Sunshine Coast with the old (UK) crew

More than a few original haircuts are all part of the show....

I missed them last year for various reasons so I was more determined than ever to do some riding with my old posse when they hit BC this time. By my count this is the 7th Jedi Council Summer Field Trip. I made the first 5 (3 to Chamonix, 2 to Canada) before going native here

The plan was simple - meet them on the Sunshine Coast on Friday. Err, sorry make that Saturday morning - no? Oh well Saturday evening then? At last. Fortunately for me, when they didnt arrive on Saturday morning I had my new posse to ride with as it was the NSRide Sunshine Coast Ride the same day - sweet! (see next blog)


Here's Chaos on Janet's Jungle


















Stophe on Per-wotsits-street













Powerful Pierre

















Llew sending it on DNA














followed by (or perhaps preceded - I cant remember) Pierre












Because of the late start I decided to stay overnight in Chez-Honda - Johnny had lined up a beautiful campsite - if you like farmyards that is!











one of the residents













two bleedin great vans and they could only just squeeze everything in - 13 brits, 3 guides and one dog











at least the farm gave Johnny his first chance at intelligent conversation in a week!

The kidd was funny - it liked to headbutt your fist









crappy angle of a high skinny - its the one above the stream on per-wotsits street - 6ft high












Lairy Nick was one of about 4 I hadnt met before - 18 months out of touch brings a few new faces












Smiling Andy and Smiling Andy













This little jump is a lot more exciting than it looks - it was flat out through a 3ft gap between the trees

















This was the start of the rains that plagued us for 2 weeks after...

After a full day on Sunday I said my goodbyes about 5.30pm and headed off to get the 6.50pm ferry - which was full, as was the 7.25, and the 9.30 so I eventually got on board one just before midnight - ah well, c'est la vie

Sunshine Coast with the old (UK) crew - video

This gives you an idea of what the invasion was like - the trail is 'DNA'


Click the picture and wait to make it play

Whistler on a weekday

With the Triple Crown insisting on a rest day on Sunday, Jon and I made plans for a Bike Park day on Monday :-)



tumble weed in the lift line - sucks to be us eh ;-)












me on the in-deep rock - obviously in REAL life its a big scary rock- not just a little roll-down

















Jon sendin' it up on Garbanzo. Actually the park is a bit odd at the moment cos one of the main trails on the top half of the mountain is shut to allow some construction for the Olympics - it kind of necessitates doing Goat's Gully every lap which has probably the most infamous sections on the mountain







obligatory bear shot - complete with 3 cubs - all together now - awwwww












me on the Rock City roll in - I remember bottling out of this because I couldnt walk to the edge to see down it - too high and too steep! that was my first time in Whistler back in '04 . Nowadays, its a little friendlier than it was but its still pretty steep















Jon in his sun hat (add your own caption)














..and on a wall ride (he's about 6 inches off the rock as he jumps the crack) oooooooo!

We had a great a great day - a least a dozen laps. Ahh, Whistler. Such a good place :-D

Ripper #4 The Triple Crown

The final of this year's Ripper series, The Triple Crown.
A slight difference this time with the extremeness being in the endurance department.

The course went from the bottom of Mt Seymour to the top of the trails (1 1/4 hour ride up), then down and across to Mt Fromme for the hour and a quarter ride up there, then down and across to Cypress for the endless ride to just above the trails there (seemed like about 3 hours ride up but I think it was probably less) then down to Obsession: Bikes on Lonsdale. 8 hours, 39 mins later we rolled up. Exhausted. Well, I was.

At least our Team (me, Jon, Rich and Jon's mate Johnny) made it into the paper. Well, obviously I was at the back so they missed me in the text but you can just see my right hand in the pic



















the only photo I took - the Capilano Dam















Check out the full report here

Silverstar Bike Park, Venon

It was the Norco VPS Fest over the Canada Day weekend in SilverStar- basically a customer appreciation day where Norco owners get to ride the bike park for free and win some rather good prizes.

A load of our friends ride Norco's and had rented a house so invited us along. The weather in the few days leading up to it was, frankly shite, but, unperturbed, we set off on the 5-6 hour drive up to Vernon, BC. It's actually a very scenic drive (even in pouring rain) especially over the two passes - the first at 1500m and the second at 1728m - thats 5616ft - pretty big when you consider Ben Nevis is over a thousand feet less - and here there's a motorway! Its an amazing road - getting on for a hundred miles straight through the mountains in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, back to the weekend, here's our motley crew (bar a couple that didnt make the photocall)
...and yes, that is me in red as usual....









pretty views, much more like the Alps than Whistler













view from our house (which was sleeping about 20)













Good food (eh Jon?)













Who could this be then? Not wearing red so it couldnt be me.....could it? Well actually yes, this weekend marked the Christening of my new lid which is not in the slightest red so I thought it appropriate to wear somethin more subtle for a change.... and christen it I did - with a full on crash onto my face - with no injury thanks to Specialized

The park was amazing. Mostly dirt - few few rocks (unlike Whistler) and such fun singletrack - all of us had the time of our lives all day - if you have the means, I highly recommend it



a view down "Downtown" of Rich (actually out of shot at the front), Brian, Derek, Jon and Dale in formation. This seemed to be the theme of the weekend - 6 guys going flat out everywhere about 5ft apart - we had soooo much fun I really cant describe it :-D








Dale (this bit is actually super steep and super slow other wise he'd air right over my head!











The weather (obviously) cheered right up for us and was actually a tad hot but somehow we made it through ;-) This is Lake something-or-other-beginning-with-a-K at Westbank - home now to Johnny and Barb We spent a couple hours having a last bit of fun here to break up the return journey


Superb pic by Euan with his new fish-eye lens - although it doesnt look it I'm just about to leap dramatically into the air.....









...and our final "ride" - Brian, Derek and I rolling down a big rockface right into the car park - a little staged as we had to clamber up it just to ride down - but nice use of the fisheye!




Silverstar = Fun = We'll be back!

Working in Victoria

I spent a few days recently working on a move for the government in Victoria. There offices weren't too special..... except for the view - the (cough cough) historic Empress Hotel on the left, and the Provincial Parliment building straight across the harbour - if they made it into apartments they'd sell for millions








and at night, they turn the pretty lights on - awww!

June is Bike Month

It rains in Vancouver. It rains a lot.... No really, it rains A LOT. England doesnt have rain, it has drizzle. Meanwhile, I'm beginning to understand why the rainforest thrives here. But it's Summer right? It's June? It's guaranteed good weather - why else would they make June Bike Month? Well, you're part right, it's June. But after that false start to "summer" with us all being baked within an inch of our lives in Whistler 2 weeks ago, the weather has turned distinctly miserable. June showers.



Of course, we are used to the rain here so it doesnt stop us getting out on our bikes and into the mountains (does it Jon?) and so last saturday's downpour was no match for our Squamish Club ride.

We actually had a great ride :-)
There were ups, downs and more ups but it was great to get up into them there hills (mountains)










After the final hour-ish climb we topped out above the clouds - well, some of them anyway

Riding here's not without its risks of course - it's not only mozi's that bite here - a couple weeks back they found a Grizzly Bear wandering around not far from Squamish - a long way from home and this week a biker in Whistler was chased for ages down by a Cougar - (Mountain Lion). But I think one of the more obvious risks on this ride (aside from Pneumonia) was that of taking a wrong turn into an impromtu base-jump!


I can easily imagine a biker taking the right fork at the top of this trail and heading over the edge thinking he was entering a steep section - I suppose the sudden shift from looking down at tree roots to tree tops will keep most people safe.

The descent was good - as usual - there were some pretty crazy corners - really steep, rocky and tight and a few lovely log rides but all fun, all the time - despite the rain.






And here's moody photographic masterpiece that I like to call Granite in the Mist - to get this shot of The Chief I used a very careful set up consisting of a camera phone, a tinted, rain soaked window of a moving vehicle and a last second lunge of my left arm in the rough direction of outside the van ;-)








And in last minute shock news, here's evidence of me wearing blue in public at the graduation ceromony last month :-)

These are the official photos - available to order for my fans ;-)

Ripper on NSMB

Check out the write up on NSMB and here's a better photo of me - you can see the skeleton gloves in this one....

Hot n dusty in the bike park :-)

Regular reader might remember that the Whistler Bike Park opened a couple weeks back.

We thought it wise to chill out for a couple weeks to let the trails dry out - opening day was a mud fest - well maybe we left it too long cos on Sunday the trails were baked hard and as dusty as a thing that's really dusty!

The sun was shining, the clouds were hiding so it was a scorcher



The Crankworx Festival looks like it will be pretty crazy this year - the course is pretty much finished and there are an awful lot of biiiiig jumps! Thankfully, I'll be sticking with the downhill race and well away from the slopestyle









The milestone event for us was the opening of Dirt Merchant - possibly my favourite trail in the world - endless jumps but mostly very do-able and loads of fun











As usual at Whistler - everyone is there - you see the same people again and again but somehow there always seem to be new hot bike chicks every time we go - ahh, Whistler :-)









...and not forgetting the wildlife. The count today was 2 deer and 5 bears - kinda of cheating a bit as I saw these four (eyes left) together - mummy with 3 little baby bears - real life teddy bears about the size of cats. The pic is a bit blurred but there are 2 on left of mum and 1 on the right - and they were quite content to wander around about 40ft from a bunch of noisy bikers - cool



Stay tuned for more Whistler adventures soon....

CBC Ripper

Saturday saw '07's 3rd North Shore Ripper. This time it was much shorter with a 12 ish minute downhill (down CBC and Corkscrew) which included a sprinkling of time bonuses for riding the gnarly/skinny/tricky line.

At long last, I managed to come up with a costume (Michele's idea - my sewing) and I have to say I was pretty pleased with it :-)

"The Grim Ripper"




I even managed to have a 2 piece sythe so I could strap it to my back for the race (thanks to Jon for helping me get geared up)

















Speak of the devil......
Jon did the race in spite of "absolutely hating CBC" and afterwards he didnt moan about it once - of course that was slightly outweighed by him moaning about it for a month beforehand!!!








This photo was taken by Danielle - Meghan's friend - i love the way you can't be sure if I'm real or just a ghost! :-)

Stay tuned for more pics as i get them and a full report on NSMB.com