Wet, Grey Ride to Vancouver

If I were an artist - and I’m not - and I had to paint the colours of today’s ride, I’d only need black, white and maybe a bit of grey.

It was time for another servicing so today I rode into Vancouver. I take my Vespa in every 2000 km or about 4 months to get an oil change and to be checked over. It’s certainly more often than suggested but I l only really want to ride my scooter, not tinker with it, so this has worked well for me.

My youngest daughter is in Japan - I head there on Thursday - so she has my camera. The photos I have posted today were taken with my video camera so I apologize for the lack of quality.



I meant to take some photos on the way but the rain, which was not bad when I was still, completely soaked me while riding. Luckily I have good gloves, waterproof clothes, and I was even wearing my gortex overbooties!


After dropping off the Vespa, I headed into Kitsilano - a trendy section of Vancouver where Vespa Vancouver is located. There’s lots of good restaurants., cool stores and loads of interesting people.


I stopped at Kits Coffee for an early lunch (panini) and a latté while I read a couple guidebooks on Japan. Between the library and the Book Warehouse, I’ve accumulated a number of books about Tokyo - you’d think I hadn’t lived there before - sheesh!


I saw this interesting mutant bicycle - looks like some sort of Harley - Peugeot hybrid. It caused a few people to stop and look.

While talking to my favourite Vespa dealer, Bob, I found out that, much to my surprise, Vespa Vancouver was not rebranding but, in fact, now had a competitor. A couple weeks ago, I was at the Green Living Show in Vancouver and saw a display for Vespa Metro. I assumed that this was a new name for the old store, especially since I vaguely recognized one of the people at the display.


No, Vespa Inc. has decided to open another Vespa retailer in Vancouver, near (but not in) the area known as Little Italy (Vespa Metro is pictured above). Bob is not particularly happy as people think that the two stores are owned by the same people. He’s also a bit worried about a price war which could be good for the consumer if prices drop and could be bad for the consumer if they both go broke. For the time being, I’m very happy with Bob and the service at Vespa Vancouver so I’ll stick with them.


Vespa Metro does have a cool mural in progress, though.


I left with my serviced Vespa and headed home, stopping at Coquitlam Centre to pick up some Chinese groceries at T and T market. Lo and behold, when I left the mall, the sun was almost breaking through the clouds. It was definitely worth a photo.

So now, I am getting ready for my upcoming trip to Tokyo. I will hopefully be reunited with my still camera (or might even get another one in Tokyo) and have some interesting photos for this blog. Until then, sayonara!

Fort Langley - a ferry good time

I spent most of this week recovering from a cold, but felt good enough today to go for a short ride. Maple RIdge is north of the Fraser River which flows past Vancouver on its way to the Pacific Ocean. Directly south of the Fraser is Fort Langley, a historic town in BC., and a favourite place for a nice sunny afternoon bike ride. Unfortunately today was not particularly nice as there was a light rain most of the afternoon.



The way to cross the Fraser is a free ferry called the Albion Ferry. The ride is only about five minutes but the line-ups are often over an hour. Luckily, on a bicycle, scooter, or motorcycle, you get to jump to the beginning of the line so I rode my Vespa besides two guys on Harleys and we quickly crossed.

After reaching the other side, it was a fairly short ride into Fort Langley. There are two parts to the town - the historic fort, a tourist attraction, and the town itself, full of restaurants, artisan shops, and funky coffee houses.



Fort Langley is famous because it was originally a trading post run by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The company, called the The Bay now, is still in existence but is more of department store that is currently hanging on. The original fort was set up to trade with the First Nations people on the west coast of Canada. It was instrumental in the formation of British Columbia as a province.

I didn’t go into the fort as I have been there several times before but was able to take a photo of the monument outside the visitor centre. It’s a monument for the SS Beaver, a paddle wheeler that had a long and varied history during the 52 years it served on the west coast. It’s also a very Canadian name as the beaver is Canada’s national animal.

I kind of like the beaver as a symbol for Canada - industrious, skilled, very social. and a bit funny as well. It’s certainly not a very pretentious symbol and that’s not a bad thing.

After visiting the fort, I rode into the town. It’s not very big (population 2700 - I told you it was small) so the part to visit is fairly compact.



The biggest surprise was that the town is now called Placerville. A large banner on the main street proclaims, Placerville, Christmas Tree Capital of the World and the town hall has a big Christmas tree in front of it. Seeing Christmas lights hung from the lampposts of the main street in May is also a bit unnerving!



There is a Placerville in California and I found out that Fort Langley is being used as a film set for a movie (obviously for Christmas) set there circa 1977. It’s not unusual for places around the Greater Vancouver area to stand in for cities and towns in the US. There is quite the thriving film industry up here, initially thanks to our low dollar, and now is sustained because the industry people here are apparently really good. Combined with that is the fact that there are a lot of natural settings (mountains, coastline, lots of trees) that are close to a large urban centre. Incidentally, Peter O’Toole is in the movie but I didn’t happen to bump into him. Oh well.



After recovering from a very early Christmas surprise, I stopped in at one of my favourite little coffee shops, Spill the Beans, for a latté. Then I zipped back, on the ferry, over the river, and back home with a bit of a runny nose but an excellent and refreshed outlook.