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.