I’m in the middle of a 10 day vacation in the Vancouver area. The city is definitely bike friendly, and there’s bike infrastructure, but not necessarily for the type of riding I do. So I’m wondering if someone can point me to what I’m missing…

To me the perfect ride is 50-80 miles with relatively few cars, shade, and as few steep hills as possible. In NYC my favorite ride is the “Old Putnam Trail” (aka North & South County Trails) which is a rail trail that goes 50+ miles starting in the north Bronx.

But it then there’s also “River Road” (real name Henry Hudson Drive) across the river in the Palisades Park which is a bit hilly, but (with one exception you can avoid) the hills aren’t too long or horribly steep.

And there are parks with great, well-maintained gravel trails (e.g. Tallman Mountain State Park).

I’ve done Stanley Park. It’s nice, but it gets clogged with (slow) tourists much of the time (even worse than Central Park since the paths are narrower).

I’ve tried a couple longish rides around Vancouver. I did a loop around Vancouver Harbor (Second Narrows Bridge -> Lions Gate Bridge), and we road from Vancouver to Sechelt. Parts of those were nice in one way or another but there were usually issues of one sort or another (too many cars, too many hills, not enough shade).

If someone can suggest a more ideal ideal ride I’d be really grateful… Vancouver is stunning and I love it on a lot of levels, but I seem unable to “find my happy place” here despite the city being really bike friendly… Hopefully one of you can help me find what I’m looking for.