Now the trick for me is to find a good club or team to ride or race with. There are lots in Vancouver proper, but their rides start so far away I'm not sure how to deal with that. I found a nice cycling club in New West, and while the people are super awesome and nice, the rides are more focused on gentle , relaxes bike-path style stuff - which is great, but not exactly what I'm looking for.
I've had the same problem, being based in New West (and had thought about trying to start a club out here). A couple of established options, though, are:
http://vancouvervelovets.org/index.html - they're pretty active and ride from Richmond;
http://www.coastalraceclub.com/events.html - they have a good race program and their Thursday night crit series is well run, fun, and (relatively) easy to ride to.
As for rides, I mostly ride into Delta (River Road), to SFU and or Port Moody (further out to Belcarra is nice), or head over the second narrows bridge to Deep Cover or Seymour. There are some okay loops through Surrey and Burnaby, but they make for better winter rides.