Freeride guides group trip

On Sunday, the kind chaps over at WCFG delivered 10 park hungry riders to our doorstep.
The UK group consisting of 9 guys and a girl are here in BC on a pretty exciting 12 day tour taking in a week of Whistler based park and local freeride trail action including the North Shore and Pemberton before heading North and into the interior to sample the delight so Harper and Sun Peaks. After a few days away, they are back here for a bit more park action and the holiday sugar coating - a !Rainbow mountain heli drop.

IMBA Loonie #8

This weeks loonie saw an unprecedented shift from th etraditional Thursday night event to a Wednesday night race.
WORCA were keen to involve as many of the visitors here for the IMBA World Mountain Bike Conference as possible.
The course had a fun twist with the Fire Department getting involved and providing a retro fire truck complete with sirens and flashing lights so that the riders were safe taking a quick lap through the village before heading up 'EZ does it' to mid station.
From mid station the course descended B-Line at a fairly furious pace. Then it was into Heart of Darkness before climbing the Blackcomb ski out and up to the top of the Magic chair. Down the Magic park to the base of Blackcomb, down the steps, in towards the Lost Lake ticket booth then the recently renamed 'Peaches en Regalia' before a final leg along White Gold Traverse and into the Spruce Grove Feild house for a Kokanee sponsored apres!

Good fun and a great turn out from plenty of new faces.

Hopefully our WORCA members have shown the IMBA delegates just why we are the biggest community bike club in the World, and exactly how club races should be run! Remember all you IMBA delegates out there... we do this every week!

Spruce Lakes float plane drop

Dale from Tyax Air invited us up to his place on Tyahaughton lake to check out what he is offering with the Spruce Lakes singletrack float plane drop.
We wanted to get the ride in pretty early season to make sure that we can fully inform our guests exactly what the deal is and exactly what they can expect from the tour.

So, here it is:

We loaded up the WCFG shuttle limo and set off from Whistler pretty late at 10am. The scenic drive took us through Pemberton and over the Hurley gravel road through to Gold Bridge. From there it was another 15km to Tyahaughton lake where Dale, his float plane and guide Erin were waiting for us.

We grabbed a quick snack and then began to remove the wheels off our bikes and prodeded to get everything loaded into the back of the plane. 20 minutes of flight time later we splashed gently down into the clear waters of Spruce lake, unloaded our bikes and got set to roll!

Erin let us know the ins and outs of the ride, the wildlife we might encounter and her rules of play.

The first part of the ride was a skirting trail around the lake. It wasn't long since the snows melted so the trail was pretty boggy in parts so it made it fairly heavy going. Once the trail dries out it will make for a pretty nice and semi-technical warm up to the rest of the ride.

Once we had left the lake behind us, we came out into some open meadows where the trails were slightly damp and a little loose in parts from the passing horse traffic that the multi use trail sees. The meadows had a pretty good flow to them with enough pitch to let the bike roll and really make you earn your corners. We were all giggling on our bikes as the loose topsoil kept you super focussed whilst the bike was keeping us fully entertained with bouts of 2 wheel drift. What a hoot!

Once the meadows gave up to the trees, we got into more involved XC riding with climbs, technical riding and the odd rock garden thrown in.

The riding was remarkably changeable throughout the whole descent, we were treated to a whole range of trail styles that kept us guessing and definately excited for more. Once the sun comes out for a few days and dries the forrested sections out, it will be superb riding and definately makes a nice change to the trails we have in and around Whistler.

Spruce lakes is definately a trail for XC/AM riders who aren't shy about putting some pedal strokes in for the reward. Big bike riders need not apply... the Whistler heli-drop is more your bag!

Great day and a big thanks to Dale and Erin!

Test Of Metal

Wowsers, I'm only just back to normal after Saturdays Test of Metal epic mass start XC race down in Squamish.


The morning started early with me trying to stuff as much breakfast down me as I could manage.. funny how trying to scoff porridge and scrambled eggs makes you a bit queasy at 7.30 am especially with the premise of a 4 hour race only a few hours away!

There was a good crowd of riders an dspectators at the start area getting ready, signing in or just spinning their legs before the 11am scheduled off time. The bikes weren't allowed into the holding area until 10am, but bikes started jostling for position from well before then. Its a pretty important part of the race for us mere mortals. End up too far back and you could already have a minute or two to make up on the road climb to get decent position for the first sections of singletrack.



So, from the start, approximately 800 riders set off climbing up to the Garibaldi highlands where the after probably 20 minutes the first section of singletrack dictated the rider positionings for the first hour of the course (unless you were one of those agressive guys looking to make up time by choosing daft lines through Jacks trail and on the early loose doubletrack descents)

I was feeling strong through Alice lake so tried to up the work load a little and pass a few riders on the doubletrack that brought us back into the top of Rollercoaster (the first real spectator area as this used to offer some pretty nasty falls to keep things lively)
Roller Coaster has been worked on for the race with new bermed corners to change the way its ridden and the trail builders have done a great job in there.

After the University bridge I had to ease back a little as the earlier work was catcing up on me and I had bonk and 9 mile hill to consider.

I managed to recover some strength and had a fairly strong climb up 9 mile hill, nothing compared to my training rides, but good enough considering the race day efforts. The lactic acid was building as I came over Bonk so I knew that the Plunge and Crumpit woods were going to punish me pretty hard again this year - and indeed they did. the first cramps hit me at the bottom of the plunge after an awkward dab and close fall so the second time through the powerhouse was a bit of a mare. If there were a photographer in there getting snaps of the riders faces, I'm sure there would be many more than just me sporting an awkward grin whilst trying to put on a brave race face!

Crampit Woods lived up to its nick name and I'm ashamed to say it had me beaten! I had to mix up the riding an dwalking trying to ease out the muscle spasms but managed to give sufficient encouragement to those who were still riding! Plenty of other riders were suffering the same fate as me but there were many who had ridden sensibly for the most part and had strength to save for the woods.

Anyways, plenty of encouragemant was fourthcoming from the numerous spectators on course so I sucked it up and dug deep for the finish.
I managed to ride a 3hr32min time which beats my last time of 3hr50min so I was happy... until I was told that the winner was through in 2hr44mins! Sweet Jesus!

This years race winner was Neal Kindrea and his sister took the win for the ladies! Great result for the local Squamish riders and the Kindrea family!

Awesome event.. be back next year assuming the race doesn't sell out in 4 hours again!

For more Whistler and Seat to Sky riding events, check out our Whistler events calendar

Loonie #7 and 29.2lbs of trail bike!

Fanatk'co and Behind the Grind were the sponsors of this weeks 'scavenger hunt' loonie ride. Basically there were 20 questions over the 2 seperate courses and the winner was the one to get the most answers returned to Behind the Grind before 8pm.

A fun event and a great excuse to just spin the pedals round with the girls in preparation for Saturdays big race.

There were plenty of prizes being given out courtesy of Fanatk'co and the Norco accessory brands. Fanatk'co were also offering free tune ups to anyone who rocked up wih a sub 28lbs bike - they were weighing them to proove it too.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see what the fully built Scott Ransom was weighing in at, so I pottered up to the hanging scales for a weigh in.
I had the new wheelset built up and put on with a set of 2.0" Kenda Karmas as a pre-ride for saturday so the bike was at the lightest I think i'll see it this season.

The bike weighed in at 29.2lbs...dirty! I was pretty happy with that as I had it in my head that I'd be carrying 32+lbs of carbon around the Test of Metal course!

Loonie #6

This weeks Loonie race was another wet one!
The sign in was at Lost Lake with the race course set to climb above and beyond mid-station on Whistler mountain.

So, under starters orders, we set off from the base of the mountain up the access road and onto B-Line. CLimbing B-Line was pretty good and not super wet but things changed as we reached mid station (Olympic Station) and carried on up to the trail head for Too Tight. From there on it was fairly moist going, down Too Tight, angry Pirate into World Cup Single track, Hert of Dearkness and then up yet again, this time onto Blackcomb and the top of the magic chair, up to No Horses and down the beginner park to the Blackcomb base.

Great course even considering how wet and muddy we all got!

Apres was Shepperds pie in the Dublin Gate - perfect post race fodder!

Loonie #5

Sorry its a bit late in the posting here!

Loonie #5 of the season was sponsored by the Royal Bank of Canada and Zoggs. Being that a financial institution based in Canada was a sponsor, I honestly was expecting the $2 entry fee to be more like $10! No joke - Canadian banks are in a word - terrible! Where else do you have to pay an institution to keep money for you? I have 2 accounts here with RBC and it costs me over $10 per month to be able to spend my own money, I have to buy cheques off the bank before I can use them and get a wonderful 3c a month in interest! No wonder the banks are the highest profit grossing companies in Canada.

Anyway, as a Brit I'm spoiled with banking service... enough moaning ;)

The Loonie was coveted as a family event for all levels, but with Emerald forest posted as one the trail areas... something smelt a little fishy.

The drizzle came down a short while before the race start yet the turnout was pretty impressive considering. The course was posted as what it turns out would be a great ride in the dry for the more technically adept riders.

So, off it went up Rics Roost, into Catscratch Fever, down Mandatory Suicide, into Mels Dilema and then through Emerald forest trails into the finish at the gravel pit.

The course was wet with a few signage confusions in emarald forest, many of the big boys got lost and there were crashes all over the place.

I have to be honest though... I loved it :)

I'm definately off into there again once the trails get chance over the next few forecast days of sun to dry out a little.

Zoggs put on an admirable apres for the hungry bunch and even though there was no beer to be had as they didn't apply for a liquor liscence in time, they more than made up for it with the sheer amount of food available... not to mention the ice cream for dessert! Nice thinking Zoggs :)

Scott High Octane Build

My High Octane build is finally on the go! the frame arrived a few days ago and almost all the bils are here so that I can crack on and get it close to finished!

Just waiting now on the spokes to arrive from DT Swiss so that I can get some wheels on it and also a set of bars from Raceface.

My season pass is ready to go so I'm itching to get it done. The guys have headed down to the North Shore today but I opte dto stay up in Whistler to crack on with the build and also make sure I'm in town for tonights Loonie race!