Pre ride notes:

The pre-ride was done on September 30 with a starting temperature of 7c in Sidney and dropped to 4 c by Heritage acres.  Further along caution was used to cross the wooden bridges as frost was observed on them. 

 At km 62 you turn onto Moss street and ahead is the Moss Street market.  It might be nice to check it out, but don’t spend too long here.

It’s not long before you're riding along Victoria’s waterfront and the great views of the Olympic Peninsula.  As you turn onto Government Street and pass in front of the Empress Hotel the route can be challenging as you need to cross over to join Wharf Street bike lanes at the light.

Before the gravel portion of the Galloping Goose trail you may want to stop at the Co-op gas station at km 82 and top up your water bottles as the CRD water fountains could shut off for the session.  When riding on the Galloping Goose trail there is a Detour at Luxton Road km 89.  The detour goes for approximately 2 km to Winter road, then rejoins the trail again.  This repeats on the return km 136.  The gravel trail is in good hard packed condition and not a problem with 25 cm tires.

There are a couple crossings in Langford where you need to take the crosswalk to rejoin the bike path, km 153.9 & 154.5. 

This route is a good social ride route with a number of coffee shops and no QOM to claim.

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The 2023 AGM will be in Sidney, on Sunday 15th October.  To round-out the weekend, the Island Thanksgiving ride was reconfigured to be the AGM ride, the 'Old Rails and Trails' route.  This route is quite flat, but includes 70km of gravel, mostly on the Galloping Goose.  A number of old rail lines are now trail or quiet road, which provides a quiet, low-traffic ride.