes and too much traffic. Parallel side streets would likely have been better.

Turning onto Inlet Drive was a relief. It turned into Barnet Road/Barnet Highway and then St-Johns St in Port Moody. All this was great. But after Port Moody on the Barnet Highway and Lougheed Highway, traffic was terribly heavy, sometimes without good road shoulder. It would be worthwhile to look for parallel roads that might have less traffic and less road noise.

Eventually as we were approaching the Pitt River Bridge, I mis-read the road signs for the bicycle path over the bridge. So, we had to circle around for probably a couple extra miles to try again, this time successfully. To avoid my mistake, I suggest following the route to the bridge very carefully and avoid any sign pointing to the Mary Hill Bypass, which I mistakenly thought would take us across the bridge.

After the bridge as we rode east, we were on much better roads for cycling, but until we turned south on Wilson Street toward the dam and the roads that would take us into Mission, there was continuous heavy traffic. Definitely better than Highway 7, but it wasn’t the pleasure it should have been. Far too noisy. Getting on to Wilson Street that heads south to the dam on Hayward Lake and later Keystone Avenue was a breath of fresh air (despite the steep climb upon turning on to Keystone).