Winter in KL

New wheels for the Enduro

Some assembly required.

Porcupine Ridge

Porcupine Ridge, a.k.a. Satan's Village, is a Mountain Bike trail system near Bracebridge Ontario maintained by volunteers and by Ecclestone Cycle. It has 15 trails, most of which are quite challenging but a lot of fun. Lots of rock riding, lung-buster climbs, and short steep descents. Very well maintained. The day Chris and I were there, a guy was busy clearing the trails with a leaf blower!

Vancouver

Burrard Inlet

Black Tusk Hike

The Black Tusk is an ancient volcanic plug which has resisted weathering and stands as a lone sentinel in Garibaldi Provincial Park.

Hike: 24km round trip, 1645m elevation diff, 6.5 hours.

The flat topped mountain in the center is quite interesting. Geologists theorize that it formed when molten lava  erupted from the earth under a glacier and melted a hole through it in a steamy battle.

First view of the Tusk close up.

View to the North from near the top.

Kananaskis Country

A range near the Elbow River

Nahahi Ridge

Powderface Ridge

Keremeos

Keremeos is the heart of fruit land for the Okanagan Valley. A forest fire burned steadily in the hills above the town.

Panorama

Panorama is a small bike park near Invermere, B.C. The place is not really suited to DH bikes as there are only a couple of runs with jumps and drops. The rest are twisty and turny in the woods and are more suited to AM or FR bikes or anything that can be pedaled.

Favorite runs:

• Stiffy (blue)
• Bazooka Joe (blue)
• Hell's Bells Jump Trail (black) (accessed via Bender which is a double black diamond but all features can be rolled or bypassed)

Silver Star near Vernon

Today was spent at Silver Star, a bike park up in the mountains above Vernon B.C.
Recommended runs:

• World Cup DH (awesome!!!!)
• Flow (where the h*** does that name come from? Well it's fun anyways, despite the lack of flow.)
• Rock Star
• Shazzam
• Superstar

Stay away:

• LTG (boring, rough)

Sun Peaks

Sun Peaks is a quaint little DH bike park just minutes north of Kamloops BC. We sampled the blue runs for starters, but the best runs are the black diamonds on the left and right sides of the mountain.

Recommended runs:

• Route 66 (blue) 
• Mach (blue) 
• Steam Shovel (black diamond) 
• Arm Pump (black diamond) 
• Kaboom (black diamond, very steep in sections, leads to Keener which is very steep in some sections and narrow) 

Avoid:

• Lower Root Dog (the name says it all) 
• Sugar (actually lower Sugar is ok, but upper requires hill climbing) 
• Flower Power (Would be ok on XC or FR bike. Too much uphill for DH bike)

Mission Hill

Cranking It Up

This is the lower section of Crank-It-Up. A professional photographer stakes this location, takes a pic of everyone, and sells the photos from his shop.

MTB Overpass

There are so many MTB trails near Squamish that the builders create overpasses. For real! The lower is called Half Nelson and the upper is called AM.

Top of the World

Black Tusk viewed from top of Whistler

Riverside and Farside trails

Riverside and Farside MTB trails south of Whistler. Trailhead is across the highway from Function Junction.