You show me yours and I'll show you mine

Two rides of completely different character and a singular theme this weekend, exploration. Friday I had the opportunity to guide a few top-level pro and former pro mtn. bike racers on the slopes of Cypress. Sunday it was about tackling a little known descent for perhaps the last time during perfect conditions.

The North Shore skyline has a new addition. For the past couple of years the Grouse Mountain ski hill has been planning on erecting a large wind turbine on their property to supplement their electrical power requirements. The 37m. blades had been flown to the site in early July and this last week the complete windmill was fully assembled for all to see. Sunday was a good opportunity to make our up Mountain Highway to get a good view of the massive new structure and given that this was to be the last good weather for the season it was also an opportunity to make our way onto a little known and hard to access classic old trail.

Sundays ride while a rare long descent that incorporated a number trails to make up an epic XC style ride, was a much more relaxed affair than the high paced guiding adventure I subjected myself to the previous Friday.

Following many months of back and forth Facebook discussions I finally managed to get together with the Traslin brothers to share some trail beta. It just happened to coincide with a ride I had also planned with former pro Andreas Hestler to introduce him to the series of trails that make up what Sonny and I refer to as Urban Warfare.
Friday would prove to be no Sunday cruise, the pace was brisk from the start with Andy Traslin fresh off a 3rd place finish in the Chekamus Challenge and both he and his brother Mike had just had successful campaign in the BC cup race series. Andreas himself while not fully active on the competitive circuit had participated in the solo division of BC bike race this year and placed well. I had not raced in over 15yrs and did my best just to hang on.

The day would prove to be a success all around, I introduced them all to trails that were easily accessible and had been around for years yet were little traveled. Because of either a lack of technical difficulties or the numerous little climbs, the shuttle crowd has little interest in making their way onto many obvious lines but still hidden gems. The guys all appeared to be quite surprised at what had been for years in plain sight: a quality marathon XC ride. We also knocked over an hour off the time that I had done the same ride only a week before.
Sunday was a pleasant cruise by comparison and just what I needed as it would be the 100th ride for me this season. The original goal of getting a glimpse of the giant white icon accomplished our group of six, carried on to link up Per Gynt and Bitches Brew, very rooty and at times dubious trails that are best traveled in dry conditions. A quick traverse along Dreamweaver would take us back to base camp to put a cap on what has been great summer of discovery. We were fortunate to have with us Barry, a Squamish trail builder keen to see that a car isn’t needed to access some of the best singletrack on the Shore. In a case of you show me yours and I’ll show you mine, the fall looks to include new bounty of goodness in Sea to Sky country.

Let the discovery continue…

The Memorial

"You'll know you are on it when you have found the cross"

An off hand comment about the location of a new yet old trail.

Years and years of riding and hiking the trails of the North Shore and not once did I ever notice this memorial some 8 feet tall that had been erected sometime after the death of Ryan Page. I have no idea of who he was but his loss had an obvious impact upon his friends and family.

The Tin Man Returns

This past weekend saw another great performance by the Tin Man following a summer in physiotherapy, the result of a little mishap while riding on the Sunshine Coast at the end of May. A group of us had decided to have a run at the trails included in the BC Bike Race and an innocent slip off of a short bridge 3hours into the ride led to a severely sprained ankle and a long and memorable experience with the local volunteer search and rescue. It wasn’t until the end of August that he returned to the trails having had to listen endlessly to all his buddy’s telling him about all of the new found trails we continued to discover in the backyard. Fortunately for the Tin Man he was still able to get out on his road bike and retain a good portion of his fitness but now back on the trails he is full of a renewed enthusiasm that he is doing his best to keep in check as his heavily supported left foot reminds him that falling to that side again is not an option.

The North Shore has very few trails that retain their original smooth and soft character because of the immense pressure of high traffic loads; the most popular trails have easy access by smooth gravel roads or right off the side of the pavement that lead to the ski hills. Those that require even a little effort to enter or have exits that are not conveniently located anywhere near a parking lot or the original starting point see little to no use at all. The ultimate benefit to all is a small selection of trails that can be nearly 10-20 years old that look as if they might have just been created yesterday. A good portion of these were carved out at the time when hardtails were the norm and built up stunts had yet to be created, technical difficulties only coming from the use of the natural characters of the terrain.



Saturday the Tin Man and I had nice leisurely cruise up to the top of West Vancouver’s British Properties and made our way up a steep 40-minute climb that was still quite wet from a very early morning deluge. The climb is quite aerobic in nature, the steeper sections often having tricky outcrop sections interlaced with roots that this day being quite slick added to what is normally quite challenging in dry conditions. The brief effort is rewarded however as it leads to a hidden gem just off of the lower section The Big Eye that leads to a loamy, twisting fast flowing ribbon that offers little in the way of hazards save for one giant fallen tree. With so few bikes tearing up the trail traction even in the wettest of conditions is still quite good though you still have to be mindful of the roots. The Big Eye was a perfect step on the Tin Mans return to the trails that provided improved confidence in his wonky ankle and tremendous amounts of satisfaction.

It’s good to have him back.

36 pounds of glory

Going over old work photos and came across an image of the highly coveted supercycle, still in the last spot I left it only to remain there for the next very cold 6 months. That bike was my preferred mode of transportation while being positioned at the Norman Wells base. Wondering what has become of the old girl since the big summer of '06...

Take the trail on the left... or was it the right?

Two days two different sets of conditions. Wednesday was my first ride in three weeks back on the Shore I and couldn’t think of a better way to return… In the pouring rain! Having had crazy hot and dry summer conditions the first ride in the rain for 2+ months comes as a bit of a shock: It gets slippery here fast! Regardless along with Heinous J. Panderkook and his ever improving fitness and unstoppable enthusiasm we made short work of Oilcan in less than ideal conditions. The rain soaked little skinnies numerous roots and rock armored sections being a far cry different from the little bit of exploring the day before.

Scotty and I finally made the short journey out to Abbotsford to have a go at the Ledgeview area and search out XCelerator, a trail only known to us from the power of the Internet. After a quick visit to a local shop and armed with a small hand drawn map and conflicting instructions from the outdoor store next door we lit off uphill into the middle of a maze of trails that for the most part were well developed and completely unmarked as the whole system of is located on private property. The terrain here differing wildly from what is in our backyard we were informed that we would either enjoy the smooth fast rolling terrain or be bored by it. Variety is truly the spice of life and when we finally managed to find our way to our objective having zigged many times when zagging was the best option, we were rewarded with a smooth clay rich trail that constantly climbed and turned back on itself as it lead to steep twisting descents and a few sections where off trail excursions on the downslope of the trail were not an option.


All in all a successful day exploring another new area. Now armed with an old map, a slightly better sense of direction and rumours of a new trail sharing much of the character of XClerator we look at how to further maximize another Ledgeview experience.

Seasonal Maintanence

A brilliant return to the saddle this weekend, but first a little maintenance was required; a worn pivot axle, migrating pivot bearing, soft titanium bolts and a little issue with my cranks.

Nothing that the right tools for the job, handy instructions and liquid encouragement couldn’t solve. First order of business was to remove the sheared bolt from the new(ish) axle and replace it with a more durable hardened steel equivalent. Resetting the bearing was easy enough and also allowed me to clean and grease the whole swing arm assembly and in no time the frame was reassemble and we were back to business, save for the cranks. My old cranks were still at Race Face, the warranty issue still yet to be settled but fortunately I have some generous friends and one of them just happened to have a spare set I could use, it just required a trip to Squamish.





The first ride would be a solo affair; everyone else had other plans, a race to participate in or was out of town. Too bad for them as I had one of the best rides in Squamish in sometime, easy access to the Alice Lake trails via 4Play-Slurm and the Mashiter trail. The first loop was up Mikes to upper Entrails and then down Marc My Word back to the Mashiter trail. The second much the same but this time Entrails in its entirety to Roller coaster then back to my starting point the same way I started: Slurm and 4Play. It would have been nice to have had someone else to ride with but being the first ride in a few weeks it was just as good to rip along at my own pace. It’s good to be back on the bike.

Next up: XClerator in Abbotsford. This season has been made up of exploring new areas and a few of us have been looking at hitting this trail for sometime now. Tuesday can’t come soon enough.

D. Day: The D is for Demobe.

It's all over but the waiting...

The punctuated field season came to a close this week, it was never advertised as being long or arduous and it certainly lived up to it’s billing on both accounts. It’s demise most likely couldn’t have come at a better time either as Mother Nature was surely about to encourage us to leave shortly anyway. Autumn rewarded us with some stunning visuals as the tundra had already turned from green to the brilliant reds and yellows that greeted us upon arrival. We were fortunate enough to have clear skies present during the first week so as to witness some of the most amazing displays of northern lights I have ever seen. Those conditions of course cannot last forever and eventually the days of temperatures approaching 20ºc. were to come to an end, cloud cover and increasing strong winds were to be the norm. Our un-insulated canvas walled tents would soon not be enough to help keep the heat provided by our oil stoves in let alone keeping the elements out.

Time to go home.

All that was left to do was to take down those very canvas tents, a few pieces of the infrastructure like the generator that provided us with our power and our satellite system that gave us our link to the outside world. Much like many of the other duties I had to perform these last 14 days these chores would not take much time either. All that was left was the waiting and reliving the moments I have heard so many times before:

“When’s the plane coming?”

“Has it left yet?”


The only difference this time being that while those words were internalized they were in fact coming from me.


The Freedom Plane Arrives

Loaded up.

The awkward crawl back to the right seat

The last look at camp
Eventually that plane would arrive and spirit us back to Yellowknife which was still pleasantly covered in green, the trees yet to change colour like our weeds had done weeks before and at the time of our departure had rapidly been shedding their foliage. One more night in the Territories before the next flight that will take us further south to our respective homes and the opportunity to experience the transition from summer to autumn once again.
The last look at Yellowknife

Nice Rack!

I named him Carl, our only frequent visitor and temporary camp mascot. He and or another caribou that looked liked him spent about 3 days here lounging and getting fat off of the abundance of the bushy goodness we have surrounding the camp. Depending upon the duration of the project and the frequency of floatplane flights in the region, Carl could have been called upon to be more than just a mascot.


This morning we had our first frost, as well as signaling the end of bug season when coupled with the rapidly changing colours of the tundra it foretells the inevitable onset of winter. Summer is known to have a rather short duration north of 60º, but autumn’s visit is even shorter.


View Larger Map

For all intents and purposes this is a pretty sweet gig I find myself attached to, the smallest camp I have ever had the pleasure to keep running in the arctic. There are a whole 5 of us out here: The cook, pilot, 2 geologists and myself. Everybody’s job is pretty much self-explanatory. The geo’s and the pilot head out to some un-disclosed location in the field every morning to run around consulting old maps and sampling locations while hopefully coming across new discoveries, then return to the camp late in the afternoon. The cook feeds everybody and I keep the lights on, the water running and the tents warm, I rely a fair amount upon combustible fluids and lucky for me there is no shortage of those here. But the daily thrill of setting the garbage alight with an otherwise apocalyptic blaze does not last long. The tents require little fuel and due to our very limited numbers the water pump sees limited action as well. Until the numbers swell to 10+ people the fuel supply will hardly appear to have been touched.

There is safety in numbers here: 3 out in the field, 2 back here in camp. It is grizzly country here and as such no one gets left or travels alone. Walking trips from home base are few and not very long in neither distance nor duration. The dense bush that our caribou friend was so fond of surrounds us here and is in places over the head of the average adult and thus provides perfect cover for any inhabitant with a more varied pallet than Carl. Preparations for a short walk are nothing sort of comical. Bring shotgun and ammunition. Familiarize oneself with the operation, when familiar split between both persons and stick close together in case a moment requires the former for the latter… Or is it the latter for the former. Regardless the likelihood of accidental shootings are lessened and the likely hood that the firearm will be used as club are heightened… Safety first! The end result is a short walk and needed escape from the confines of our current Arctic abode.


The days left here are short, budgetary constraints being a prime concern and the wrath of Mother Nature another. Carl aside, not to mention his dead friend, the wildlife here has not been terribly abundant and the sic-sics that had been causing us trouble in camp are eerily quite and likely preparing for a long winter themselves. Loons fly by occasionally and it can’t be too long before the geese make their way south at all hours of the day and night. If one is awoken form their evening slumber by the sounds of these southbound travelers, it is safe bet that you have been here too long regardless of how early the field season began.

The irony about this “exploration” job I currently find myself at is that just over two weeks ago with a few friends I managed to travel 60 plus kilometers over two mountain passes with little holding us back yet here with few topographical impediments we are hemmed in by what we cannot see, perceived or otherwise.

90 Days...

90 Days… Well ninety days on the bike and the bike was on dirt every one of those days. I haven’t yet bothered to count how many days I have had in the saddle since the knee incident and the sudden lack of employment I would find myself in for the next year. 90 days is a pretty good number but I often think about where I could have gotten the extra 10 to make it to 100 before being shuttled off to lands far away and somewhat inhospitable to mankind let alone riding.

The imposed rest over the next two weeks will be the longest I have been off the saddle all season. Five days being the current standard bearer and the primary reason for that was the monster saddle sore that decided makes it’s presence felt a little too much. Monster ass growth aside this little hiatus couldn’t have come at a better time, the bike doth protest. The links and pivots are moving in ways they shouldn’t and making a little too much noise about it and my cranks have axial play that just isn’t quite normal. Alas these annoyances can only be addressed buy throwing hard currency them, which of late have been of dwindling, supply.

In the meantime I get back to the old roots of Arctic field camp maintenance. Pumping fuel and water, burning garbage and sorting out what the hell is wrong with the generator this time. All the while reminiscing the past 6 months of riding, plotting the next adventure and accumulating the much required hard currency for all of these elements to come together.

The tick list thus far:
Joint health, always a good thing
Moab, I can’t believe it took 15 years to get there
Cambodia, not the Southeast Asian nation
Highway 102 with unintended call to search and rescue
Highway 102 without aid of search and rescue.
Discovery of so many unused old and new trails in the backyard
Amazingly good Birthday Epics
The Chilcotins

The Hit List:
The 100th ride of ‘09
Northshore Triple-Crown
Seven Summits
Trail X

The Damage:
Dirvetrain replaced
Rearwheel finally gave up, wheel round and true but spoke-beds cracking
Rear Shock oil emulsified
Cranks worn chain rings still fine
Upper link pivot bolt worn.

Maybe I am going to need more than two weeks to $ort all of this out…

A shameless ploy for a free bike and more trails to ride it on...

Specialized has this little promotion thing going on to be a part of their Trail Crew. I found out about it during one of my daily viewings of the many cycling related websites I click through out there. Something about it intrigued me, it was likely the prospect of getting a free bike and as we all know, free is always the right price. Now I am supposed to explain why it is that I would be an appropriate member of this crew… Admittedly not owning a Specialized bike would count as a strike against in said application. But I did recently drop a serious wad of cash on a set of new S Works shoes and I think this could be one thing that gets my proverbial foot in the door.

Why did I buy these shoes? Admittedly they were not my first choice, and not just because they were 50% more expensive to boot… they just weren’t anywhere on the footwear radar (strike two). But damn-it I needed new shoes and halfway through the season finding anything in my size let alone the ones I truly wanted was proving to be ridiculously difficult.

I had this big ride planned for early August, 3 Days in the Chilcotins in south central BC. One of those days was going to be about 10hrs long and a healthy portion of that was going to be spent pushing my (not a Specialized) bike uphill to access miles and miles of the absolute sweetest single-track I was ever to experience. I was going to require a solid set of footwear and what had been covering my feet and attached to the pedals for the last 3 years had pretty much given up. A lot of serious miles… err I think I should say time, put in those puppies. Trails in BC aren’t typically very long- distance wise- but they will certainly beat you up in no time.

I have been riding off-road for sometime now, 20+yrs, the majority of it within 50 miles of Vancouver and of all of the sports I actively participate in, mountain biking is solidly at the top step. Now I am not on the bike every waking moment, I do work on occasion, but I have pretty much given up, missed or outright avoided many other activities because I have found a new trail to ride or a new friend to ride with. This last year being no exception, reconstructive knee surgery this past December while being a serious hindrance was a serious motivator too, I hit the trails 24hrs before hopping on the table. Apparently orthopedic surgeons believe that cycling is a great form of rehab too and it is, just don’t tell them you’ve been riding something a little more serious than the excer-cycle at physiotherapy barely 2 months post-op.

So save for those enforced 2 months off the bike, mother nature wasn’t helping a whole lot either, those old shoes of mine have been through a lot: up and down the North-Shore too many times to count, Squamish and Whistler over and over again. Many trips to the interior of our province, a trip to Moab 15+ years overdue and a recent 4hr rescue while doing a recon ride (backwards) of stage 5 of the BC Bike Race. 3 years of experiences like that in those shoes and my feet were really beginning to hurt, cramps and such likely a symptom of the cracked mid-sole and with the epic of all epics to come it was time to get something to relieve those tired dogs of mine. 2 weeks of searching and wouldn’t you know it the place I was reluctant to go to first had exactly what I needed but didn’t realize I was looking for: Fancy fishing line-like retention system, high-zoot carbon sole, fancy toe-cleats and a price tag that would make Bill Gates blush. They were a perfect fit; the only thing missing was the pumpkin that would take me to the big dance.

So since that purchase, in the last month I have had the chance to put those shoes through the paces. A couple more rides in Squamish on top of the regular rides and a little warm-up hike-a-bike somewhere in my backyard of the North-Shore. Not to mention those three days in the aforementioned Chilcotins where I was fortunate enough to experience the amazing Lorna Lake- Deer Pass combo. The quick and dirty is that while they are definitely not the best footwear to be walking 3+ hours up a mountain slope with, my feet have never been so grateful to be so well supported over those 10+ hrs.

So there you have it… Consider this my official application for the trail crew. A nice new bike to hop aboard, new friends to meet and hopefully new trails to ride, sounds like a great opportunity. I’ll bring my new shoes.

Words can't describe... But I will try. Pt 1

It was a completely innocuous moment but it set in motion the best adventure I have been a part of in sometime. I had just stepped off one of the baggage pods of my helicopter onto a dead flat expanse of wild grass when my knee collapsed. The fact that the knee did collapse wasn’t uncommon for me, I had torn the ACL for a second time a few years before and at times it had a habit of dislocating. This was different however, it went a new direction and there was sudden acute pain followed immediately by swelling. My breakthrough season of flying had just come to a sudden halt with a freshly torn medial meniscus on top of the ruptured ACL. Surgery and prolonged rehab was definitely going to be a part of my immediate future.

Fortunately cycling is a fairly stable and low impact form of exercise and one of the best ways to recover as well as cope with a knee injury. The swelling had subsided substantially as well as most of the pain and it wasn’t long before I was aboard my bike and a full year of exploration would ensue.

Cambodia, that’s where it began. It was a little notation in the blog of a SRAM sponsored athlete. I don’t recall how it was that I ended up on this particular blog but something struck me about a particular rider profile. “Favorite trail: Cambodia, somewhere in Vancouver”. The North Shore of Vancouver is littered with trails on three mountains to choose from. There are dozens of well-known trails as well as an almost equal number of the not so well known and having ridden in this area for 20+ years Cambodia fit into the not so well known.

Believe it or not the North Shore can be a pretty boring place to ride. While being world renowned for the extreme nature of the riding here the trails are generally short in nature and apart from pedaling to the trail heads there is little more than coasting and holding on till you get to the bottom after you drop-in. Now I like technical trails as much as the next guy but there are no real epics on any one of the local mountains. Save for the Bridal Path on Mount Seymour the Shore lacks areas of serious pedaling, having to actually go uphill for much more than a few meters on any of the trails here is rare indeed. When found the efforts are usually rewarded with the North Shore equivalent of the Holy Grail: Loam, that highly organic soft aromatic soil that provides tremendous traction as well as incredible forgiveness. Loam is also quite rare because of the ease of car access to a number of the more popular trails. The easier the access by car or otherwise the sooner it becomes a rutted rooted mess and if real popular will eventually resemble a cobbled country road in Europe.

Your perspective of a trail changes so much when not perched on two wheels, that much more when walking uphill. Not long after returning home from the injury the first potential epic would be found. Urban Warfare is a name Sonny and I had given to a link-up of a number of trails on Cypress Mountain many of which that are not mapped. Sonny is one of my most frequent riding buddies and while Fromme mountain is in my backyard in North Vancouver, Cypress makes up his West Vancouver property extension. Over the wetter parts of the season and to mix things up a bit he and I often hike the same trails we ride but on the lookout with keen eyes for the subtleties of trails we may not have descended before or even noticed for that matter. Baghdad, so named for the “Green Zone”, a tremendously lush mossy spot that was lit up by the afternoon sun the day we found it was just such a treasure found on a little walk. Baghdad wasn’t a new trail but it also wasn’t seeing any traffic whatsoever which was amazing considering it’s entrance is literally one whole bike length from a reasonably well traveled intensely difficult trail for which Vancouver is famous for. With historic trails such as Blind Skier, the short lung busting climbs on the Antagonizer and a rip down the Slippery Canoe as a lead in, Baghdad and 4 other trails would make a ride that would last nearly an hour and descend almost 2000’. All too accessible by car but an option of a climb up an old classic called the BLT, so named in the late 80’s for the Boulders Logs and Trees that one would be subjected too either climbing or descending what is essentially an access road for the power lines that climb the west side of the mountain, it could add another hour to the experience if one is so inclined. As accessible as many of these trails are, a couple of these trails see little use because of the climbs. Who in there right minds would ride up a trail on 40+lb bikes? Fortunately not very many and as a result there remains a little haven of loamy single-track oh so close to some of Cypress’s most popular descents. Couple that with that climb up the BLT and my faith in finding a little epic on the North Shore would be restored.

Cambodia however still remained elusive. Donna, my source for single-track goodness in Sea to Sky country knew said sponsored SRAM athlete and he wasn’t giving up any information regarding its existence. The rest of the summer of 2008 would include multiple rides on most of the classics trails on all three mountains. I returned briefly north to Yellowknife for work but due to an open compensation claim a result of that knee injury I soon found myself back at home. Nothing to do but wait for the claim to sort itself out and fortunately due to lack of pain associated with the injury a hell of a lot more riding and exploring would be done in the coming months. The only thing to give out before my knee would again was the bike…

Lets Go Play!

30 minutes and counting before Scotty shows up with the truck.

Next stop: Bralorne. A couple of days of warm up rides around the Tyaughton area before the big Lorna Lake-Deer Pass-Gun Creek Epic.

I swear it's back this time!

Many promises of getting back to updating the old blog but this time I mean it. The last year has been one grand adventure and I have many tales to tell. Many trails have been ridden, I mean many and with that was mass consumption of ale.

The bulk of the adventure started last July when I had a little incident disembarking my helicopter. Since then I have not worked a day in my chosen career due to any number of circumstances-Damn collapse of the economy- and a stint under the knife in December to repair a ruptured ACL... Again.

Full disclosure:

This desire to relay the adventures is also a shameless ploy to acquire free stuff and continue to do what I love best.

Just to get out there and ride.

So stay tuned... 24hrs from now I will be in the Chilcotins on the latest of my great bike ride hit list, which has also included a trip to Moab that was 20 years in the waiting.