How to Rip Like A Rider From B.C.?

I’ve been thinking this week that we live in fairly depressing times. It’s very easy to consider us in some kind of end-of-days horror show with no end in sight. Any more about e-mails and “voter fraud” and I’m just going to crawl into bed for a few things…where Stranger Things has me too scared to sleep. I’m not sure what to do in order to turn this frown upside down. But I’m going to try. Let’s talk about something happy for a change.

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Uncle Dave

Four of us journeyed to your part of the world this past September and had an awesome time in Whistler (in the valley, not in the park. We’re all old XC guys who like to pedal and suffer) and Squamish.

At night, between mouthfuls of food, we’d discuss how… the skill set of BC riders is light years ahead of us. We rode Rupert and that last chicken line….we looked at that and quite honestly my boys retracted in to my abdomen and none of us rode it. What’s the secret? I tired drinking water but all it did was wake me up in the middle of the night to go pee. It was humbling.

Sincerely,
Quietly Impressed

Dear Quixote:

Oh man!  I just about snapped my spine, throwing my shoulders back with all the pride that I just felt!  Thanks!

There’s no secret really. Just find a mountain somewhere, and then make sure it is steep and covered in rocks, roots and shit. Locate it somewhere that sees heavy amounts of rain for six months of the year and is adjacent to a large City full of disposable income and bored kids. In ten to fifteen years, you too will have people visiting your home terrain, wondering how it’s possible that all the locals can ride that stuff so easily.

However, I know we talked about being happy and positive, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t point out the downside to this situation. Unfortunately, once you’ve created this world class riding destination and grown your sport into the mainstream, one of the neighbourhood crazies may begin using your words and images to forward their ridiculous agenda. Honestly…what the hell?  My own mother doesn’t put in this much effort to show people photos of me. Why are you so obsessed?  Should I be worried?  And please, cool it with the hashtags and the non-sequiturs. And is it too much to ask for a link and a photo credit?

Sorry,
Uncle Dave

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Uncle Dave’s Music Club

Over the last few years I’ve struggled with this thought: Am I happier now that an infinite variety of music is just a click away, or was it better when it took some effort to discover new things?  This question seems to answer itself. I mean, who isn’t happier with a larger variety of awesome things?  But the price of that is that the discovery of new things is less meaningful. There are far few occasions where something emerges that you never expected was possible and just blows you away.

I mention this because the band I’m going to talk about today straddles this idea for me. The Walkmen were the first band that the Internet truly introduced me to (via an amazing CBC Radio 3 online profile), and one of the last times something blew me so thoroughly away, from out of nowhere. We just expect shit like that to happen nowadays, so the combination of new world presentation with old world expectations was a profound experience.

The Walkmen are, unfortunately, no more. They live on via Hamilton Leithauser’s solo career/collaborative work, which we may talk about at some future date, but this is one band whose demise truly saddened me. The combination of Hamilton’s throat-tearing squawk, with the manic animalesque drums, and the sheer other-worldy New Yorkishness of the whole clan, doesn’t seem possible from anybody else. So, from 2004’s Bows + Arrows is The Rat, basically A Streetcar Named Desire in song, and something that should resonate with the oldtimers. Don’t get me wrong, this is a terrible video (maybe just listen to it here rather than watch the video?). But hopefully the music is interesting enough to encourage you to hunt down their other albums. And no. I’m not talking about the bloody Canadian Content shitheads The Watchmen.

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Our Steve Smith fundraiser continues as long as we’ve got stock – with net proceeds going to the Stevie Smith Legacy Fund. We’ll make the donation for you and send you two sticker packs to share with your friends. We’re even going to throw in a new NSMB.com sticker pack

Get your diecut vinyl #longlivechainsaw decals with Steve Smith chainsaws – all four for $10 including world-wide shipping and a donation for Stevie.

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Maybe listening to Dave’s music will help you ride the like a B.C. rider?