Ep. 1: "Why Can't I Coquitlam You?"

So living on a hill has its advantages, unless you're living on Burnaby Mountain heading East. Going down that side of the hill, you get to an intersection and, turning left, there is a massive hill awaiting you. Determined to be positive, I decided this was a good warm-up for the rest of my day and attempted to not waste energy needed later. After summiting to Burquitlam, I got to speed downhill fast enough that the minivan in front of me came often close to meeting my front tire (which would have been followed by a greeting by my face, torso, and other ligaments). Whoever was driving, I don't think they knew where they were going, but fortunately such an impediment turned soon, leaving me with open road to push myself along.
As I was going through Coquitlam, it struck me that not stretching properly was going to be a problem; my muscles were in an uproar. I finally stopped around Coquitlam Centre Mall and took some time to stretch. This felt good in the moment, though likely broke any momentum I was going to get out of myself heading towards my destination (any stopping before you get to where you're going kind of sets you up for more rests later, I find... Especially in biking, hiking, and running).
A fun side note: trucks and wind. As you're biking next to faster-moving traffic, the speed of the vehicles creates some wind going in the direction of the traffic. The larger the vehicle, the more wind going in that direction, for a short period of time. Therefore, if you have a lot of traffic going in your direction and are courageous (stupid?) enough to get close to them, it creates a nice effect of a tailwind particularly when large trucks are concerned.
I attempted to maximize on this effect by riding as close as safely possible to trucks as they passed me. Averaging about 30km/hr was the result, which is good considering all the weight I was hauling (not to mention how much the carry-bags weighed).
So having stretched, I continued on through Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and into the wonderful green stretch of Lougheed Highway which stretches on and on....