Hayward Lake Loop (Jan. 24, 2009)

I decided to tryout the Hayward Lake trail once again, hopefully without any difficulties from snow. I have never ridden around Hayward Lake before, which is around 17 km round trip. My plan was to start at the Railroad trail parking lot on the west side of the Ruskin Dam at around 10:30am and make my way around the lake. Unfortunately Friday night I discovered that I had a blown seal on my rear brake caliper and it had spewed fluid all over my rotor and brake pads. Of course none of the bike shops in Maple Ridge were open until 10am so my plan for an early start was shot. By the time I had replaced the seal and re-bled my brake it was noon.

Just like last week I had to be somewhere for dinner that night which meant I had to keep a solid pace. I had just bought a Schwinn bicycle computer from Canadian tire for 25 bucks, it is a pretty decent one too for the money, so now I can keep track of my progress. I gave myself three hours to complete the 17km of trail, I figured I could handle an average speed of 6 km/h. At this pace I decided I would stop every kilometer and take a picture of my ride instead of writing about it. So here goes.

1km: The remains of the old railway bridge sticking out of the frozen lake. My computer also has a thermometer which read a balmy 0'C.

2km: following a packed down path on the snowy trail takes some serious concentration.

3km: A nice view of the lake with the odd dead tree protruding. You can see frost covering the trees on the other side of the lake.

4km: Some more of the old railway.

5km: No more path to follow, but luckily the snow here is extremely crusty and actually holds the weight of me and Bicyclese. This was actually a lot faster riding on top of the snow than following someone's footstep.

6km: I got under the shelter of the trees here but unfortunately the path was now covered with patches of ice.

7km: The bridge crossing the river between the Stave dam and Hayward Lake.

8km: A view of Stave Lake from the Stave dam.

I had to throw in this pic because I am probly 60-70 feet above the ground riding on this grate material. My wife would hate this part.

9km: A little bit of drainage work.

10km: A nice bridge over a creek, infortunately there were many areas of this side of the dam that I could not ride due to the ice, but I manage to negotiate most of it.

11km: Another nice bridge, it would appear that I was exhaling during this picture.

12km: this would be my last shot before my camera batteries died.

I managed crank out the last five and a half km back to my warm awaiting car where Amanda was waiting to pick me up. The computer, and rear brake worked flawlessly and besides the ice it was a great ride. I am looking forward to trying this again with less snow and ice and hopefully get some pics of the waterfalls and the floating bridge that crosses a section of the lake.