Vancouver, BC meetup.

I used to do some day drive route planning for my club, so I've got a couple good ones up my sleeve, one that goes up into Miracle Valley north of Mission, and another that drives from Fort Langley all the way to Harrison without once going onto Highway 1.

The drive-times are about a couple hours to, and then less than an hour to get back to Vancouver via Highway 1. Plus lunch, you're looking at an afternoon.

A small group is fine, I find it a lot more fun with less than 6 cars because then everybody stays in one group and you are less likely to be stuck behind traffic lights. Besides, I have FRS radios for everybody.

Pick a Sunday afternoon? My car won't be fully broken in until after Christmas but even without going full-throttle and having to stay below 5500rpm, I think that's more than enough for our local roads :)

Besides, as you will discover on drives like these, it's not about the speed, it's about the corners :)

C'mon, I'll bring my camera even, take some pics of everybody.
 
I'm still in as well if there's enough willing participants. Mission and thereabouts is a little bit far, but then again, the whole point of this exercise would be to drive places.

Klutch is still in town I believe... I sent him the mass PM, but I guess he's offline these days.
 
Yea, the road up to Cypress or Marine Drive in West Van are both pretty nice, but they're also both pretty short.

For our club drives, we try to shoot for slightly over 100km of twisty back roads, all paved of course. And, for that, we had to go a bit out of our way.

So, plan for an afternoon... it's not going to be a short jaunt.

If we can even get 4 cars from here, I can get a couple more, and we'll be in business. Then, post some pictures here, tell people what a blast it is, and we'll get more next time.
 
I named those roads specifically because I grew up in West Van, so I used to joyride around those areas and those roads a lot... I'm definitely open to other ideas.

So, let's do this guys... how many people are going to come for sure pending the day we decide on?
 
Name a sunday, and I'm in, just not this sunday, because I need time to get off work. I like the sound of the Harrison drive. There are some nice little cafes in Harrison. And it's a good drive.
 
Last time we just dropped into the Old Settler's Pub and sat on the patio for about an hour. Afterwards some stuck around to walk along the beach and have some ice cream. Depending on the weather and the parking, it's an awesome place to finish up a drive.

It's to be confirmed over the next week or so, but how's October 5th striking everybody here? Most people I talk to indicate that the next couple of weeks are not good, but right afterwards it's fine, so October 5th is the 3rd Sunday from the upcoming one.
 
October 5th works for me. I'll book off work.
 
I'm also free on October 5... but are you guys busy next weekend? I'm thinking the weather might have turned crap by early October. Either one works for me though... and I'm thinking my daddy might be out of town so I might bring his car (so if Veritable gets a little carried away in his M3 one of us can catch him and bring him back). :D
 
I might beable to do next weekend. Let's see what people say.
 
Actually, the weather's crap right now :(

I'm free pretty much any Sunday afternoons, but I might be able to bring more people out on the 5th than on the 28th. However, if more FinalGear people can commit on the 28th, I can do that too. Hey, 6 in one basket, half a dozen in the other, same deal.

Don't worry about the speed.... If you've been on one of my drives, you'll know that although I do a decent pace, I don't break the speed limit... I just might not slow down for corners, which is where the fun starts anyways :)

I also try my best to keep the whole group together, because it's no fun when you're left behind and you don't know where you're going. Usually I go as far as pulling over to the side from time to time after a troublesome traffic light to regroup, and to only go as fast as the slowest car in the group is comfortable with.

That's why radios are so important. I've got 6 on hand, but if you have FRSs, bring'em!

*is starting to sound like a grandma*
 
I was just kidding, I know it's not about racing each other. :D

I have two FRSs as well but don't know where they are, so I won't dig them out unless we need more.
 
October 5 does not work for me, therefore you all have to take lots of non-crap photos :D
 
^ When else can you make it? There's so few of us Vancouverites on FinalGear it would be awesome to get as many of us as we can.

I'll bring along my camera and snap some pictures for everyone... I always enjoy seeing pictures of other FG meets. I love that panorama they took at the Ringmeet this summer, we should do that too. :D
 
Wish I could be there!

I'm still in Montreal but I might be moving to the west coast next summer!

Now if only I had a car..... :huh:
 
Just wondering who here can commit to the 5th? And, if you cannot, what are some dates that you can commit to? Maybe then we can have some sort of idea as to when we can bring the most from here.

Otherwise, even if we can only have the 3 of us confirmed for the 5th, I can probably get a few more cars out to bring the total up to 8, maybe even 10. That's not much of a FinalGear meet (though most of my friends catch some Top Gear from time to time and definitely know what it is), but at least we get a nice fall drive in.

The week before I'll be checking out the route to make sure that there's no unexpected closures and such. If you're interested, send me a PM and we'll get in touch. It's a bit of a drag having to do the same route twice in a row, but that's the life of a guy who used to plan such things for the club :(

BTW, bring a friend if you want decent pictures, as it's near impossible for the driver to take any. Ask me how I know :)
 
I'm good for the 5th.

Where abouts would we start? and at what time?
 
I have baseball in the morning so I'm thinking between 1PM -> 1:30PM, at a Chevron station somewhere so those who need to can top up on fuel.

Not that these drives need a lot... probably a quarter of a tank. You'll be surprised as to how little fuel you need for somewhat spirited driving! That's probably because you stay in a lower gear to keep in the power band, and that gives you good engine braking while keeping the engine running in good efficiency.

Usually we start our drives in Guildford Shopping Centre, in the Sears parking lot, which is on the corner of 152th St and 108 Ave in Surrey, and there's a Chevron right in the corner. Though, if it's closer to you North Van types, I'm also thinking about that Chevron station on Boundary close to the Highway 1 entrance.

Still waiting for some confirmations, but otherwise I think we're good to go. Though, the date is still flexible so if you can't make it on the 5th, give us some alternatives and we'll work on it!
 
I'm free on the 5th, barring any unforeseen consequences.

I'm in downtown so I'm not sure which Chevron is closer for me, I think I could manage both though.

Veritable, mind telling us what group of peoples you usually do these drives with? I have nothing against non-FGers tagging along, I'm just curious because you seem to do this somewhat often. Is it a BMW club of some sort?
 
Actually, I'm a member of the BMW Car Club of BC, which is a member club of the BMW Club of Canada, which is part of the International Council of BMW Clubs, which is part of BMW Mobile Tradition, which is part of BMW in Germany. Yep, official and everything.

We have close to 500 active members, and we do day drives like this about 4 times a year, plus once a year a 2 days trip to Merritt. The rest of the calendar is filled with static displays like our Concours and German Car Fest (alongside Porsche, Mercedes and Audi clubs), Car Control clinics (which qualifies you for a 10% collision discount on your Canadian Direct Insurance) and non-competitive auto-x at Pitt Meadows Airport, Road Skills clinics at Mission Raceway, plus once a year to Portland International Raceway.

Though, I will not be inviting anybody from the BMW CCBC because we're doing the last day drive a couple weekends later, and I don't want to step on anybody's toes. The only person I asked was a good buddy of mine on the Board of Directors, who missed checking out this route when I led it as the Father's Day drive back in June.

Like you, I much prefer getting 6-7 cars from FG and have a proper FG Vancouver meet. So, I've not confirmed with anybody except from here. I'm just kinda hedging my bets a bit in case we really do end up with 3 cars from here, I can still get some gear-head friends of mine to fill the group a bit and get the drive going.

Hey, we all like cars so the tableside conversations will be still fun, just might not be about Top Gear as much :|

People you know, too. Loves cars, competent driver and not a hazard and a total idiot behind the wheel, as long as the car is not so crappy that it's dangerous, might have fun driving on roads that you didn't know even existed, not too far from here.
 
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