Destination Squamish: ride (on Wed) & drive (on Sat)

This Wednesday I have put together a string of "firsts" on my bike as I joined in on a group ride:

• first midweek ride (other than few times of short commute)
• first evening ride INTO night ride (had to change from dark smoke to clear visor!)
• first Sea-to-Sky ride

Here are couple fairly bad photos at the destination rest point. I rushed the shots as I was trying to embark on my solo ride into the night towards home soonest possible :p

Overall, it was a great ride!  The group was friendly and I was able to ride at a good pace in my comfort zone along several others without feeling hassled.  The roads offered great elevation changes and twisties; scenery was amazing although I made sure I kept my eyes on the road!  I am also very pleased with how I handled the ride back as it really got dark.  Riding at night is a very different experience, awareness kicked into overdrive, that is quite a rush in itself :D

As I enjoyed the roads and scenery from Wednesday so much, I just had to drive my wife there in my S2000. So tonight we went on an evening-into-night cruise, this time there are better photos!

1st group ride since "graduating"

Today I went on my 1st group ride (link to forum post) since "graduating" from PRS and completing my class 6 license.  What an experience!!  I must say it felt pretty cool to be one of the group riders that people were turning head to look at (some may be haters, but who cares LOL)

I was in awe with so many bikes and riders there at the starting meet location; only to be told that while it was a good turn-out but there have been and will be bigger attendance in group rides!  It's so exciting to see and hear all the cool bikes, I am glad I wasn't too excited and was able to ride safely :p

Even though I didn't ride the entire route (I did ~80% [correction: more like 65% in ride time] before departing at a pre-determined spot), the parts that I rode were already great; with some types of routes I had yet to experience before!  So far on all the solo rides that I have done, I did mostly open highway plus short distances on suburb residential streets getting on/off the highway.  Today, it was open highway: same stretch I have done prior, so no biggie, it was a nice warm-up; then some moderate twisties around the West edge of the city... next up, through the heart of downtown core... the busy intersections could get intense but that was all nice and good.

The next big highlight was some more twisties uphill and downhilll, fairly narrow at parts... one lane each direction.  I have never even driven a car through that part of town, so I was in for a bit of a surprise while winding my way through them.  I am sure I could have done better (i.e. smoother, NOT faster) and caused less worries for the tail rider (whom I still have to id and contact to thank!) in my group; but overall I really enjoyed it and fairly pleased with how I rode.  I will be back to ride that stretch and be better and better at it!