Whistler Report Episode 4
Judging by the streams of sweat pouring off us at the top of the PHD climb last night, and the swarms of mosquitos attempting to remove blood from us, I think it’s safe to say that summer is on! PHD was bomber, as per usual, huge thanks to the PVTA volly crew that chainsawed it out more than a few weeks ago while snow still buried the road, it was nice to be able to ride without having to worry about blowdown, and from the looks of it, there was a fair amount! So fun to get loose in the rocky chunder out there!
Last Thursday the toonie race was a wet greasy technical westside affair, which was awesome by the way, although the days since have proved to be mostly sunny, clear and hot. Mid-elevation trails have started to melt out faster and the lower valley stuff has dried out nicely. This is good as correspondingly the bike busyness in the area has ramped up significantly. Saturday was the first WORCA trail day here in Whistler, and it was good to have nearly 20 people out to do a bit of trail sweep work. Ticket2Ride hosted us and we quickly branched out across a few different trails to get some work done. The group I was in headed to the north end of town and worked on brushing back the first part of North Secret (Comfortably Numb). In 3 hours we managed to get to the base of the first big climb, and had fun getting to know each other and laughing at jokes. Trail days are a great way to put names to familiar faces and it was good to meet new people. Thanks to everyone who came out and helped give a little something back, see you at the next one.
State of the Park
In the afternoon I grabbed the downhill bike and cruised to the bikepark for a few laps. While mechanicals tried their hardest to derail my riding, Trotter and I had a trick up our sleeves. Ever used a piece of rebar to unjam a chain? I hadn’t either, until Saturday! Second lap a rock on Samurai tried to remove my rear derailleur pulley cage, bending it nicely. So I bent it back until it sort of worked. I did another couple laps of no pedalling on Ninja Cougar and Karate Monkey because frankly, it was really good. The berms on NC were in great condition and there was a lot of traction – great for leaning things right over! I gave Dirt Merchant a miss after talking to a few friends who had sampled the days newest opening. Even though it’s an all time favourite it sounded like it was also a swamp, so I stuck to the drier stuff. The best part of the sunny Saturday was there were no liftlines, or at most, maybe a couple of chairs. Most of the lower park is open at this point, with Lower Angry Pirate and Crabapple Turns (Cruise Control) expected to be open this weekend. Upper B-Line, Ninja Cougar, and Schleyer were all closed this week for work by trail crew, so they should be in great shape for the weekend, Brian Finestone also mentioned that Freelap timing systems are going to be installed on 4 trails in the coming weeks, two permanent and two roving. That should prove interesting, hopefully the racer-heads don’t get too wild with other people around. Remember, another lap is only a chairlift ride away.
In socializing news, there is a lot going on in the next week or so, starting with a ‘You Like This‘ screening party Thursday (June 9) at the Whistler Brewing Company Brewery in Function Junction. Yes, you can watch it online, for free. But you can’t socialize with fun people, or drink free beer with fun people from your computer, so come out and join Kevin and Taylor at 4pm for some laughs and good times. Party after-party will go at Garf’s. Party on.
On Saturday night the GLC will host the Whistler screening of 3 Minute Gaps. It’s only $5 to get in, and there’s a bunch of drink specials, which means it’ll probably be a rowdy evening. While I’ve typically found Clay’s movies to be drawn out and melodramatic, the clips and imagery that’s been coming out has me genuinely excited. Hope he doesn’t kill that stoke with lame docu-commentary narration. See ya there.
Saturday June 18 in Pemberton, the PVTA will host their 2nd annual fundraiser. This group continues to do amazing work and it deserves our support. If you’re going to be in the neighbourhood you should come out to the Pemby Community Centre at 8pm where there’ll be even more socializing, a silent auction (sponsored by Chromag, Ticket2Ride, Fanatyk Co, Local Motion, Snow Covers, more to be announced), a Grand Prize Raffle, and door prizes. They’ll also be selling their new t-shirts and maps, and Johnny Foon will have a slideshow going on. Let’s not forget the cold beverages; Whistler Brewing continues their awesome support of our local riding scene and will have a beer garden rocking. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door, and can be picked up at both the Whistler and Pemby Bike Co. shops. If you can’t make it, you can also make donations via the PVTA’s website. Thanks for your support!
In actual on-bike events, its hard to believe that the bikepark’s legendary Phat Wednesday series is once again upon us. Next week (June 15) marks event number one. The whole series schedule, including the PhaSt races can be found at the link above. As always, this is a WORCA event and you must be a member to participate, so join now. Cost to race is $2, race time is 6pm, reg 4ish, and we are still capping races @ 200 riders. Will Billinghurst take the B-Line event chainless yet again? On a sad note, our thoughts go out to WB Events man Seb Fremont and his family in the loss of his father, our hearts are with you my friend. He must’ve been an amazing man to have raised such dedicated, hard-working sons.
While the 4-Jacks/Queens sequel isn’t happening this year, much to the chagrin of some, Tony Horn is focusing his attention on something that I think is long over due, and promises to be an awesome time. His new concept is an all women’s event called ‘Betty vs. Veronica’ that will take place on Saturday August 27th. This will be a one day event, with two separate events; Crank It Up DH in the bikepark in the AM, and a 15km westside XC in the afternoon. No equipment restrictions either, so ride the same bike or different bikes for both stages. During registration there’s a questionnaire that will place the ladies on either the Betty or Veronica team and you will be required to race in your teams colours, either yellow or black, there will also be team jerseys available to purchase for $25 if you so desire. The after party will be hosted at the Squamish-Lillooet Cutural Centre and will be a ‘dress up to the nines’ affair with a tapas dinner and martinis complete with silent auction and a DJ, only riders and vollies are going to be at this, so very exclusive! Profits from the event will be donated to the Howe Sound Women’s Centre and specifically targeted to helping open the Whistler Women’s Centre this fall. Way to go Tony, should be a blast and it’s for a great cause. Registration opens June 15 at 6pm on the WORCA website, you must be a WORCA member to participate, and the cost will be $60. Tony also wants to make it clear that this is a fun event, and won’t have the gnarl factor of his previous creations (Samurai of Singletrack/4 Jacks/Queens), so don’t be intimidated, come out and have fun ladies! Tony’s also apparently shopping around for a speedo sponsorship for the all-guy marshalling crew, yikes!
In trails related news, Bike Co has posted a blog (read it here) about Spruce Lake Protected Area getting bumped up to Class-A Provincial Park status last year. It’s now known as South Chilcotins Mountain Park. As such Parks will be looking for input/feedback from user groups in the near future. We need to rally here and be sure to fill out feedback forms when the time comes to show parks how important that area is for mountain bikers. Personally I feel that it’s one of the most beautiful places to ride (and there’s a lot of them) in the Sea to Sky region. There are a couple of commercial interests that would love to see mountain biking removed, let’s not let them do that, and let them know that access needs to remain open for both bikes and floatplanes.
Speaking of floatplanes, Tyax Air reports from the area have the Hurly finally open after some hard work by a big dozer, Dale says that Spruce lake is nearly clear and they hope to get in to Warner this week to begin trail work/clearing with the hope of being open for float plane drops beginning July 2/3. Can’t wait to get back up there for some amazing high alpine riding, there really isn’t anything else like it.
A couple episodes back I mentioned that the River Runs Through It bridge had suffered at the hands of a mighty river last fall. Well the RMOW trails crew has been hard at work for the past week and they’re a few days work away from having it ready to go. I went out on site and talked to a few of the trail builders and it’s amazing that outside of labour, they’ve spent less than $500 at this point getting it together. All in they’re thinking around $1000 in materials. Pretty amazing for such a big structure. They fell a large fur on site and used a few rigging lines and block and tackle to manoeuvre the stringer into place on some rock crib cages. Impressive stuff to be sure! They’ve also built a new connector trail that goes to the existing trail just beyond the old bridge crossing. They think it should be good to go and completely finished by next weekend.
Finally, kudos to the Cheakamus Community Forest who recently completed some logging work in the Runaway Train trail area in the southern end of town. A letter of understanding had been signed by the CCF and WORCA last year in regards to working together in protecting, maintaining and enhancing our trail system. The CCF hired long time builders Boyd McTavish and Dave Fortier to clear and rebuild the section of trail that was impacted by the works. Apparently they’d already put over $2500 into the refurb and have committed to working until WORCA officials were satisfied with the rehab. With Boyd and Dave on the project I know it will get done right, and the CCF deserves a big thank you for understanding the value of our trail system. Thanks Tom, Peter and Heather.
Alright, enough talk, more riding. Enjoy the sun, maybe see you at Wade’s Excellent Adventure down on Fromme Saturday, or maybe 3 Minute Gaps Saturday night, or maybe the bikepark Sunday!
Have you had your first Whistler ride of the year? Tell us about it here…
Comments
Please log in to leave a comment.