This weekend saw sunshine and friends and some training. Oh and one MASSIVE melt down.

For the record I am usually ok with traffic and riding and stuff. I usually don't have issues with bridges or heights. And aside from the occasional rage at an idiot driver or the dang tourist who look the wrong way on the one way street before stepping out in front of on coming down hill death I am a fairly calm (sometimes aggressive) rider. So it came as a surprise to me when I ended up in tears at the side of the road vowing that I would never cross THAT bridge again even if it meant that I would have to stay forever on the North Shore.

But backing up a bit. We had a house warming/happy birthday/brunch social on Saturday morning. Alison was super keen to show us Westsiders her Eastside neighbourhood and do a shortish ride to Deep Cove and back. Which we did. The catch is that to get to Deep Cove from there the best way is to cross Second Narrows both ways.

Now the NArrows is freaky enough coming south when it's a long climb to the top and a short gradual descent back to solid ground. Not so bad even with super duper narrow sidewalk with clastrophobia inducing rails and Transcanada highway traffic wizzing by you on the left (seperated by a few inchs of concrete and a rail that doesn't come quite to your shoulder). But going north over that "thing" OH MY GOD. That short descent becomes a short ascent and that long climb becomes a white knuckle descent of hellish perportions which NEVER ENDS. And the traffic seems to be made up of monstrous dump trucks and semis that wizz by mear inchs from your head.

And that's how you end up in tears begging to get off the bridge and then collapse under a tree bawling and saying you will never ever ever go over that THING again.

But after the tears ended and my heart calmed I got back on and continued to Deep Cove and I am proud to say that I managed to bike back over the BRIDGE OF DOOM heading south. But I will never ever ever go north on it again. And we had a lovely tour of Alison's new neighbourhood just east of the Drive which is really cool. And a great brunch with friends.