I’m getting married in Canada next week and I’ll have just one day free to get out riding.
I’ll be staying in Vancouver, so I know I’ll be on the doorstep of some amazing riding.
Has anyone had any first hand knowledge of riding out there and can suggest how to best spend my day, as I don’t want to waste the time I have. I’ll also need to hire a bike and travel to any potential location without a car.
Any help will be appreciated.

cove bikes or john henry cycles should be able to sort you out

Bike Hire = Endless Biking

You can get a bus (210 or 211) directly from downtown (the buses are pretty easy to use) and you could even cycle straight to the base of Mt Fromme directly from the shop if you don’t mind a fairly stiff half hour climb on tarmac to start the day. Alternatively you could hop back on the 210 (the buses all take bikes) and take it to the top of Mountain Highway, which is where the Mt Fromme Trails all start/begin.

Mt Fromme is most compact and easiest to navigate, it’s basically a forest road climb up seven switchbacks to the start of ‘Seventh Secret’ which is a really nice warm up trail. This spits you out between 4th and 5th switchback which is where most of the main action begins, i.e. Pipeline, Ladies Only, Expresso, Executioner, Lower Oil Can etc.

The only place to watch is when you get to the bottom of these trails, all of them drop you out onto the Baden Powell, which is a fun but testing hiking trail traversing the hillside back to the car park and start of the forest road climb. There are more trails descending off Baden Powell but these are typically (ironic considering they are at the bottom) the steeper nastier ones like Lower Ladies, Boundary, Digger (what’s left 🙁 ) and my personal favourite Skull.

Ideally you could do one run of Seventh Secret, then go back up to the top to do a run of Upper Oil Can, although this is quite old school i.e. woodwork, skinnies and rock rolls. Then Choose between Expresso (flowy, easy, with optional challenges and one iconic rock roll) Pipeline (fast, rocky, gnarly in places, option skinny woodwork) or Ladies Only (classic, mandatory woodwork, some skinny, fast flowy and jumpy at the bottom).

If you’re slightly more XC oriented, then Seventh Secret – Leopard – Krinkum would be a good line, long, technical but less steep as it sort of contours rather than plummets. I actually wish I’d done this one more often.

Edit: oh yeah, do it AFTER your wedding! Brides don’t dig scars or casts… 8)

What he said.

I wandered into Endless Biking a couple of weeks ago and they were great. Set me up with a decent bike and sent me off to do a couple of wee warmups then expresso then 7th/Leppard/krinkum. These were testing enough for me! 7th secret was so good I looped back and did it again before carrying on down the hill.
Brilliant day.

you can daytrip whistler with epic rides. I’d be doing that. Whilst there is good riding on the north shore (really good), which is nearly all signed (you don’t need a guide, GPX and signposts will do it but you do need good legs or a friendly uplifter) – whistler would do it for the mecca experience.

Wot 13thfloormonk says, you won’t go wrong but I’ll just add that if you put a bike on the front rack of a bus, make sure you sit up front and keep an eye on it at all times!
Opportunistic bike theft is pretty endemic in a lot of areas of Vancouver…

Again 13th has given some great advice. Although as an ex-guide it’s hard to advise on specific trails. Are you a genuinely solid rider who wants to sample the ‘North Shore’ experience? If so, Upper Oil Can to Ladies Only on Fromme would be good. If you are curious and hunt around just below the entrance to Upper Oil Can you’ll see the entrance to Flying Circus. Hide your bike and have a walk down and prepare to be amazed at what people used to ride! But if you are not so hot (and be honest with yourself…..I’ve taken plenty of people for 2 hour walks with their bikes because they they claim to be good riders…..), then 7th Secret to the new version of Expresso is fun.
If you have a smart phone with you, I would download Trailforks if you don’t already have it. And study the trails / orientation before you ride. We are not talking normal trail centers here and it’s not hard to go the wrong way and royally **** yourself over. Signs keep getting stolen(!) so I’d not be trusting them for directions.
Whistler? I only live 30 minutes away and there are way too many good trails locally for me to bother driving up there, and if you are heading up from Vancouver you’ll be spending half the day on a coach.

Thanks so much for all your advice and thoughts guys. I think I’ll give Whistler a miss due to the travel times.

Any thoughts on bike hire whilst I’m there?

Endless