July 7th - July 19th, Whistler - 9 riding days

We spent the rest of our holiday pretty much exclusively riding Whistler Mountain and packed 9 days of riding in amongst the 13 days we spent there. We also took the dogs on a couple of short valley rides in the form of Young Lust (a bail out option from Comfortably Numb) and River Runs Through It.

However the mountain riding really caught our attention and that was our focus for the rest of the trip. We spent a lot of time on a few trails in particular but did ride a wide variety of trails.

The trails that really grabbed us were:

B-Line: We started spending time on this because it seemed like a nice fun warm up, but the more often we rode it the more we wanted to ride it. We found it to be really good to improve our (much lacking) cornering skills.

Crank It Up: This was a deliberate choice to spend time on as both Amber and I wanted to get more comfortable with jumps in the middle of a downhill run. This ride is the perfect progression trail for learning to jump and getting comfortable doing it at speed, there was also the added bonus of a bunch of great corners and number of drop options.

Original Sin: by far this was my favorite trail on the mountain! it was hard for us in that there were quite a number of technical section just at our skill level so we were able to push ourselves to do those sections. Later we were able to start working on linking the entire ride at speed and the flow that started to come as a result was just ear to ear smile riding. From Original Sin you continued (generally) into Duffman which was another great trail. There were plenty of other options we did as well, but we spent a lot of time doing this run and improving our speed and style doing so.

It is hard to describe just how much fun Whistler is, particularly if you get to spend a decent amount of time there. Anyone who loves to mountain bike needs to find a way to spend at least a week or two in their life playing in whistler, bring a big bike or rent one locally and the fun you can have is near endless.

We didn't get many photos of Whistler as the riding just doesn't lend itself to carrying a camera or stopping to use it.


A steeper than it looks exit from a switchback on Original Sin. The upper section of this ride really had a downhill race flavor to it with steep but flowing riding across roots, rocks and switchbacks.


This is the steep rock roller that is the last sequence on Original Sin. It was very intimidating to both Amber and I, but once you did it you just wanted to go back and do it again and again. There is a few steep sections of granite before this section and you end with this roll to a tight turn.


Amber did it by taking the outside line, I did it by coming down the face. Both options had their pro's and con's. Amber's method demanded tighter turning at the end of the rock, whereas my my method had an easier turn at the bottom but steeper rock to roll. I imagine that the section would be a totally different endeavor in wet conditions!


It was fun to see the bears everywhere. At first it was a little disconcerting to to come flying around a corner and see a bear wandering by in the meadow, but there really were everywhere you could watch them from very close by if you wanted and were careful.


Another steeper than it looks roller, this one is an optional feature towards the bottom of Duffman that was just a lot of fun for both Amber and I. It had a clean entrance and a clean exit so it was very easy to try and low risk if you somehow messed it up.


This is not Amber or I, but it was just to impressive not to get a photo of. It is an optional super steep and long granite roller part way down Blue Velvet. The line was to roll the granite until you were about 10 feet from the bottom transition and then you popped into the air to land onto the transition. Those that did it made it look easy. To me it looked insane but spectacular.


One of the other great things about Whistler is all the activities in the Village. This is Ryan Leech putting on a trials show as a part of the Norco 2009 product launch. We had seen Ryan in videos like The Collective and Kranked but to see him do this riding in real life was just incredible.


He had just such an easy going personality and was talking to the audience throughout the entire demonstration. Amber even got a signed poster out of the deal.

Our time in Whistler was amazing and it really felt like we progressed incredibly in our riding skills. Taking what we had learned back to Colorado was going to be fun!