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Cycling

How long does it take to cycle around Bowen Island

Short Answer: Many many hours

Not so short answer: cycling on Bowen Island, is relaxing, wonderful, and hilly. To ride on every road it’s about 5 hours if you’re a pro-cyclist, and 10-20 hours if you’re not a pro-cyclist to cycle every road on Bowen Island.

Bowen Island

About the size of Manhattan, or Richmond, and only 1/100th the road network, Bowen Island stretches with its road like tendrils expanding from the Snug Cove area to various points on the Island. Roads follow the terrain, bending and weaving, never going exactly straight to where you want to go.

This is what makes cycling on Bowen Island so appealing. You can always seem to find a new bend in the road, twist of the shoreline, path into the forest, and new beaches.

The pink roads are all of our main roads, the grey roads are all the secondary roads.

No ring-road encompasses all of Bowen Island.

Adams and Grafton road on Bowen Island. There is no shoulder here.

As you do begin your trek around the island, there is one very important road to keep in mind. Adams / Grafton. (Highlighted in Pink)

The Adams & Grafton road has no shoulder. Cars travel at a blazing 40km/hr here and it’s the most dangerous for cyclists. We seriously recommend pulling off to the side should a ferry line up of cars start following you in either direction.

Final Tips

Taken from Google Satellite View. You can see that the roads almost appear to connect. It’s not true, they do not.

Do not believe Google Maps Satellite View, when it says there is a road that connects the Smugglers Cove Road, Billington Road, and Woods Road on the North East side of Bowen Island. It’s private property, and bush whacking for 400-500m with your bike. It looks like a small break in the road, but it’s a lot further than that.