If you’re planning a trip to Vancouver and trying to figure out what to do first, let me make a case for getting on a bike. Biking the Stanley Park Seawall was one of those things I almost talked myself out of (is it worth renting a bike? how hard is it really?) and ended up being one of my favorite memories from the whole trip. From the totem poles to the forest trails winding through old-growth cedars, here is Everything You Need to Know About Biking Stanley Park:

Skip To:

1. Reasons To Bike Stanley Park
2. When and How To Bike Stanley Park
3. Best Seawall Stops
4. A Breezy Morning: My Stanley Park Biking Experience

Reasons to Bike Stanley Park

The Seawall Was Built for This

The Stanley Park Seawall is one of the most well-designed cycling paths you’ll find in any city. It runs 5.5 miles (or about 9 km) around the park’s perimeter, is completely paved, and has a dedicated lane for cyclists separated from pedestrians the entire way. There are no steep hills, no confusing intersections, and the whole loop is one-way (counterclockwise from Coal Harbour), so you’re never worrying about oncoming bike traffic. Together with the rest of Vancouver’s connected waterfront paths, the seawall is part of a 28 km network that holds the title of the world’s longest uninterrupted waterfront path.

DIFFERENT VIEWS THROUGHOUT

Part of what makes the seawall more than just a pleasant ride is how much the landscape changes as you go. You’ll start through Coal Harbour with the city skyline behind you, then round the corner at Brockton Point with the North Shore mountains suddenly filling the whole frame. From there: open ocean, Lions Gate Bridge coming into view overhead, forested cliffs above Siwash Rock, and eventually the sandy coves of Second and Third Beach. It doesn’t feel like one long continuous stretch, so it’s hard to get bored along the way!

It’s Good for Every Level

The seawall is flat all the way around, which means someone who bikes every day and someone who rents a bike once a year on vacation will both have a good time here. The speed limit on the path is 15 km/hour, so it’s designed for cruising, not racing. If you want more of a challenge, the interior forest trails offer some elevation and rougher terrain. And if you want to extend beyond Stanley Park, the seawall connects directly to the rest of Vancouver’s waterfront paths and you can keep going as far as you want toward Granville Island or beyond.

It’s One of the Best Ways to See Vancouver’s Landmarks

Most of what people come to Stanley Park to see sits right along or just off the seawall bike path: the Totem Poles at Brockton Point, Siwash Rock, Lions Gate Bridge, the Brockton Point Lighthouse. On foot, giving these stops the time they deserve adds up quickly. On a bike, you can cover the whole loop in a few hours, with time to stop at the spots that pull you into.

When and How to Bike Stanley Park

Best Time to Go

Summer (June through August) gives you the most reliable weather and the longest daylight hours, with rental shops staying open late to match. That said, summer weekends can be busy on the seawall, particularly on sunny afternoons. If you’re visiting in this peak season, I highly recommend doing what I did and renting in the early morning on a weekday. There will be less foot traffic on the path, meaning you can enjoy the ride mostly unobstructed and at a speed that’s comfortable for you.

Spring and early fall are also good windows, with fewer crowds and (sometimes!) quite pleasant weather. The park is open year-round, but one thing to know before you go: every winter, the Vancouver Park Board closes a section of the seawall between Prospect Point and Third Beach for several weeks to do slope stabilization and maintenance work on the rock faces above the path. Closures are typical between November and early December, with detours in place. If you’re visiting during that window, check the Vancouver Park Board’s website for current closure information before you go.

How Long Does It Take?

The 5.5 mile (9 km) seawall loop takes the average cyclist about 45 minutes to an hour to complete without stops. If you want to get off your bike at the totem poles, linger at a viewpoint, or walk down to a beach, budget two to three hours for the full experience. If you plan to explore any of the interior forest trails in addition to the seawall, you may want to give yourself a half day to be safe (we explored a few interior forest trails as well as the seawall in 3 hours, but definitely still left so much of the park unexplored!)

Direction and Path Rules

The seawall bike path is largely one-way: counterclockwise from Coal Harbour to English Bay. This is non-negotiable and there are signs throughout. The path has a separate lane for cyclists and a separate lane for pedestrians, both clearly marked, so make sure you’re in the right one. There are also a few spots where you’ll need to dismount and walk your bike across pedestrian crossings, and the path is occasionally narrow enough that you’ll want to stay aware of the people around you, especially in the busier stretches near the totem poles.

Where to Rent a Bike

There are no rental shops inside the park itself, but several cluster just outside the Georgia Street and Denman Street entrance. Spokes Bicycle Rentals at the corner of Denman and Georgia is the biggest and most visible option, with a wide selection including cruisers, city bikes, mountain bikes, tandems, and kids’ bikes. Helmet and lock are included. This is where I rented from and couldn’t recommend them enough!

A few other shops along and near Denman Street offer similar options at slightly varying price points, including Bikes and Blades and English Bay Bike Rentals. E-bikes are available at several shops, but tend to book up, so reserve one in advance if that’s what you want. I personally chose a regular bike though, which was perfect for this type of excursion.

What to Bring

Best Stops on the Seawall

Hallelujah Point

One of the first stops from the Georgia Street entrance, Hallelujah Point sits on the southeast corner of the park just past the Nine O’Clock Gun and offers a wide view of Vancouver’s downtown skyline across the water. It’s an easy stop to roll past being so early on the one-way loop around the park, so keep an eye out for it along your ride.

Brockton Point Totem Poles

A short detour from the bike path brings you to the nine totem poles at Brockton Point, which are reportedly the most-visited tourist attraction in all of British Columbia and sit on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people. The collection started in the 1920s and was expanded with poles from Haida Gwaii, Vancouver Island, and Rivers Inlet. Each pole represents distinct stories and lineages from the First Nations communities they came from.

Brockton Point Lighthouse

Built in 1914, the rectangular red and white lighthouse sits right along the path and is one of the more recognizable landmarks on the seawall. The surrounding area offers clear sight lines of the harbor, incoming ships, and the North Shore mountains behind them.

Lions Gate Bridge

As you round the northern tip of the park, Lions Gate Bridge comes into view. The bridge opened in 1938 and sits 200 feet above Burrard Inlet. You’ll get a different angle depending on where you stop along the approach: the seawall underneath the bridge and the viewpoint near Prospect Point above it are both great stops. I personally stopped near the S.S. Empress of Japan Figurehead Replica, which replaced the ship’s original figurehead in the park around the 1960s.

If you’re specifically looking for the overhead view, Prospect Point is a short detour up from the seawall and sits at the very northern tip of the park. From there you can see a panoramic view of the bridge, the inlet, and the North Shore mountains in the background.

Siwash Rock

A narrow sea stack rising out of the water just off the seawall, with a small tree growing out of the top, Siwash Rock is probably the most photographed spot on the whole loop. According to Squamish First Nations legend, the rock represents a man named Skalsh who was transformed into stone as a reward for unselfishness. It’s 32 million years old. The best shots are from the seawall itself looking out at the rock, and the afternoon light tends to hit it well. It’s also a great spot if you want a photo with the seawall’s curved path in the foreground and the rock behind it.

Second and Third Beach

Both beaches sit on the western side of the park and make for a natural mid-ride stop. Third Beach is quieter and more tucked away with views toward the North Shore; Second Beach is more social, with a heated outdoor pool nearby in season. Either one is a great stopping point if you want to lock up your bike and walk down to the water.

A Breezy Morning: My Stanley Park Experience

Biking Stanley Park was, without question, one of my favorite things I did in Vancouver. My partner and I rented bikes from Spokes and were quickly outfitted with helmets, bike locks, park maps, and of course, our bikes. We did a combination of the seawall and some of the interior trails.

The seawall itself is an easy ride for anyone who isn’t used to outdoor trails and we found that the bike gears are fairly easy to adjust in the handlebars once you get going (this was something that Spokes showed us and other patrons how to do before we left for the park!). Once we crossed the street and went into the park, we were happy to find it fully paved and relatively flat the whole way around, which meant we could actually look around and take in what was around us instead of just watching where we were going.

We first stopped at Hallelujah Point to check out the Vancouver skyline. Lucky for us, it was already turning out to be a beautiful summer day so we could see clear across the water and into downtown! There weren’t a lot of people in the park since we had started early, so we were happy to find that the path was fairly unobstructed too. Afterward, we rounded the northeast corner of the park and decided to skip the lighthouse and continue onwards. We were really getting into a rhythm with our gear shifts and the bike path in general and loved the freedom of not having to start and stop along the path!

Eventually though, we did make another stop, around the S.S. Empress of Japan Figurehead Replica. We had seen a few folks who were now also on the path pulling off and decided to make the stop only to be treated to views of Vancouver’s Lions Gate Bridge. A lovely surprise!

The other memorable stop we made along our initial loop of the park was Siwash Rock, which I’d seen in photos before the trip. We paused for a bit here, to just take in the sights and peaceful surroundings. A few small birds were hanging out on the rocks in the water and it was nice to sit and watch them for a while. The path did get fairly narrow around Siwash Rock so we weren’t able to go as fast as we had been originally down the bike path, but it was fun all the same!

Once we got past the Second and Third Beaches, my partner and I decided to take a detour into Stanley Park’s interior trails for a while, something we didn’t initially expect to love as much as we did! Some of them are a bit uphill, and yes, there were sections where it was rather grueling to walk our bikes up instead of riding uphill on the rough terrain, but for the routes that were flat or more steep going downhill, it was so much fun!! At one point, we even found Hollow Tree, a massive 600 to 800 year old Western red cedar stump located along Stanley Park Drive. The old-growth forest that surrounds these trails helped us forget we were even in a city for a while.

Once back on the trail again, we decided to re-take the loop back over to Brockton Point, which we had missed on our original circuit to glimpse the famous totem poles! We’d already visited Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology earlier in the trip and had been completely absorbed by the totem poles there, so being able to now see a collection outside and on traditional Native land was something we didn’t want to miss before returning our bikes.

Afterward, we were able to make it back to Spokes quickly by cutting through a few more of the park’s interior trails as opposed to taking the bike path fully around once more. We ended up spending a full 3 hours exploring Stanley Park by bike in what was one of our favorite Vancouver experiences from the entire trip!

*At time of writing. All rental pricing, hours, and operational details are subject to change. Check each shop’s website before your visit for the most current information.