Whitefish Whiteout 2014

Once again, I made the long solo pilgrimage to another race. The Whitefish Whiteout is always a good time, the resort and the community really stand behind the event, the fields are always deep and full of "wild cards", and I like the layout of the course with decreasing climb lengths, which makes it easy to mentally break the race down.

Thick fog...er "low cloud"...er "adverse visibility" blanketed the mountain, and lack of precipitation and warm temperatures in the weeks preceding the race meant more bootpacks and dodging glide cracks.

My last report was full of plenty of excuses, most of them not holding much water. In the days before this race, I would wake up with a sore throat, and I'm not sure my legs appreciated a day of inactivity + a long drive the day before the race. But, hey, why not try to throw down!

I started hard, making sure I was at the front of what was a long line of skiers on light gear. A couple of steep sections later, the pack was whittled down to just 3 with newbie Travis Brown (not to be confused with mountain biking legend Travis Brown) lurking behind. Everything was going well for me according to plan until we hit a flatter section near the top. My legs (noteably my right hip flexor) was screaming, and I watched Ben and Eric creep away from me.

I started the first descent cautiously to make sure I dropped into the crunchy chunder at the right spot. The hip flexor cramped up in the transition. Fortunately, maybe halfway up the climb, I was back in race mode engaged in a solid battle for 3rd place. In the end, I slid into 5th place pushing through the screaming legs.

After another night in the 2nd biggest house up at the mountian, which was packed full of young adults consuming adult beverages, I woke up early to go for a short tour just past the ski area boundary. Carl showed us the goods, which delivered some surfy snow, even on the race skis.

Pete Siudara's Pictures

Myke Hermsmeyer's pictures

The nights are getting colder

As the nights get colder and snow starts sticking at higher elevations, I feel less inclined to make the long road trip to the mountains to ride my bike, and my thoughts turn to skiing. Here is a look back to last spring, capping off a great season that saw me shredding Highwood in October and November, and having the races of my life at Worlds and Nationals. Things will be tougher this year with 400km of crowded winter driving between me and the mountains, but I am determined to make the most out of my weekends and continue throwing down on the SMCC circuit!

Spring skiing on Pinkbike

More adventure + Devon River Raid XC

Slackcountry biking. As absurd as it sounds, I was thinking about all of the chairlift access mountain bike mountains around here and many of them have a trail that leaves the patrolled boundary. Call it a great way to finish off your day! I don't think many are as long and hard (that's what she said!) as Kicking Horse's (Maybe Khyber Pass in Whistler?).

At first, I was a little angry that the mountain is not too keen on allowing uphill traffic, even after they close for the season. But then I remembered that "The Separatists" had won some gift certificates. What a great way to spend the day: casing some jumps, hitting some stumps, and then cap it off with a hike-a-bike to a super long descent.

Loading up the bikes in the Gondola. The Marin took quite a beating as the trails were quite rough after a dry summer

The trails were ROUGH, and I was taking quite a beating, I could even start to feel the death grip setting in midway down the first lap! Okay, they are pretty long laps. Getting a lift to the top is fun, getting beaten up: not so much.

At the top of the grassy knoll aka T2. A different perspective in the summer for sure! Some steep hiking to get there.

My partner struggling, wearing body armour and carrying a heavier bike

 Unfortunately, I did not really possess the skill level to really make the most out of the trail, and I did a lot of walking. It's definitely more of a hiking trail, but I could see how a skilled rider could get down some sections. It seemed that every time the trail got fun, that the next section would force me to walk my bike. After quite a character builder, We were finally at the logging road, and able to rip the upper Canyon Creek descent (Lower Sir Donald, LSD). This trail is fun, and a great contrast to the blown out and rough nature of the KHMR trails. Steep sections that were not loose, okay, maybe I should tighten my lips about this trail!

As we didn't have a car waiting in Nicholson, we cut the descent short and returned to Cedar Lake, then I finished off the loop by pedalling up to Kicking Horse. My whole body and my mind were sore!

A tough day for sure. The Golden Cycling Club is planning on officially sanctioning the trail with the goal of having a descent from the top of KHMR down to Nicholson. I'm in no position to discuss what that will mean for the nature of the trail, but in its current state, it is best left for the more skilled and adventurous riders looking for a great/challenging way to finish off the day!

The body was sore for a couple of days after. All of those isometric muscle contractions while riding downhill are not something that I normally experience. Fortunately, I was all rested up and ready to race the River Raid XC in Devon on the weekend.

A fast course, mainly consisting of doubletrack, but with some steep singletrack climbs and a tight, but straight descent. I was feeling pretty good and was able to ride the steep climbs every lap with the odd dab or two. I ended up in 4th, just shy of the podium.

I took some notes from the winner of the Kicking Horse hill climb.

I really did have a job interview! Then I met up with Bill at Moose Mountain on my way back to Canmore. We were going to do SHAFT and Special K, but I broke my rear maxle on SHAFT. I had my Xprezo with me, so we salvaged the day with a lap of Shoulda.

And then a Baldy + Hector downhill ride a couple of days later.

Some great riding, and I need a little more rest. I'm itching to get to Revelstoke for some alpine hike-a-bikes to cap the year off properly.

My favourite ride

Since my last post about riding, I made a video:

Riding all over the mountain. on Pinkbike

A repeat of last year but with slightly harder access and better weather!

We rode a good chunk of the climb, but there was lots of pushing to do. Great views!

tight steeps!

My favourite shot. A great view of the Ghost River valley.

After some beautiful scree riding up top, the trail descended into some looser rocks, still very driftable!

Yeah, the t-shirt and elbow pads is questionable style, well, gotta keep that skin intact!

Finding the trailhead was a little tougher with most of the landmarks and trail markers washed away in the June floods.

June floods also washed away a diversion dam, which made for some fording!

When we did this ride last year, it really set me off on a mission to find some great descents. I'll never be able to ride the gnarly steeps, but I do enjoy a long descent that travels through many vegetation zones. I rode a lot of great trails, but this one stood out for not being too intimidating, taking me through some awesome terrain, and of course, being non stop fun for the whole descent. The 90 year old trail flows well, better than some recently built trails designed with "flow" in mind. Maybe back then, they knew something we didn't!

Trans Rockies Canmore pictures

I went for a stroll with my camera and stumbled upon a bike race.

more pictures here

Kicking Horse Cup

Well, I won the series last year, so I had no choice but to REPRESENT. As I was still tired and looking for a full night's sleep after a long drive back from the coast, I decided to skip the prolouge. Last year before the hill climb, we climbed to the paraglider launch on Mt. 7 and threw down a lap, but after a relaxed morning in Canmore, all I had time for was a very short mountain shadows rip before skin suiting UP for the hill climb.

I was feeling confident, knowing how I finished last year, and knowing that I should be stronger this year. The format was slightly different for me because I started with EVERYONE, not just the 5 or so U30's. After a flat rollout filled with lots of sketchyness, the big guns were all eager to get away by upping the pace on the 1st big ramp after the bridge. Fast old guy Olaf attacked and everyone in the group, including me underestimated his ability. I went next, but it was too little too late and along with another rider, we tried our hardest to reel him in. In the end, I rolled in 3rd, even a little slower than last year. Wind? CX bike? time spent on the flats? who knows.

getting up near the front to avoid the sketchyness and set myself up to follow the attacks.

The 60ish km road race is fun, especially with a hill capable of causing selections. I went in with the same game plan as last year, which due to what I think was a stronger field, was not as effective, but led to the same eventual result (I was close to "winning" last year). I again liked the Aussie pursuit format, it provided incentive to keep the pace high early on, and then race through the shrapnel from the older groups on the way to the finish.

outsprinting  the sketchies

So in all, 2 age group wins, wish I could have had a shot at the prolouge. Great event, great prizes, fun racing formats.

Meanwhile, Bill had been crushing self powered Mt. 7 laps and we were going to do a half lap before returning to Canmore. Unfortunately after a steep section, my front brake failed. Bill took one for the team and lent me his bike for the final singletrack: "I've already been down this twice".

After a big week of mountain biking and some racing, the legs are tired and it's time to relax!

great draw prizes!

Zest tour 2013

It was time to pay the grandparents a visit.

Kelowna: Made an attempt on Little White. On a hot 35C day in Ktown, it was nice to get up high! We ended up taking a wrong  route above the KVR and were climbing up a sun-exposed gravel  4wd road instead of the correct trail  through the trees. Once below the KVR and into the Myra-Belleview provincial park network, we descended Crawford to Hillbilly for a fun descent,  though I had to get used to my 26" Marin Attack Trail after spending a couple of months on the 29er. About 300m vertical from the bottom, the heat really set in, which changed our moods from failure to more opportunistic. An Okanagan lake dip was on order!

North Shore: After a short and sweet stop at granny's in Burnaby, we set off for the North Shore, a classic mountain biking zone. We climbed up Old Buck, Baden Powell and Mushroom trails with the intent on starting off with a Pangor lap, but a rock had other plans and got caught up in my rear derailleur after getting flicked into it by my tire.

Bent, with no cage spring tension. This Shadow is more like a Shadow minus

Bill enjoyed his lap, even hitting up Empress after. With a short, but expensive stop at Cove Bikes and some parking lot wrenching, I was back in business, and we headed up again, this time with the goal of trying out a new trail we had been informed of below the classic Dale's trail. There has been a lot of talk about the changing nature of the bike trails on the shore: Some argue that the movement is "dumbing down the shore", while others would like to open up the sport to new riders, impress land managers, and I'm sure lower their monthly expenditure on rear wheels and derailleurs.

In short, I enjoyed the trail with it's smooth transitions between short technical features, but Bill was not impressed with the meandering lines and almost too desperate addition of flow of the trail. Then the trail spat us out in no man's land: along the Bridle Path hiking trail, which required lots of (surprisingly enough) hiking to get us back towards our car. We pushed up and enjoyed the steep Applicator trail and on to the parking lot.

I was starting to feel better on the bike, and we just had to do a quick Executioner-Dreamweaver lap on Fromme before catching a ferry to Victoria. I loved Fromme. A nice, easy road climb up and some awesome descents!

Bill, in his natural element

"does it at least  look cool?" "kinda"

Sunset ferry ride. A must-do

In Victoria, we enjoyed excellent hospitality thanks to the other grandparents, and checked out the Mt. Work/Hartland zone. Mountain bikers in Victoria have it tough, with a large portion of their riding contained to one area 20km from the city. They have lost entire riding zones to questionable development (Bear Mt Golf Course being the main culprit. Boycott them if you love mountain biking...).  I've heard of other trails that can be connected to Hartland through the Highlands or other parks (Thetis Lake?) and Sooke, but there is not much information available on those connections. Anyways, we enjoyed riding the countless rock slabs. We rode a suggested "advanced" loop (little face-switchbacks-twister-snakes and ladders), thew in some other trails (lumpy, jelly roll, mindbender, dave's, trillium, who's your daddy, night shift, skull trail) and Bill even got in some gnar on "birth control". It seemed like endless Razor's Edge!

Our trip was short and sweet and we were headed home the next day, but not before a quick rip at Vedder, near Chilliwack. The Fraser Valley would be a sweet place to call home with lot of excellent biking and skiing options, without the clusterf*** that is Vancouver. On Vedder we rode 2 cents to Turd Ferguson to Dilemna and were surprised by the smooth trails and jumps that were just begging to be ripped fast. I came into a corner a little too zesty and laid 'er down. Fortunately, came up with no damage. 

Finally back home for a short stop before the Kicking Horse Cup road races in Golden!