Took a road trip to Whistler Mountain Bike Park up in British Columbia...!

Finally made it up to Whistler, B.C. for some epic downhill mountain biking (that's my Kona Stinky in the picture above) on Saturday (September 24th) and Sunday (September 25th). Today I'm recovering (did more riding in a single day than a month of riding at Blackrock!)...

Chair lift-access up thousands of feet for singletrack and freeride nirvana is the only way to go! Wish we had this mountain bike park in our backyard (at least closer to home). It's 450 miles from Salem to Whistler. I drove up there Friday night with two other local riders. We left around 3pm and got to Squamish at midnight, then drove the rest of the way Saturday morning... lifts started at 10am and we rode 'til they closed at 4:30pm! Then, we grabbed some carbos at a resturant in Whistler Village (lazagna and spagetti), crashed at deluxe room at a hotel in the village, and did it again the next day!

No major injuries to report (although I "crashed" once or twice and got to know a couple of trees closely). Learned that I enjoy technical downhill singletrack the best.. or, maybe it's just that I suck at getting lots of air on jumps. We did most runs down A-Line which has lots of dirt jumps and burms. But the trip all the way to the top of Blackcombe mountain on the Garbonzo lift and then the ride down No Joke was the most fun... Gnarly roots and rocks, and twisted trails through narrow singletrack threading down through the trees... muscling the bike around... Great time!

We saw Richie Schley (a pro rider) on No Joke. He threw a behind the back no-hander off a short drop. Made it look easy, like it was nothing. Flowed down into the trees with a pack of other riders like wolves gliding into the mist.

Focused just on riding on Saturday, but took time to shoot some pics on Sunday. I put up 44 pictures on In the Zone Photography gallery. There's one of me doing a drop at a practise area, and that's the exact set of drops that inspired the Basic Training area at Blackrock. Got couple of decent shots of Rich and Todd, but didn't take a whole lot of time to shoot pictures (so didn't get lots to choose from)... hope they like 'em.

Enjoy!


Whistler Trip 2005 photos