Crankworx in Whistler, and Squamish XC

Headed up towards Whistler for another weekend of ridiculous riding.

Friday night I had a chance to say hi to Amy, RJ, Lindsay and Ryan before they went for a relatively early night to hit an even earlier plane ride.

Saturday I headed up to Squamish to hit some of the best cross country riding on this continent.  I stopped in the Corsa shop where they mentioned that there was a race on in the trails nearby.  They pointed me towards some trails where I wouldn't interfere with it.  As it turns out they were wrong.  Upon driving in half a mile I found a guy ready to direct race traffic...  To make a long story short, I was in second place for a good half mile as I raced out of the course behind the leader.  It was nice of everyone on the way out to take my picture and direct me in the right direction. 

Since that didn't work out too well I decided to head all the way to Whistler for some more XC action by hitting Thrill Me Kill Me.

I met up with Glade, Jen and Cheryl to watch the slopestyle event of the Crankworx festival.  Those guys are nuts.  inevitably someone was pulled off in a stretcher (after falling over 20 feet without his bike at ridiculous speeds onto solid ground).  Check out this video which has that wipe out right as the last jump.  Timo hit the ground so hard I swear I felt it from the Longhorn bar.  Just in case that link doesn't work...  I've heard that he broke his shoulder and leg...

Anyhow, I went to bed early, and woke up early enough to go rent a bike and head out for lift opening.  I broke the front fork on my first run, traded the bike in, broke the shifters on the second run, and brought that bike in, then had no other complications other than a pretty hairy wipeout going towards the chicpea lodge.  Here are some photos I took...

Kayak camping near Sechelt

Went up to the sunshine coast last weekend to do some kayak camping near seshelt with Jeff and Arthur.

We woke up early, but got there late because the ferry to Langdale was full by the time we arrived in Horseshoe Bay harbor.  After buying food we arrived at Pedals and Paddles to pick up our rentals.  Unfortunately we had reserved for two days but didn't need them for more than 24 hours.  We ended up paying about $90 for the kayak rental which to me seemed a bit steep.

Anyhow.

We took about a 4 mile ride along the Sechelt Inlet to the Nine Mile Point campground.  As we arrived another group of kayakers arrived on site and it turned out to be pretty busy there.  So we borrowed the fire pit of another group of campers and roasted our food (which of course included better with cheddar sausages).

After some crazy camping antics, creepy phosphorescence from the dinoflagellates, multinational political debates, seal clubbing jokes and some imported wine we hit the sack around 3am.

Nothing too special on the way back except that a couple of seals that came by the kayaks (not within clubbing distance though).

Then it was back home.  I have pictures, but my communities site has overflowed, so I'll have to delete some pics before posting new ones.

Some big hits at Tiger

This weekend was pretty tame. I did manage to do some exploring on the bike. Cheryl was in town, so we borrowed Amanda's bike and headed up to Tiger Mt. Since Amanda's bike is fully rigid I decided the Preston Railroad trail was a bit too much. Instead I opted to go on the Iverson Railroad Trail which is much shorter, and less of a climb overall.

We were worried the bike wouldn't be good on that trail either, so before heading into the Iverson trail we kept along the fire road to see if we could get to Poo Poo Point (In case you don't believe this is a real place...). Turns out it's a lot of downhill before getting there (which translates into a lot of riding back uphill on the way back) so we didn't continue too far along the road. Fortunately I saw a couple of cross-country looking trails on the way up and decided to investigate further.

Turns out there's an entire network of downhill trails here, and some of the hits are pretty big. I don't know how welcome new riders are, because after riding by a 'Mess with the best, die like the rest' skull and crossbones shed I ended up near a building with what sounded like some pretty mean attack dogs. Anyhow, if I ever get a bike with 8" of travel I might venture back.

I'm going to bring my bike in to get a tune-up because my derailleurs are acting up. Hopefully it's something that's easy to fix.

Rat Pac and Black Diamond

Well, this was a good long weekend.

Saturday I took a hike up to Granite Mt. with Amanda. The weather wasn't the best... It rained on us on the way up, but the top was above the first layer of clouds, so we were able to see the clouds rushing by below in the wind which was really interesting and not something you'd see on a perfectly clear day. Later on I saw Spiderman 2 with Amanda and Marcel. The cinematics were great, and the movie was worth watching, but don't expect a deep twisting plot.

Sunday it was looking like crap weather in Seattle, so I headed past Snoqualmie Pass out to Roslyn near Cle Elum to try and find the Rat Pac trail. It was a bit hard to find. I met a local on the way up who was looking for the same trail, and wanted to come along with me. He decided after three miles of climbing a 9% grade that he was through and wanted to go home. That was the last person I saw all day.
After about five miles up the hill I decided that I had probably gone too far. I turned around and went down a couple of trails that turned out to be the wrong ones resulting in a lot of walking back uphill... Eventually I found the trail and for the most part I kept to the easier sections to avoid getting stuck up in the middle of nowhere. I was getting worried that I was biking further and further from my car, but after about 10 miles of riding (including the up-hill) I popped right out in front of my car which was quite a relief.
Turns out this trail is a bit more geared towards the downhill folks, so I wouldn't take my bike over any of the bigger hits (especially when riding alone). The structures built here are nowhere near as nice as the ones on the North Shore of Vancouver, and I'd actually label them 'sketchy'.

Monday I decided to head out to Black Diamond to hit the trail named 'Bruce's Bowels'. This place seemed to be a maze of trails, but it turns out I actually found Bruce's Bowels as well as another interesting trail too. I went for a total of 15 miles across two loops, and was quite glad when I found the trail back to the car again :) One of these days I'll find someone to go biking with me who knows the trail...
After this I went golfing with Jim up at the Fall City golf course. I really hacked up the course, but I attributed it to how sore my legs, back and hands were from biking.

Whistler mt. bike park and softball

Took a trip up to Vancouver last weekend to hit the Whistler bike park.

On Saturday I played in a softball tournament between Hewitt and Towers Perrin. I hit a homerun, and our team beat Towers Perrin 30+ to 5 or so. It was a disaster for the other team... To make things worse Neil who was playing on the Towers Perrin team broke his shoulder when diving for the ball...

Saturday night I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 after hitting some golf balls. Some of the scenes were a bit much, but I thought it was a good time overall.

Sunday I woke up, looked out the window, decided the weatherman was as useless as a sack of dog excrement and went out to whistler to enjoy the sun. I rented a kona stab garbanzo which is a bike that kona built for the whistler mountain bike park. It's a $6000 dollar bike with 7" of travel in the front and rear. Feels like you're riding an exercise ball. Anyhow, it cost about $150 for the rental, armor, lift ticket, and insurance, but at least it came with a free shirt.

The park is really freaking fun. The green and blue trails are simple and small enough that my X-country bike could handle them, but you'll want the squishy bikes for the black and harder. We started the day being led by a 10 year old down a green run, and progressed to the blues shortly thereafter. Once I tried A-line I was there to stay. A-line is a series of tabletop jumps one after the other (There are 60 jumps on this run apparently). You're in the air as much as you're on the ground and you're thanking a higher being that you have 7" of suspension the whole way down. Some more info on the whistler mt. bike park...

I rode tiger mt. this week after work on Wednesday. I thought it wouldn't be fun after whistler, but it's a totally different feeling. I think there is a place for both XC and DH in my biking life.