nortonwhis profile

Holy shit that there is some serious carnage in that set.

Sorry the Clownshoes drop.

Nice write up Tim. You got me by 1 spot in the 80, but lots of time. That clownshoes section must have been fucking terrifying for you.

I was also hoping to head out to MSA but left it all too late. Maybe in the next 10 years Whistler might get one.

AJ do you have anymore photos from there? I was probably only a couple of riders after Tim i think, plate 8054

Interesting article.  10psi is a huge increase!

I just switched to a firm spring in a boxxer from a medium. Definitely found the front end harder to control/weight in flow trails like blueberry bathtub, but felt much more composed on rough stuff. Wish i had an air spring so i could fine tune a little more.

Great photos!

I tend to do most of the road trips in my vehicle cos i have a truck and most buddies don't. Ill never chase someone for gas, and rarely raise the issue on the road. If someone wants to give me money ill take it. Never dream of asking for 'maintenance' costs unless someone puked in the back, or deliberately damaged something being a dick. 

Imagine being 55 and fighting over 20 bucks.

We were there this year already for 3 days of riding. What attracted me was the amount of vert you could easily pedal in a day for that time of the year. We would roll out of our camp site at 11-12 with a solid 8 hours of daylight to go. Everything was snow free around the area this year by early may.

Did Lawler the first day from the highway - found the dirt to be just amazing, best dirt of the trip for me. Moon point the second day, which has some crazy treed sections, then crazy meadows with lava rock everywhere. Not as fun for me but still great. Then Alpine from the bridge the 3rd day. All the roads there are such a mellow grade, we managed to pedal 4500m+ elevation over 3 days and not be completely cooked. I don't think i would bother riding these trails twice in a day to get faster, so shuttling seemed kinda pointless to me. We hit Black Rock on the 4th day before driving home. Theres still so much to see here (Eula, Dead Mountain, Larisson, Cloverpatch variation of Alpine) and then lots more around Sisters too.

We ate one night at a sweet BBQ joint cant remember the name though and camped out at Black Canyon Campground. No showers but riverside camp sites. 20 bucks a night, but there are plenty of free ones around too. Brewers was good for beer, but theres so many good options out of grocery store that we just generally drank campfire beers.

Been on Code-R's on my trail bike for the past cpl months. Have been great. Did notice a bit of lever fade one day but nothing outrageous.

Am i the only one who was left a little un-inspired by the powerslave loop? Didnt dislike it, but didnt love the sections after, and didn't think it was insanely good. Im in no hurry to get back there to re-ride.

if you click on the image it stops the scrolling.

I heard they are cutting out all the wood work in Fade to Black and making it another blue flow trail

(just kidding, but could you imagine the uproar!)

Posted by: grambo

Posted by: nortonwhis

Posted by: dmc

The Mystic climb is very well designed with periodic recovery zones interspersed amongst the punchy parts. I just did a LESS loop this morning — 9:30 a.m. start from Creekside and home by lunch — and the 900 m climbing Mystic felt significantly less tiring than the gruelling fire road to DC.

Are you for real? That climb is a fucking grunt. its only saving grace is that its in the trees.

I would definitely try less before attempting lots. if you're biggest day out is around 1k you are gonna struggle with lots. Its a big demanding day.

Yeah I find ITM hurts, lots of steep pitches that max my heart rate out. It's well built but not a cruise for sure. I think the best purpose built climb trail I have ridden is Middle Earth in Pemberton, just a joy to ride and never feel like I'm going to die.

I rode DC yesterday and as is tradition started at 11:30am to maximize suffering in the heat. Trail is running awesome and man it is too damn fun. There are some decent size holes on the lower half though, understandable with the traffic. How hard is the compression on the optional rock roll half way down? Took a look but was solo and decided to pass on it. I hope with the new trail sign that people are throwing the builder cash/beer, I definitely am as it is one of my faves. Went and did Out There after, some fun moves on there and a short climb to get to, was pretty gassed from the sun though so didn't ride it that well, gonna have to ride it again another time.

Great news about Sproatt alpine, will be up again to ride that in the next couple weeks.

Ya i find happy/nimby/middle easier than the sproatt climb even though its slightly more technical. I've always been of the opinion they built ITM too steep, its fine for something like less but for an alpine ascent I think its a challenge especially for a blue trail. Im still very grateful we have such a great alpine network in our backyard, but yeah tuff.

The comprssion isn't too bad, but the next little bump just after will send you flying if you don't power thru it.

Posted by: nickel

That's some bull about that guy. Feel for his kid that he lost. 

Re: the jump under the chair on a-line. It changed a lot last year near end of July or something. It got much longer and taller. Went from being a jump you overshot to a jump you work for. Harder to hurt yourself on unless you are messing up so badly you ride off the side of it.

yeah i found i really had to work for that one.

Does anyone know how we can access RDS/Khyber without a ticket right now? First season without a pass and would like to ride them still. Used to just climb up to creekside gondola but now that road that crosses under the gondola is super busy withe people.

Posted by: dmc

The Mystic climb is very well designed with periodic recovery zones interspersed amongst the punchy parts. I just did a LESS loop this morning — 9:30 a.m. start from Creekside and home by lunch — and the 900 m climbing Mystic felt significantly less tiring than the gruelling fire road to DC.

Are you for real? That climb is a fucking grunt. its only saving grace is that its in the trees.

I would definitely try less before attempting lots. if you're biggest day out is around 1k you are gonna struggle with lots. Its a big demanding day.

Posted by: grambo

Posted by: Henry-Chinaski

Not sure if this has been posted here yet but WORCA is trying to raise money for the upper half of Chipmunk Rebellion. Flowy descent that extends LOTS to the valley floor. Given the hordes of people that ride LOTS, you'd think more than 49 people could find a couple of extra bucks.

https://www.amilia.com/store/en/whistler-off-road-cycling-association/shop/fundraising/622622

I wonder if sign boards with a QR code encouraging people to donate and talking about volunteer efforts would results in more people making spur of the moment donations on the trail from their smartphones? I think SORCA might have that in Squamish on the climb trails? Pretty cool a dude in Hong Kong matched up to $4k on that campaign.

Speaking of LOTS, did anyone do the 9.9km Pot of Gold/Ninja Lakes loop last fall? Trying to figure out how much effort that is going to add to a LOTS/Happy/Rush Hour ride, doesn't look like a ton of vert but it is an undulating 10km... looks like about 42km and 1800m-2000m from Function.

Edit: did the math on Trailforks, looks like +13km and 375m vertical from the top of Into the Mystic since you need to ride out With a Twist a bit to get to Pot of Gold. Feeling like that whole loop would be a massive day for me.

THey hit all their goals on that now.

Grambo ya i think its a pretty big day. I planned to do it but didn't bring enough food or bailed for some reason straight down LOTS. Can't remember it all, maybe had to work or something but it was longer and bigger than I had expected.

Would avoid Leftovers at all costs. Its a leftover skid road, steep, ugly, but i think it was reopened for ATV access for rescues off of LOTS. IW a much better climb but it does meander a bit if you are looking for direct and fast.

I normally ride SCAP from kadenwood, babylon etc. then you could hit highside hihi, back up for ampm then back up for tunnel vision or heavy flow. I would choose heavy flow over TV any day. Its sick.

I feel like I  basically never stand in line at the park. The worst is Womens Night when they all load for their first lap around 4:30 -5. Maybe saturdays but i never ride saturdays anyway.

The people talking bout WBP are on the money. Nothing works like repetition. I also started bike park in my 30's and used to hate jumps. All my friends were riding A-line and i was stoked on bline and ninja and not stoked on casing literally every jump on aline. Eventually through constantly chasing faster people i start to clear aline, then dm, and now its more about working on not overshooting stuff.

A great way to do it, is ride 1 lap jumps, then 1 lap something tech. Lower mountain only. don't bother with garbo. Do it mid week.

I ran them most of the year last year. Loved them on the trail bike. Pinch flat a couple of brand new tires so decided to try them. For me they take out a lot of microvibrations. the bike just floats over tiny bumps without it even reaching the suspension. I'm running DD f/r with cushcore and have smashed them good without fault. Will def be getting one or a set for the dh bike this yeah.

Tbh im super stoked on the new DM. In an age when corporations are continually making things easy for the plebs, to come out with a new Pro Line is just fucking awesome.

Seeing as Nickel hasn't said not to talk about 1199, I walked it in the fall and it is fucking epic! top 1/2 looked like it was just begging for tires, bottom half needs a ton of work. Hopefully get to race on it at some point.