Bush Pilot Biking

If I ever manage to strike it rich (highly unlikely given my chosen field…), this is one car I’d be pretty interested in having.  Coincidentally, it happens to be owned by my pal Don, who struck it rich via a Dairy Queen franchise.  Don is also a kickass mountain bike racer from the 90’s that kept Barb company at the World Masters a few years back.

But enough reminiscing.  Lets bust out some airs on the Bog….

Our warmup lap was all 3700 vertical feet of Carmi, from Code 4 right to the lake.

That’s enough to wake up anyone.

Unfortunately for Joe, it was also enough to cause a good strain of his Achilles on this aborted DJ.   You can see him about to bail out here.  Killer shot though.

He’s pretty tough, he kept riding all day anyway.  Round two was a full height Beer Run.  Haven’t been doing the upper section that often, but Gabe went out and cleared the top for us last week so we called him up to show us around.

Can’t believe that guy is going to be a dad too.  They’ll let just about anyone into that gig.

The other brothers had to step up and do some road gaps now that Joe is taking it easy.

Fruity portrait shots in Ivy League…

Whoa…who’s that handsome devil?

We also got a bonus lap on Drops-A-Lot.  No pics, as we were BANGIN’ on that lap.  Seriously, bumper to bumper action all the way down.  So ggod that we had to chill on the beach with some beers until…

..the sun set. 

Can it get any better?  Well, there’s always tomorrow.

Filed under: Triplog By: Smoke

Tags: arawana, Beer, code 4, Drops A Lot, naramata, peat bog, penticton

OK, enough dilly dallying around (thanks to my Mom for the turn of phrase there).  Lets get this party started.  As if the first day wasn’t rad enough, now we’re on the home trails at Powers Creek.

I promised the boys that if they couldn’t get their fill of vertical today, then it just can’t be done.

As it was, we only got 4 runs in before we were totally cooked.

Good runs though.  Hard to go wrong when you get over 8 grand at Powers.  We scored a full house on Crazy Train by the end of it all too.

That was all three bro’s hitting it up there.  We also did Justin’s new line below there, and it was my first time on that particular one.  With the bit of rain through the day, we all had some interesting …. situations.  I saw Jim bum sliding one tranny, and Joe totally missed another one off to the side.

It wasn’t until we got out to 2.5 that things got really rad.  The rain picked up a bit more then.

As Joe was just killin’ it, he got sort of confident as we went.

Really confident…..until he:

What doesn’t kill you, gives you a muddy face and makes you want to drink beer.

More tomorrow….

Filed under: Triplog By: Smoke

Tags: builders only, Dynomite, powers creek, shenanigans, West Kelowna, westbank

What happened?  Good way to start a trip, now jump in the lake and sober up.  Who knew that this was gong to be the warmest water we’d see all week?

Here’s the guys that caused all the trouble.  Some Legends in there if you know your North Shore history.

It would appear that the boys brought some Pennsylvania weather with them.  It was wet and cool today.  Luckily, it’s been like that all spring back east, so they were fired up and ready to hit Big Ed.

OK, so that’s how it’s gonna be.  To think that I was a bit worried about starting out on one of the harder trails in the Okanagan.  These guys lapped it up like it was cream.

Actually, it was pretty good.  Will this do for day one, John?

We took some time to session a few of the smaller booters to get into the flow. Jim was charging everything pretty hard, a theme that was to be repeated throughout the week.

John also had a theme.  He keeps nailing great shots, but if you were there…..yikes.  This wasn’t just a cased landing; he actually hit the lip with his FRONT wheel.

Joe just quietly rode it all.

John is a much better skinny rider than a hucker.  although for a technician, his bike maintenance skills are a bit…curious.

Just ignore the dab and pretend he rode it.

We were in the presence of one of the Whistler legends for today too.  Binty rode this lap with us, but for some strange reason I have no pics of him.  If you think you’re a good XC rider, head on out to Binty’s Highline in Whistler and see how you feel.   That guy has been riding Whistler on a little bike for something like 25 years.

He had no reservations about this rock line, and we got a full house on it.  That’s Jim in the pic.

Another angle with John, and we’re out for lap one.

We had plenty of time to kill for day one, so I thought we’d go over to McDougall for an All Mountain run.

Yeah, it’s a bit pedally, but when you get views like these coupled with a solid 45 minute downhill, what’s to complain about?

Filed under: Triplog By: Smoke

Tags: Big Ed, Dynomite, McDougall Rim, Vernon

What else are you going to call a tour with three brothers whose initials are “JJ”?

Jim, Joe, and John.  AKA Slug, Boyd, and Newman.  I didn’t ask, so I can’t tell you.  Picked them up in afternoon and went straight up to Oop’s place in Vernon for something this crew of OG North Shore types calls “Suffer Fest”.  It’s horrible.  I made the boys build their own bikes.

Meanwhile, the rest of us suffered through this little scene on the deck.

The rest of the guys were out wake surfing when we arrived, so they missed out on…..absolutely nothing.

We had already stopped for some food, so as the sun set we really suffered when the food came out.

Oh yeah, leg of lamb and Kokanee (actually, some damn fine reds were going down).

Great start to a tour and it was awesome to see some faces from the old ‘hood again.

Filed under: Triplog By: Smoke

Tags: Dynomite, Sufferfest, Vernon

…but someone has to take the girls out riding, and it may as well be me.  Right?

Just another ride on Smith Creek.  Daniella missed out on the Girls Got Skills clinic, and hasn’t done an XC ride before, so there you have it.  Oh, and we ran into John out for his first Smith Creek ride too.

The new trail is getting a bit of a rep.  This sums it up…

Filed under: Triplog By: Smoke

Tags: Smith Creek, West Kelowna, XC