SILVERSTAR 2014 THREAD

July 9, 2014 - Respect for the level of trail

Silver Star Bike Park is known for being a progressive Bike Park. We pride ourselves on this fact and strive to make it one of the best Parks in the world in this regard. What does that mean?

It means you can learn and progress with baby steps. Since expanding the bike park we have been dedicated to have trails for all abilities so each level of rider can progress at their own speed and have the best possible day in any Bike Park.

With that goal in mind we try and echo our trails so once you are confident on one trail the next step up has the same feel. This stands true with machine built flow trails and tech hand built trails. If LTG is a little easy and you need more of a challenge, head over to Double Dog. Clearing all the jumps on Super Star? Try Shazam or Jedi Mind Trick, or maybe it’s time to try out Rock Star or maybe you are already on Rock Star and those jumps are just too small, learn to connect Pipe Dream or Walk the Line. There are lots of options to suite your ability!

It’s important to have a level of respect for the way the park has been built and the level of skilled required for certain trails. For example if you are a fast rider, and we have lots in the park, please respect a slower rider when riding Blue and Green trails. These trails are designed for them! They are designed and intended for the intermediate rider to hone their skills and enjoy the park. It is disrespectful for a faster rider to blow by a beginner or try and pass them when they’re trying to learn and gain confidence on a trail that is intended for that level of riding. And it also can scare the bejessus out of a lesser rider. If the Park is busy (which is normally only weekends) and the riders are slowing you down, time to move up to a Black or Double Black trail. Silver Star has never had a problem with this in the past but we are seeing it creep in and we hope to keep this at bay and keep our small mountain feel even as our ridership increases.

In due respect if you are an intermediate rider and the Gate Keepers at the head of the black trails are above your skill set, please do not walk over or around them to continue down the trail. Yes, some of the Gate Keepers are rollable but this is not the intention. If you are not capable of confidently handling the Gate Keepers at the head of the trail, please roll into one of the many easier trails and work on your skills and speed until you feel confident getting over these Gate Keepers. The Vault is another area to practice your skills. They are representative of the skills and speed needed not to hold up other riders up on that trail. Maybe you can get down the trail, but you will hold up other riders. And yes they get bigger and more difficult as the trails get harder. Pipe Dream and Walk the Line are a much more difficult feature than the top of World Cup and Rock Star. Again showing the skill set needed for these trails. The idea is to allow you to see what level of rider you need to be before continuing down this trail with confidence. These are important features to make sure you can safely navigate the trail and also to make sure you don’t interfere with someone else enjoying the trail who has the required skill.

Now with what we did this week

The Berms on Lower World Cup where pulled up. They are a little soft but the trail is open top to bottom now.

The second last berm coming into the lift was re-tooled. If you hit the bonus weekend you found yourself blowing the next berm before rolling into the lift. We opened up the line and it now spits you right into the pocket of that last berm. Thanks Mike Hainault!

Lower Shazam received a full buff up. There were numerous trees down, wet spots to deal with and a few holes that were filled. But I have to say I think this is the earliest we have had this section of trail open.

Jedi Mind Trick had a little alteration near the bottom. Crossing one of the ski runs the trail slowed a little too much. We opened up the corner and straightened out the line to carry you across a bit faster. Still a little soft but once the trail hardens up it will be a great improvement

Silver Shack started getting some extension on the bridges. The hope was the ground would dry out; turns out the bridges are going to get a little longer. Watch for this to continue next week.

We made some changes to the Middle of Super Star last year. The section of trail was always rough and the downhill berms blown out. We brought the trail across the slope to control speed and had intentions of increasing the flow of the trail with a couple extra berms. Turns out we got a little overzealous. If you ride Super Star you will know the section. Trail Crew caught some slack for adding an "XC" section into one of our most popular downhill trails. Thanks to Jason Martin this has been rectified and the trail is flowing again! Thanks Jay!

We made the same mistake with Shazam last year. We tried to take out too much of the grade again. Most times it works really well and feels great having your bike unweight. The cheat line that has formed on this section of Shazam will become the new berm and the trail will return to the transfer feel people love, coming very soon.

We pounded in a 200m + of Stage II of Chakra. The XC crowd is going to love this trail. I know Steve Darby is having a lot of fun building it. I can't wait. Should be completed mid-summer.

The sign posts are up on the XC trails. There are 15 6x6 posts out in the park now helping you navigate the growing XC trails

The Slope Style is just around the corner. July 11 [HTML_REMOVED] 12th. The crew got to work on the course this week. Buffing the drop landings, pulling up the landing of the Whale Tail and changing the profile of the jumps. Going to be a great event. Have yo registered yet?

And we added in a "new" Gate Keeper at the top of World Cup. This is the access point for a many of the Black jump trails. We took away the drop style Gate Keeper that has been there for a number of years. It is now a small wood jump with a bike length gap to a dirt landing. The gap is filled in with rough big rock so is not friendly to ride over. It is small, smaller than most the jumps on Rock Star, to help you gauge the skills needed to enjoy those trails.

I think we did more than this over the week as the larger crew is amazing this summer! We have a great bunch of guys work on Trail Crew this year, so if you see them out there thank them. They work really hard so we can all have great trails to ride!

LaterCam

Geez, I wish Finestone or someone would update the Whistler Bike park to this extent. Good on ya, Sheffy. Hopefully Silverstar can grow, but retain it's small town feel.

July 17, 2014 - New XC trails open today!

We have a bunch of new trail to ride in the Silver Star Bike Park. We said we would have a new XC trail to ride ever week or so. Well, with this year’s hard working crew we have opened 3 new sections of trail this week. That’s an extra 3 + km of new trails that we have opened this week alone!

Stage II of Chakra opened TODAY! This added over 2km to the already existing Chakra. Start with a BX Creek and return via Chakra and you have over a 6k loop of fresh Silver Star XC! I know the crew is very proud of this trail and I think they should be. There are a lot of man hours into it so enjoy!

Lower Eric’s was finish today as well. The boys hammered this one out in the heat! South aspect, hard bench cut trail over the past couple days. They all lost a few pounds of fluids for sure! Upper Eric’s is one of the trails we grandfathered into the trails system. Over all this is more of a DH style XC trail. And only one way direction (down).

And Grizzly Adams was opened late last week. This is not for the faint of heart, literally! You will need some cardio to ride this trail in either direction. It is a black short cut trail out to the Mountain View Cabin.

For all you DHer’s in the crowd we did not forget about you! There were little buff jobs happening every morning in the park. The connector trail had a full rake this morning in fact. Not sure how long it will last with this heat wave. We really could use 10 -20mm of rain every week. It is like hundreds of little trail ferries working the trails when it rains! Sorry I digress; we also continued work on upper Jedi. I know there are a lot of people excited for this to open. We will all have to wait though. A trail of this size takes time. We are still on target to have it opened early August. Sorry no early opening on this one. L

BC Cup / North West Cup DH race this weekend. Jason Martin has been hard at work making some Mod’s to the finish of the course this week, with help of a few of the other guys. The whip jump has been moved up the course and the flat drop fad away corners have been replaced with large Moto Whoops. The line is also changing to bring you faster into the finish line, no more sprints for the finish. There is also a “Long Jump” close to the bottom. It will be interesting to see how far a DH Racer can fly.

The weather is going to cool a bit for the weekend which is great news for the race marshals on course this weekend. Don’t want any of our Volunteers getting sun baked. We also need a few more people to help out with the race if you are interested. Great swag bag for all volunteers this year!

Have a great weekend! See you on the trails.

LaterCam

July 25, 2014 - Mother Nature [HTML_REMOVED] tacky trails

Mother Nature! What is the saying; when it rains it pours? That is what she did this week. After a very successful race weekend with a BC Cup and North West Cup the weather continued to be somewhat unsettled to say the least.

Over the weekend we had to close the mountain due to high winds. This was a first in my tenure here at the resort. We have had to close for other things over the years (very seldom mind you) but wind has not been one of them. Trail Crew and Patrol had to stay late into the evening clearing all the downed trees from the bike trails just so we could have the bike park open on time for Sunday.

Midweek we did not fare much better; but this time Old Mother Nature also brought the rain with her. If you have ever ridden the Silver Star Bike Park after a rain you know what it is like! J It would be similar to Trail Crew putting in a thousand overtime hours buffing out the park. We can work as hard as humanly possible and nothing buffs up a bike park like a little rain (or a lot in this case). We received a whopping 51mm overnight! But mix that with the wind and it forced Trail Crew to do a full walk through most of our trails top to bottom on Thursday. However, all the senior guys got to talking over lunch that day, and we were all impressed with how well the park held up. In fact, it looks AMAZING! With the forecast this weekend of sunshine, the riding could well be off the chart! And I have the weekend off so you know where to find me.

LaterCam

Wholy berms batman. Been a little while since I've been at Silverstar. Dag's Downhill is a lot ruffer than I remember, but everything else seems similar. Still surprised by how much time I spent in big berms today though.

Coming up this August 16th is another great enduro event in British Columbia. Norco presents the Burney Ridge Enduro at Silver Star Bike Park. The Burney Ridge Enduro is centered around a simple and fun concept. Silver Star is known its fast and flowy trails for all ages and abilities and this race is no different. If you have been interested in enduro racing but haven't had a go at it yet, this is the race for you, think of it as "Fun-Duro". The three stage race will include some of Silver Stars new XC trails and some of your favorite bike park trails and will feature two climbing sections and one lift assisted ride, the route for the race will be released on August 14.

According to Devin Knopf, Silver Star's Events Manager, enduro races take many forms all over the world. "Some are crazy long Super-D races, like the Downieville Classic or the Megavalanche. Others, like races in the Enduro World Series, include multiple timed downhill stages that are held over a single day (Like the Burney Ridge Enduro), or over multiple days and are linked by non-timed climbs. “They’re basically pedally downhill races where fitness is just as important as skill, but for this Silver Star race it's more about fun.” Knopf says. "Bring the whole family!"

In keeping with the simple theme, the event will have Men's and Womens categories in Jr (13-17), Open and Masters (30+). Register before August 1st and receive a free event shirt. You can register today with CCN for only $50. For more information please visit Silver Star Bike Park. Awards will follow at the Saloon, as will the stories of good times and great flow from the event. Prizing is provided by Norco and Smith Optics and Silver Star Bike Park.

August 14, 2014 - Jedi Mind Trick is open

The long a waited upper Jedi Mind Trick has JUST come online. We have just dropped the gates early because of that rain we got last night. Just remember this is a new trail so trail speed will be changing as it hardens up. If you are one of the first riders to drop in you may need to pedal into some of the jumps but by the 50th rider you may need to check your speed. We never really know how the jumps are going to run until the trail gets packed in. So take your time and learn the trail. We will be monitoring our new brain child and making adjustments as needed.

Upper Jedi is deigned to have very much the same feel and flow as the section of Jedi we opened last summer. Long landings, spaced out jumps with moderate to high speeds required. There are very few berms on this trail unlike the rest of the Silver Star Bike Park. We are on the very outer (more flat) edge of the bike park so you need to maintain your speed to let the trail flow. I know Trail Crew is pretty excited to see how this trail burns in, so enjoy! We will start looking at Phase III of Jedi over the next couple weeks and will connect the dots next summer giving you another full top to bottom blue flow jump trail here at Silver Star.

This dry hot weather has been putting a little damper on the trail maintenance. We here at Silver Star pride ourselves on the work we do to keep the trails running smooth. With this dry summer it has proven difficult to keep up. I think it may also have something to do with the increase in rider traffic this year as well. We have had the crew out every morning before the park opens with water hoses and the pump doing what we can to keep those bomb holes at bay. Considering the lack of rain I have to say it is not too bad out there but we are looking forward to the forecast of some moisture this week. We will hit the trails hard to do as much as we can before it dries out.

This weekend will also see The Norco Burney Ridge Enduro coming to the resort. It is a multi-stage Enduro event. But knowing the course Devin has set out we are calling it more of a Funduro. It will be a fun event for anyone with even a little bit of fitness and bike skills. I am looking forward to being social with my friends on the climbs and trying to best their times on the descents. See you out there this weekend!

I think my dad was the first to hit upper Jedi today when you opened it. He was stoked on all the work you guys have been doing and is just loving it up there.

Careful on Upper Jedi the first time you roll through! A few of the little kickers are a bit aggressive for the tranny, and end up pushing you and your bike forward. After you hit it once or twice, it certainly develops some good flow! Once she's packed in, it'll be a scrub fest!

August 20, 2014 - More NEW trail

As promised we have more fresh trail open for you to ride this week! I trust most of the downhillers in the crowd have now sampled Jedi Mind Trick in the Park?

It is hardening up but there is still more to come. After a winter of snow pushing down on the trail we should see Jedi running even quicker. With that speed we feel there may be a few adjustments that will need to be made to some of the jumps. For this season we will be leaving them alone, so keep this in mind as a few of the jumps may be a little short if you are packing some heat.

We have opened over 4km of new flowing single track for our beginner XC friends. Meadow Trail is now burned in and brushed out for your enjoyment. This trail was a late addition to the network so it is not on any of our printed maps. It will be added to the NOCS app in the near future. The signage is also back ordered, sorry. To find this trail it comes off of the end of Sidewinder and around the last fenced settling pond or from the bottom of Tube Town, from under the Nordic arch. If you know the winter Nordic trails it is the same Meadow trail you ski in the winter.

We are also opening up Corkscrew XC trail. This trail is not yet complete but there is enough trail and viewpoints to warrant opening it, letting us all enjoy trails crews hard work. Please respect the signage and turn around when you get to where they are working, it will eventually be a full loop trail you can ride in both directions. Thanks!

Access for Corkscrew is just off of the Mountain View Cabin, via Grizzly Adams or Sidewinder.

We have pounded out over 2km of the future Beowulf trail as well. Unfortunately there are still a few bridges to go in so watch for a sneak peak of this trail in the coming weeks.

Have a great week of riding the rain has turned all the trails into brown pow!

LaterCam

August 29, 2014 - Upper Super Star and more XC

I have to apologize. There are a few spots in the Park that are getting a little rough. I know it is the end of the season and the moisture is coming back into the dirt but trail crew is particular about our trails and sad they are not up to the standard most people expect, us included. Now this is not to say the Park is in bad shape by any means; just a few spots that we know about and would like to work on. Here is the explanation. We know that lower Rock Star is getting a little bumpy. The shape it is in warrants some Trail Crew love. But why are we giving upper Super Star a full re-build?

Super Star is an area that is under snow for the first few weeks of the season. Early season is when we do a majority of trail maintenance. We can never get to Upper SS early season and once the snow is off this section we are onto building new trails. (Side note, new Jedi Mind Trick is running great with the recent rain!) So, we made the conscious decision to go onto Super Star at the expense of some much needed maintenance. So now that the changes are almost done on Upper Super Star you can enjoy a fresh new trail and know that Trail Crew is looking to do a full rebuild on lower Rock Star in the Spring, where it melts out early and we can do more good.

The changes to Super Star are quick! You will have to bring your A-game if you want to smash through there at full speed. Just a word of advice, slow it down a bit until you learn this all new section of trail. It may be a little tricky to figure out the right line through the tight berms but we feel once the trail is hard and you have the line figured out it should work really well and have fewer break bumps. Enjoy.

For the NOCS group ride this week we gave a sneak peek at Corkscrew - the newest addition to the ever growing XC network. I think everyone enjoyed their ride and could see the difference the rain made to the trail. The Ice Cream buffet at the finish was a nice touch. We will have the dots connected next week to make it a compete loop that can be ridden both ways. I feel it may have a preferred direction of flow but I will have to ride it out a few times before I make that call.

Once we have Corkscrew done we are going to take that machine into the Park for a few days before our bonus weekends to hammer out some of that maintenance I talked about. Again this will be on one of the soggy sections of trail we can’t get to in the spring.

Then it will be moving to Beowulf to join the rest of the crew that has over 2 km of this epic trail completed. I will be honest this trail is turning out to be more of an undertaking than we first thought, alder 7’ high, an old forest with red rot knee high. The good news though is that this trail is going to be ridiculously fun to ride! Sorry for the tease but it will be another year before there is enough trail to get tires on. We will look at doing some sneak peeks out and back as soon as we can. Stay posted.

Remember the fall is the best time of year to ride your bike! We received a little rain today and the forecast is for a bit cooler temps. So no need to go to the lake this weekend, go biking! Come ride the Bike Park for our last regular weekend of the 2014 season and wait for that Indian summer to get back on the water.

LaterCam

Wooooo hoooooo stoked on this :)

September 5, 2014 - Season recap [HTML_REMOVED] future

As the season winds down it’s easy to sit back and look at our accomplishments this summer and start looking forward to next year, but that’s not what the Silver Star Trail Crew is not going to do! Granted the rain has buffed up the park nicely and this past weekend was amazing! But with no riders on the trails this week we feel we can get some major maintenance done. We are going to hit the trail maintenance hard while the DH trails are closed! If you come up for the bonus weekends you will find sections of Rock Star and Super Star completely re-built. Not only will this make our bonus weekends amazing but it will give us a jump start on next year’s openings.

Super Star mid trail is going to see a major re-vamp. Not completely sure how it is going to turn out but those little jumps mid trail that are starting to have stumps poke out of them are going to get a major face lift. This is a pretty big undertaking so it may take a couple weeks. You’ll witness the changes over the next two bonus weekends.

And then there is Rock Star the re-build is happening after YVR, the double wood drops. This section of trail was rough. The line is staying the same just a full buff up - take offs refaced, berms doubled in size, sight lines opened back up [HTML_REMOVED] landing smoothed out. Over all the same fall line just a whole lot smoother!

It was a huge year as you can see from all the expansion in the park! So far we have built over 18 km of trail this year and maintained the Bike Park with it's over 50 km of dedicated DH trails. Out of that 18 km we built over 3 km of all new DH trail. Jedi Mind Trick phase II has been received with huge success! Look for the third and final build on this trail to start next spring and come on line Mid-August 2015 connecting the dots. We also have the last part of Walk the Line in the plans for next year. If all goes well with Jedi we want to get started on the final chapter of this big jump trail as well.

But enough about the future let's review what is fresh this year and you can still ride. XC remains open with a valid pass and we still have two more bonus weekends for the Park. Sept 6th /7th [HTML_REMOVED] the 13th / 14th.

Chakra was a complete build early this year. With over 3 km of flow XC trail I have to say this is one of my favorite XC trails in the Park. Granted it has just as much up as it does down but man do the downhill sections rip!

Grizzly Adam was finished mid-July this year. It’s almost a kilometer of technical climbing and descending this trail takes us out to the Mountain View Cabin which is also the jumping off point for Corkscrew.

The newest addition to the XC network, Corkscrew was just completed this week! It’s 2 km of twisting, turning, up hill [HTML_REMOVED] downhill berming fun. You can complete it as a loop and continue on your way or ride it in reverse for something different.

All the bridges and board walk were built on Silver Shack this spring. Giving us a 3.5 km climb up the mountain. If you have been on this trail you get it! This is the lead in to Beowulf (same style trail for 30 km)

Eric's had almost a kilometer added to this OG trail extending it to the lower trail network. Also pulling another black trail into our XC network, some of the locals call this their favorite trail.

We burned in close to 4 more km for our beginner XC riders with Meadow Trail. This happened so late in the season we have not even got the signage up. Join this up the Mountain View and Side winder and you have a huge loop for the entry level XC rider.

The all new Easy Street DH was built this spring. Some people forget this trail was built this year because we had it open before the lifts started to turn. This trail was almost a month in the making and it is fun for all abilities to get to the lift from our mid mountain village.

Also in the same area you’ll find the Explorer Loop. A 1/2 km loop for those learning to get off their seat and ride the bike; instead of the bike taking them for a ride. Turned out this trail was a great training ground for both our DH and XC Camps and the groms learning to ride.

Upper Super Star was recently completely re-built and the line changed which is pretty much like building a trail from scratch. Basically trees were removed, the line opened up and berms added. Yes it is a little slower than the old trail but has that active feel of berm to berm transfers Silver Star Bike Park is known for.

So to say the least trail crew has been busy this summer and this is only the beginning. After the work is done in the DH Park and we have put her to bed for the winter. We are going to continue working on the epic trail Beowulf until the snow flies. To get the 30 km trail done we are going to put all resources into it throughout the fall and see how far we can get.

But for now lube up your chain, check those pivots and get your bike ready for the last few days of riding. Because after that it will be a long winter thinking about riding down Pipe Dream again!

LaterCam

Thanks for a great 2014 season! The good flow on the last weekend was a testament to how much work the trail crew put in over the season.

Upper Jedi is a blast and I can't wait to see how it connects to lower Jedi.