Cypress Trailwork?

"2 pictures of 2 sections do not tell you anything about the trails there besides those two sections looking well built and fun as hell.

Don't troll for stuff like this."
[email protected] on the "Cypress to be PAVED" thread.

What if it's a valid point? Look at these pictures, it's like a damn highway. Is there ANYTHING on there that a 10 year old on a walmart bike couldn't ride by pointing his bike in the right direction?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for trailbuilding, and also all for building easy stuff for inexperienced riders….. but the easy stuff is supposed to go BESIDE the hard stuff.

Lock this if you find discussion offensive. I'm not trying to stir stuff up just for the sake of stirring stuff up, I just am against pouring a ton of money into an overgrown bike path.

PS. I hope I'm wrong, I hope people can dig up pictures of interesting, challenging new trailwork up there.

Well this is the 1st year and they only have "temporary approval" (or something like that) to build trails and try out the idea. Plus they're a provincial park - read as not private property - so there's a hell of a lot more rules to follow when doing any "development" work.

Personally I prefer dirt over man made, but if it's local it'll do.

Edit: Post deleated to avoid feeding the troll.

Apparently the back story behind the creation of cypress is that someone that is a part of the family that runs the cypress ski lifts went up to whistler, having never ridden before this person was told that whistler was not a great place to ride. So when they decided to build the bike park they wanted to make sure that their were beginner friendly trails. On top of that the permit issued for the bike park was temporary, so perhaps they have to make some sacrafices the first year in terms of gnarly terrain so that they can be issued a more permanent permit. The last thing they want is to have someone seriously injured during the temporary permit time, as that initial investment will be worthless.

Compared to what we have in our area w/ lift access (read - nothing), that's freakin' Taj Mahal. Nothing else will be Whistler. Ever. Whistler-ish, perhaps, but not full-on. Be glad you've got yet another lift option in your area.
If anything, this will work to the advantage of Whistler riders in that it will divert some of the other riders away - thus, less crowding up there. Also, you won't have to bitch about the slow nOObs that block you on a-line.

I could keep going, but sleep I must.

We have the opposite here in the Hull area of QC: most trails at Camp Fortune are too hard for beginners and there are often a lot of injuries. You can't please everyone. Many young people in the Vancouver area have no idea how good they have it and it is only getting better.

So right on with the last comment Mr. Bloomer!!

I'd like to see some gnarl myself…

I chatted with digger one day and he mentioned the possibllities for extremly steep and gnarly stuff is almost endless up there. the problem is that black mountian is so steep compared to whistler (double the grade) that it ends up being a hell of alot of work to put easier trails in. you need to have some easier ways down the mountain before you start building advanced stuff

^^ well that sounds promising…

Well, steeps get boring (gotta have variety), so heres to hoping that they put in some cooler stuff at SOME point.

Mr. Bloomer, why would you even want to ride that? The skill level all of that stuff takes is basically like riding on a bike path. It doesn't need to be Whistler (in fact, I think Whistler's trails are too wide/groomed anyways), but it shouldn't be a giagantic waste of money for fear of a lawsuit.

Most people don't care whether a trail takes 'skill level' or not. If its fun its fun.

If you find it too easy your not going fast enough

if they want my moola I'll need to see some goods…

Mr. Park,

I have not really ever read your posts in the past so I am not sure where you are coming from or your experiences with trail building but I just have to say something.

From the looks of the type of trail building techniques they are using on Cypress they have the intent of having the trails last a LONG TIME WITH LITTLE TO NO MAINTENANCE NEEDED (this is a good thing from a builders perspective).

I don't know if you build on trails or have done much maintenance on trails, but if you have you will know that they are building those trails to last. Build it once and build it good.

It seems they are following logic when the first trails built are the easy lines down the hill. Logically you need to accommodate the beginner riders first and then progressively build more difficult trails as time permits.

It is amazing the comments that come from people when they only see a few pictures or a tidbit of info on the net.

Wait for the hill to open, buy a day pass, go riding and then comment. Until then people should really try to keep it positive as the Mtn is a work in progress (infancy).