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…
No comments:
Post a Comment