John, Michelle, Rich and I decided it was a great excuse to stay up at Whistler but in this heat we all agreed it would be unbearable to wear armour and full face helmets so we'd do the cross-country thing.
Here's Rich a bit later on....he always seemed to be in front, despite being on his 45 pound Shore all weekend - rather him than me!!
Unfortunately on the first climb we missed a turning so ended up doing the full 2.5hour granny ring climb to the top up the fire road - seriously hot
The trails are excellent though so well worth the effort (and dehydration). We had a little extra excitement on the way down - as I rolled out onto one of the fire roads, I came face to face with a bear! Fortunately(?) it was a baby bear so it
just ran up the nearest tree and sat there staring at me!
Of course the one problem with this is that where baby bear is, mummy and daddy bear are sure to be close by - and they can be very protective of baby! So we left, quickly!
Here's an odd angle of John - he's from Brighton y'know!
After the ride, we headed straight to Alice Lake for a sublime swim. OMG that was good!
After lying in the sun for a bit, we shot off up the road to Whistler to find our hotel.
We certainly lucked out there! Swimming pool, hot tubs, lovely rooms and a view of the mountains. Sweet!
Crankworx started Saturday with the Canadian National Downhill Champs so it was pretty busy at the bikepark - click on this pic and check out the drop off the top of the big screen TV - that'll be the focus of thousands of people next weekend for the crazy Slopestyle comp
After the epic Saturday ride, we took it easy on Sunday, and headed off to do Thrill me, Kill me, just up the road from the vlliage. It's a really interesting cross-country loop that goes up and down along the mountain side.
Here's Michelle getting close to the edge - checkout the drop over the side to the highway far below!
Michelle is John's other half, Canadian born and bred and a great bike handler (of course).
There were quite a few slabs to ride, here's Michelle one of the bigger ones
John and John(again)
And......... John on another slab
After a quick stop at the river to cool off, we hit the road back to Vancouver.
Thanks to John for arranging everything and for driving!
