Shuttles =-)

Well today was a change from my regular routine, today i rode Seymour.....shuttling.

There really isn't much to say except that Rob, Mike and I hit CBC, Corkcrew to Neds. We all ripped top to bottom and in following Mike down some of the trails, I learned a few of the different lines that can be taken on CBC and on Neds. We did 2 shuttles of the hill and then I had to jet home. Considering we started at about 4pm we made really good time on our ride with no mishaps.

A Piece Of History

Today was a day for fun with ridding buddys on a different hill than I usually ride. A group of us (Tim, Dave, John and I) rode Burke Mountain. We decided to meet early in the AM, 7 to be exact at the Tim Horton's down from the Mtn. We then left some cars at the bottom of the hill and sort of shuttled ourselves to the gate where the real climb begins.

Our route was simple....go up to the top of the hill and ride as many trails as possible. So onward and upward we went. I was on my Bullit, Tim on his VPS, Dave on his Team Shore and John on a Bullit that was very similar to mine except that he had Boxxers as forks.

Our first trail was Wellgood. Nobody in our group had ridden that trail in quite some time, so we were anxious to see its condition and the quality of building since some younger guys had been building on the trail. It was not in the greatest of condition when we finally hiked up to it, but it wasn't all that bad. When we got to an area that we knew had new building on it, we were surprised to see that it had all been demolished by a Parks Crew. Due to a very naive rider on the hill and his not so smart move in telling and showing Parks most of the advanced trails that have structures built on them, we are now seeing parks deconstruct several trails that are seen as potential liability problems. So we all continued along Wellgood knowing that what remaining stunts we were riding on may not be around for much longer. I will admit that it is not a great trail, but it was on it's way to being pretty good if the kids were allowed to continue building and learning how to build on this seldomly ridden trail.

So once we were back on the road up, we started to ride Triple Crown. This trail is a real blast to ride. All the natural lines, a few hits here and there. I always have a good time on this trail.
We then all made it down to the powerline area and rode the log sections that lead down to the Abyss. On one of the log rides, John fell and hurt is shoulder. He hit it so hard that he partly dislocated it, so Tim had to pull it back into place.

We then found a few drops that were perfect for photos, so the other 3 took turns doing drops and I took pictures.

John


John


John


Dave


Dave

Once on the Abyss, we all rode the cool woodwork that Tim and Dave had built. I really liked the whole trail and it is really sad to think that it is going to get torn down some time this year by parks.

We then made our way to Big Boy Time. I had never ridden this trail and it sure was cool set of stunts. The big roller to up ramp was tricky for all of us and I don't believe that anyone actually cleaned it.

Once out of Big Boy time, we said farewell to John who was kind of suffering due to his shoulder. He just rode down the road and the remaining 3 of us rode back up the hill to the famous Sawblade trail. Sawblade and the whole BC style of riding was brought to forefront many years ago when Mountain Bike Action, the premier bike mag at the time did a feature on the trail. So we rode Sawblade on big full suspension bikes.......holy crap I could not imagine doing that on a hardtail with no suspension forks and cantilever brakes back in the day. We then rode this really cool open flowy trail that you could tell gets VERY little traffic being that it is in the middle of nowhere, but it really was fun. This was when we kind of got lost. Tim thought that he could remember where to hook up with another trail in order to ride down along the Coquitlam river. Well he just couldn't remember where the trail was as it had been years since he rode the trail. So we went one way, then we went another, then we went back up a trail to finally find a trail that took us out to the parking area gate.

From the gate, Dave and I rode our bikes down the hill to our cars and Tim drove his car to where we originally set off. It was a really long really hot day (I actually ran out of water) but I had a blast riding trails that I had never seen before but had heard about them. Riding Sawblade was like riding a piece of history.

Additional Pruning

I was back to finish my pruning job that I did not finish yesterday. With all the overgrowing bushes, I figured it was time to cut things back on the edges of the exit of the trail before things got too overgrown. I rode up on the hardtail again with the pruning shears and cut away until I was done. I saw a group of 4 people ride by while I was in the bush discarding of the cuttings. I guess they thought was a little weird........a guy in the bush with pruning shears on a bike. Oh well.

So it was a few minutes since the group had passed by and I was finished so I decided to pack up and jet off down the hill. Surprisingly I caught up to this group on Shotgun quite quickly. It was kind of fun chasing a group down that had a lead on me down the trail and it was even more satisfying when I realized that the guy right in front of me was on a Demo 9 and I was all over him on my HT. I know it is petty, but I did have a reasonable amount of satisfaction knowing that I caught a guy on my HT when he was riding one of the sweetest bikes on the market today.

Spring Pruning

Well being that it is early spring, the trees in the area were starting to bloom and most importantly from a building perspective (at least on the exit of our trail) some pruning needed to be done before things got too overgrown. I left work around the regular time of 4:30pm and decided that I would go up to the trail exit with my pruning shears and cut back the Poplars that were going to be invading our trail.

I rode up as quickly as I could as I knew that light was going to be an issue as I had left this a little late in the day. So I pruned away as fast as I could, all the time throwing the cut pieces as far off the trail as possible. In total I had about a 100 meters that needed to be pruned but due to the fading light, I decided that I would stop about half way and get off the hill before I lost all the daylight.

By the time I reached the bottom, I was riding in near darkness. I was definitely the last guy off the hill. I drove home knowing that I really needed to finish the job some time soon. I did however have allot of fun riding Shotgun in the fading early evening light.

Many Hands Make Light Work

Today was a Saturday morning ride up at the Woodlot with Rob and Brad. Our trail route consisted of Gold, Blood Donor then up to Tsuga to Snakes and Ladders then up to Quickhit and Shotgun.

The weather today was really good for riding as the ground was tacky but not sopping wet so it was nice and grippy. I was on my hardtail for this ride so trying to stay smooth was the flavor of the day. Gold was is okay shape and the skinny gods were somewhat in my favor so for once, I enjoyed Gold. Then we hit Blood Donor. The newer work on the trail has been very well accepted. The result of this is the vastly increased traffic the trail is now seeing and the top part of the trail is getting beaten to death. I guess this is a problem that all trails encounter. New work = more traffic = more work = more traffic...........

This was the first time in a long while that I was on my hardtail on this trail and I really enjoyed hitting both the first and larger second gap at the bottom of Blood Donor.

So up to Tsuga we went. I really like the simple natural flow of this trail. From time to time, it is a nice break from the stunts on most of the hill. We then made our way down to Snakes and Ladders where we decided work on a G-Out on that was making the approach to the Boa Bridge less than enjoyable. The three of us made quick work of the task at hand and did a really nice permanent fix of the problem. We then went a little further down the trial and fixed a mud hole that has been a problem for quite a while. Within about 45 minutes we were done and got back on our bikes to continue the ride.

It was then up to QuickHit and over to Shotgun. All in all a really constructive day of riding. I totally believe in the saying that many hands make light work and having 3 of us do the dirt work was great. And topping it off with a good ride was even better.

Solo Après Work

I decided to go for an after work ride so I did a quick spin up to Snakes and Ladders. I rode the log ride that we are building as best I could as it is not quite finished. The I rode to Shotgun, got in my car and went home. I am pretty sure that I was the last person down the hill today. I actually had allot of daylight for this ride, so it is looking promising now for after work rides and building.

I cannot wait to see how the year progresses.

The Fix It Brothers

So today it was again Tim and I up at the Woodlot. We rode up to Snakes and ducked in off the road to save a little time and started work on getting more rung for the log ride. I really don’t know what it is, but we have had one hell of a time trying to get rung for this log. Some people came by having a look at what we were doing and wished us well (it’s nice to get encouragement from riders). Then Cory came by to tell us that there was a broken ramp at the top and a few other riders were with him tagging along for the ride. We finished what we were doing on the log ride and then hiked our bike and the saw with a few tools to the top of the trail to take care of the broken ramp. On the way up, we cut out some trees that were in the middle of the trail that took away from the flow of the trail. We did notice that somebody had already taken it upon themselves to cut a couple trees out with a chainsaw and just leave the trees on the edge of the trail. We have no idea who did it, but one day we hope to find out. The ramp in question was a small ramp that leads to a short skinny logride. We basically just cut out the ramp and will do a fix at a later date.

After building we decided to rip down Snakes and Ladder then we made our way over to Shotgun and back home in the cars. It was basically a cat and mouse race down Shotgun between Tim and I.

The Tour Of Duty

Today was an early morning ride up at the Woodlot with Tim, Dave and a guy I had never met before, Frank.

We decided that we would hit the following trails in this order. Krazy Karpenter, Blood Donor, Giant Killer, Platinum, Snakes and Ladders then finally Shotgun.

This turned out to be a long day, but a very good ride.

It was raining on this day, so it was quite slippery on the wood of Karpenter. This trail needs a lot of work from top to bottom to match the quality of trails on the rest of the hill. From Karpenter we walked up the hill to hit Blood Donor which has in the past few months seen a tremendous amount of work and is a sweet trial to ride now. In the past Blood Donor in the wet was like risking your life, now it is a sweet ride and in the dry it is an absolute rip. I actually hit both of the gap jumps on the trail. The first which it seems everyone cases is not really a problem, but the 2nd one is a real eye opener. I will admit that I do not jump I am what I have termed Aeronautically Challenged. But seeing as all the other guys just flew over the gap I thought what the hell, I will give it a try. I made 2 key errors for a perfect jump. I brake checked (not needed on this jump) and I was way too far left (I was on the hairy edge of the trail upon landing). After a holy shit did you see that and what the hell were you thinking going so wide conversation we went down Giant Killer.

From previous conversations with some of the other builders up there, we knew that there would be some new stuff on the trial towards the bottom, so we ripped our way down and to our pleasant surprise we found a pretty big and buff gap jump. Tim, Frank and Dave all hit it. I did not see Frank hit it, but I from what I can remember he did it flawlessly, Tim I believe did it the same. When Dave hit I hear a bit of a scream, it was him after landing it and yelling Holy Crap or something to that extent. He landed a little nose heavy and did a nose wheelie until the berm below and then smoothly rolled out. In other words a really nice save. Tim was the only one that went back up to try it again. As he flew by in the air all you could hear was the hiss of a disk brake and his freewheel. As for me, I just rode by it saying not today, maybe in a few months. I need to PROGRESS to a gap that size. I know my limits and right now that is way beyond them.

So then we hit Platinum, but in order to save time, we hiked up from the bottom. Now we had started our ride today at 7:30am so we were still the first guys on the hill so there was a small chance that we would meet someone coming down the trail. So we huffed our way up the trail and all I can say is that those guys that say riding Freeride/DH style trails is for lazy guys have never packed a 40-50lb bike straight up a hill. It was hard work but we made it to the top without seeing anyone until the very top. At the first jump we saw Rich and Taylor that were just starting their ride. So we all geared back up and hit the trail. Now Frank was the only one to hit the first gap and man that guy can sail. Sweet is all I can say. The rest of the guys can hit everything on the trail so I just cruised the trail hitting all the logs and skinnies and being Luke Stuntwalker on the rest of the stuff. At the final 6 pack, Frank was running into problems, he was either too hot or too cold going into the second gap. Tim hit them with big air and style and Dave after a few tries finally hit them in succession and totally flew on the last one, landing about 20 feet down the transition. HUGE AIR. We then hit the last part of the trail and rode out to the bottom of Giant Killer.

Tim had to leave a little early but Franks and Dave wanted to ride a little more, so we said farewell to Tim and continued back up the hill to Snakes and Ladders. Dave had not ridden the trail in a while and was looking forward to the new work we had done. It has mostly been bridges and one jump but nice work so far nonetheless. After Snakes we hit Shotgun and out to the cars. That is when the heavens opened up and it started to rain as hard as I have ever seen it rain. We ducked into Franks car, had a beer and called it a day.

2 Years

Today has a great amount of significance to me and anyone that knows me well. It is the anniversary of the death of my youngest brother, Nick. Today I went on a long XC type ride to do some thinking and get back to what I really love….riding. I went to the Woodlot and equipped my bike for some XC style riding by putting on XC tires and clipless pedals. So upwards I went up past Goldmine all way up and over the mountain.

At a large junction in the road I went right and I had a good idea of where the road came out and I was correct in my guess that it came out at Stave Lake. So I then had to turn around and climb all the way back up the hill. The ride was quite a workout, and there was a fair amount of snow on the road, but I had a good time riding and it allowed me to really clear my mind and think about life in general. I then rode down Goldmine then Snakes and Ladders then out on Shotgun. Not a bad ride overall.

I Found Martin's

I went for another ride from my house to find some trials but this time I was armed with a satellite photo of the area and I made my way to where it looked like there was a trail and behold, there it was right before my eyes, an old horse trail that looked like it had not been used in years. So I followed it along the back yards of some peoples house and along the edge of a rock quarry. From the rock quarry it was up a switch backed horse trail and suddenly you are plopped in the back yard of some rather high end house with some very nice views of the whole Fraser Valley.

I had another look at my map and found a very well established trail that I had no idea existed. Martin Trail, is a smooth flat trail that heads into the forest and has the coolest mossy covering all over the trees that I have ever seen. I had a blast ripping on the trail until I realized it was getting pretty dark and I had to make it home soon. So I turned around with the intention of coming back as soon as I can to see where the trail goes. A quick ride home and my day was done.