Sea To Sky Life: Vancouver Island Gravel Epic | Riding from Nanaimo to Victoria on the Trans Canada Trail

This report summarizes our experience biking between Nanaimo and Swartz Bay (the two ferry terminals between Vancouver and Vancouver Island). This is an all-day-epic route that we started and ended in Vancouver. It involves ~215km of riding, over 100km of which is gravel roads, 7km is single track, and the rest is pavement. Unfortunately, even this gravel grinding route involves ~20km of highway riding.

The TCT website divides this route into Nanaimo City Trail, Nanaimo River Trail, Nanaimo Regional Trail, and Cowichan Valley Trail.

Nanaimo City Trail (12km)

This section is very easy to navigate; there are plenty of TCT markers put up, and it follows an urban bike path for most of the way. Constantly checking a GPS app is a good way to avoid unnecessary detours.

Nanaimo River Trail (12km)

This is the slowest section of the trail. This section starts off with the Extension Ridge Trail, which is a fairly technical single track. There are many punchy climbs and cool, little rock faces. I would only do this part on a mountain bike (I was on a Giant XTC with a rigid fork for gravel grinding). This 7 km of single track leads to the Pipeline Trail. Initially, a brief gravel section, then a sudden left turn into a bush. We would have not taken this trail, if it wasn't for the frequent TCT signs confirming our location. This section is extremely grown over, and we had to walk our bike on it (~half an hour). If I was to do it again, I would continue on the gravel road and hope that it connects back onto the TCT route - which I think it does because it goes in the same general direction. (The bushwacking trail portion is only ~2km, so it only takes a few minutes to see if the road connects back onto the TCT. I would definitely give that a try.) The bushwacking trail seemed like it was put in fresh after the trees were cut down from the area, but since then, it has completely grown over, along with the newly planted trees. After the bushwacking, the trail connects back onto a gravel road, and it shortly crosses a paved road (Nanaimo River Road). Since the crossing of the Nanaimo River is not yet solved (so there is a gap in the trail), we took a left turn onto the road down to the highway. I didn't actually realize that the trail was not connected across the river until looking at another website where it was explicitly pointed out. I assumed the tiny gap on the TCT map was due to low resolution GPS files.

Nanaimo Regional Trail (9km)

We skipped this portion of the trail due to lack of bridge over the Nanaimo River. Instead we took the highway to Timberlands Rd. (which leads into Nittani Rd.) to connect back onto the TCT at the start of the Cowichan Valley Trail. If one was to take the Nanaimo Regional Trail, it involves getting off the highway just after crossing the Nanaimo River at Spruston Rd. and taking that back up along the river. For us, it seemed too much of a non-essential detour in an already big ride.

Cowichan Valley Trail (122km)

This section starts off with gravel roads that lead into Ladysmith (~10km), then it alternates between urban trails and roads (including the highway for ~5km) for the next 30km. After that, the real deal Cowichan Valley trail starts: a ~30km stretch of gravel with more climbing than descending leads to Cowichan Lake. The trail is wide, smooth, and flat (although most of it is a very gradual climb with net 100m of elevation gain to the lake). The lake is almost exactly the halfway point of the route, and it is the last spot to get supplies until Malahat (40km away). Once in town, there is a sign to the western terminus of the TCT and another arrow towards the continuation of the Cowichan Valley Trail. To get to the shops and Subway/A&W, follow the western terminus sign (only ~1km detour). On the way back east, the trail is a little slower. The first ~5km from Lake Cowichan is smooth and fast, then for ~10km the trail narrowes down to a single track by the vegetation, and there is a no gravel put down either for this stretch. Past Glenora Park, the trail is well maintained, and the section of river crossing starts. The end of the trail is 15km from here. The most notable river crossing is the Kinsol Trestle. The gravel is pretty smooth and fast for the portion. It is also worth noting that there are distance markers along the Cowichan Valley Trail for various points of interests, but they are placed at seemingly random intervals, so I would not use them for navigational purposes.

Malahat to Swartz Bay (55km)

The route we took looked really fast on a map - which was our intention, as we were trying to get in lots of gravel miles - but it turned out to be the hilliest portion of the day. Once we reached the end of the Cowichan Valley Trail, we turned left onto Sooke Lake Rd., a fast downhill, then right onto Shawnigan Lake Rd., which is a slow climb. Once at the top of the climb, we reached the highway, and we were back down to sea level after 10 km, before we turned left onto Finlayson Arm Rd. This is where our progress slowed down a lot. The road went steeply up then down many times for the next 20 km. However, this was probably the nicest area we encountered all day, so it was worth it. Once out of the hills, the terrrain flattens out until Swartz Bay through Saanich and Sidney. It is also worth mentioning that there is a bike path next to the highway from Sidney all the way to the ferry. This 55km took us 2:50 (due to the hilly terrain and lack of water), which is way more than we expected given that it was all pavement.

To and from the Ferry in Vancouver

Getting to Horseshoe Bay is pretty easy in the morning. Driving is super quick that early, and there is also the option of taking the 250, which leaves at 5:32 from Park Royal (and arrives at 6:00 to HSB). Parking is free Monday to Thursday across from the Gleneagles fire hall. I'm guessing it is pretty expensive otherwise, so I would park at the Baden Powell parking lot and ride to the ferry on other days.
Getting back home from Tsawassen was a pain in the butt for us. The only bus to the ferry terminal is the 620, and there were 5 bikes on the ferry for the two-bike rack on the bus. It being the last bus of the day, we asked the bus driver to bring the bikes on the bus, but he didn't let us (plus the bus was pretty packed to begin with). I ended up getting a ride home, and my riding partner took a cab because we couldn't fit two bikes in the car and it was 11:20pm by that time.... Riding back to Vancouver is also a bad idea because getting out of Delta takes a huge detour by bike because none of the bridge close by have a bike lane! However, another option is to ride out to Delta (~10km) and take the 601 to Richmond. From there it's easy to ride or take the Skytrain. I will organize a ride from the ferry next time I am with a bike because I don't see very high chances of having only one other biker on the whole ferry.

Navigation/Route Planning

I downloaded several different maps from online, but we found that downloading the GPX files onto my phone and using a GPS app was by far the easiest and most accurate way of navigating the route. We used the GPX files from the TCT website. However, this has a gap in the Cowichan Valley Trail, which I didn't realize/forgot, so we ended up having to improvise there. Additionally, there is no easy/logical way to get to the Swartz Bay ferry from the end of the Cowichan Valley Trail that we are aware of, other than taking paved roads. We ended up going through the hills north of Victoria, which turned out to be a very nice area for riding (and also very slow with lots of steep climbing). The app we used is the Locus GPS (without a basemap or anything because my phone couldn't handle that), which showed us our location relative to the planned route. This proved to be super effective and easy to work with, and it way out-powers paper maps. Our GPS files can be downloaded from here for reference and navigational aid.

Timing

The first ferry from Horseshoe Bay leaves at 6:20 am, and the last one at Swartz bay is at 9:00 pm. This gives 12:50 min of potential riding time (1:40 sailings and ferry tickets are sold until 8:50 only for the way back). As mentioned, the Nanaimo River Trail portion is very time consuming compared to the rest of the route. We took 3:04 to complete the first 50 km, but the next 50 km is very fast and mostly pavement, making it a good place to bring up the average speed. A good place to have lunch is Lake Cowichan: there is an A&W and a Subway, but not much else. We took our only long break of the ride there and had lunch. There is also a few little shops that don't sell much other than candy that could help during the second half of the ride. I bought two packs of gummy bears, as I ran out of snacks by that time, and that kept me going for the second half of the ride. It is important to keep in mind the time constraint throughout the whole ride because it is easy to make shortcuts earlier, but for the last ~70km, there are no major sections that can be cut out from the route. Also, the Duncan to Malahat on the Cowichan Valley Trail is the fastest (and flattest) portion of the route other than the brief stretched of highway. Our strategy was to stay above 20km/hr the whole way. This did not happen on the Nanaimo River Trail, but it was fine the rest of the way. At the end, we ended up having 1:10 to spare before the last ferry of the day.

Gear

The gear I carried for this ride turned out to be excellent, so I thought I would share it. First, my bike was a Giant XTC Advanced SL 26er with a Surly rigid fork, 2.1 Maxxis Aspen tires, 38T single ring, and 11-36 10 speed cassette (I used every gear during the ride; it was the perfect gearing for our speed). I had two bottle cages with 750mL bottles. This was very tight, and I had to borrow some water from my riding partner at one point (it was a pretty warm day). I would carry a third bottle in my jersey pocket if I was to do this again. I also carried 4 Clif Bars in my seatbag, and I had a Hornby Island Bar for breakfast on the ferry. I ended up buying two bags of gummy bears in Lake Cowichan (800kcal) for additional snacks. Also, I had a big sandwich at Subway for lunch. I think this was a pretty generous amount of food, and I only felt hungry for the last 10km before lunch. (That was my fault because I wanted to save my Clif Bars and tough it out to lunch. I ended up eating two Clif Bars ~2km from Subway....) Other than that, I carried knee warmers, a light windbreaker, a casual shirt (not essential, only for comfort on the ferry ride back), and swim shorts (because they pack small, not essential again), a multi tool with chain breaker and spoke wrench, a spare tube, a patch kit, a spare quick link, a pump, two tire levers, and a small pack of tissue. I would take the exact same items again. I enjoyed putting on clean shorts and shirt on the ferry ride back. All of these items fit into my seatbag without even needing to use my jersey pockets.

Photos

The following photos were taken by our phones during the ride. They lack any sort of creative thought, but they show the terrain fairly well. Unortunately, we totally forgot to take more pictures during the last 60km, even though the place was worthy of it.

*Shoutouts to my riding partner, Blakely, for taking photos!*