06/24/07-post canyon

We rode post yesterday and had an awesome time. weather was crappy as usual until cascade locks. after cascade locks, the mountain biking gods once again opened up the sky and gave us sun! Rosser, Dirk and I rode up in the mormon mover with the new battery and she did awesome as usual! We met up with Jon and his buddy Reese. Reese hasn't been on a bike much lately, so he was just hanging back and watching. We started out on 2 chair while dirk experimented with his new remote flash. From the little I know Dirk, he has probably been studying how to use this flash for a long time because he sure seemed to know what he was doing. Jon also got a pretty sweet shot of Dirk in this one. Dirk is starting to hit some pretty big jumps and is progressing pretty fast!

Jon was his usual stylish self. Saw him hit the "new" left line on the chorus kicker section of trail.

After this jump, he landed in a manual and manualed all the way down the landing and into the first roller. We stayed here for a while and sessioned while we waited for terry and casey to show up. just after this picture was taken zip felt the urge to play speed bump and was right in the middle of the landing of the second jump/take off of the third jump and i had the bike slide to face manual.

I shook off the dust and headed down for a shuttle back up with terry and casey. Casey was full of style and was hitting all of the "new" left line on chorus. he's made some pretty good progress lately and is riding at a pretty high level right now!

Boy, he sure doesn't look like he would jump out in the trail right in front of somebody??? The new mint chocolate chip green 888RC2X was working awesome! Had a bit of trouble with the headset coming loose, but just kept on tightening it down until it finally stopped. I think i'll have to change back to the old style headset, the basic pig headset isn't going to cut the mustard!

Next ride should be sunday the 1st of July with Hack, can't wait!

Whister Trip #1 2007 June 11-13

We left from John's place of work at about midnight, the van was packed with gear and bikes and we headed north to the holy land of mountain biking...whistler.

After about seven hours of driving, we arrived in Whistler Village, got settled into our room and headed to the lifts. Weather was crazy coming through Squamish, but it was decent for the moment in whistler. after two runs, the weather turned crappy. All this didn't really matter because my bike was pretty screwed up. The front fork was not working well, it was bottoming out with just slight force applied to it. Bottom line is DO NOT BUY A ROCK SHOX FORK!

Of course this picture was taken after the weather turned nice at the end of the day. One lift ticket....four runs...it was still worth it.

The weather cooperated with us the entire night and into the next day. Weather was dry all Tuesday and it was even hot. We rode Dirt Merchant, A-Line, Joyride, Rock City and Schleyer. I hit a bunch of stunts that I had never hit before. Finally conquered the A-Line rock drop, the rocky roll downs and schleyer and the steep roll down on Rock City. It is always weird to ride all the rocks and roots in Whistler when you are used to riding all the smooth ground here in Oregon. Tuesday was one of the best days ever in Whistler. Finished the day with who knows how many runs and drops...even hit the drop off the road gap to the box jump! Crappy thing was I got my only flat tire of the whole trip on the last run of the night. The sweeper found me on the side of the trail trying to fix my tire and pump. Got it fixed and back to the village for drinking beer with the guys.

This day ended with me laying down because i didn't feel well....I wonder why. Woke up the next mornind and headed to the north...CBC on Mount Seymour.

Mount Seymour is cool because it is one of the rides that you can shuttle on the north shore of vancouver.

It is very technical rocky and old style...flat landing, skinny ladder bridges and wet everywhere.

This was us sitting down for a bit of pizza at the Old Buck shopping mall in North Vancouver after riding.

All this was on Thursday, just before we headed home. Wednesday we rode out at the Woodlot in Maple Ridge with our local resident/tour guide Mike. He was awesome, showed us the way out to the trails, showed us all the cool lines and how to hit most stunts. He also hooked us up with a place to stay since most hotels in North Vancouver were booked up because of cruise ship season. Damn those tourists!

Trip was a blast and was pretty affordable. I think I had less than four hundred dollars into the entire trip and it ended with an awesome sunset! I can't wait to get back up later this season!

06/02/07-falls city shuttle day

this shuttle day seemed to be quite a bit more organized than last years shuttle day. bigger trucks made for much better shuttling than riding in the back of dad's bike killing trailer. it seemed the price was up from last year, i thought last year was 25, this year 35??? maybe i'm wrong.

weather was beautiful, not a cloud to be seen! trails were starting to have the post canyon ball bearings. not sure what causes those, but they suck. no big crashes from anybody, i think my crash on the first dual slalom jump was the only crash i saw all day. of course, robfoolio hit no jumps but sure talked a lot.

totem is still working awesome! shifting sucked on my bike. whistler in 8 days!

it's going to be an awesome summer!