What… a week gone by already? That explains why Stophe is so tie-tie.

We may have needed the rest for today’s adventure into the wild places of the interior of Vancouver Island. I’m not going to even tell you where this is, suffice to say that it’s old growth and magical.

Those of you who watch lots of bike vids will be able to figure it out anyway, but it’s quite a spot. This particular gap is about 40 feet long and close to 20 feet up in the trees. No-one hit it today, but not because they didn’t want to. They just didn’t feel like warming up on something that huge. I think if we’d spent another day there at least three of our crew would have nailed it.

Instead, we opted to warm up on something smaller and get our collective crap together.

So much for the small stuff. Everything else was bigger than that little bridge. This particular move was a suspension bridge to teeter drop. Epic (you’ll h ave to wait for the vid to see it in all her glory).

The crew was in heaven on this trail, especially Tony who declared this to be, “the best trail we’ve ridden in the four years of coming here.”

Of course, endless high skinnies to gap exits aren’t for everyone, but for the Jedi Council it kind of defines mountain biking. You can just make out a transparent, blurry Jedi in this shot if you look closely.

Another angle of another try at this move.

What was really wild about this zone was how the builders put flat gaps off the end of all the logs and bridges. Usually you get a 1:1 stepdown off of skinny stuff, but here it was pretty much 4:1 or flatter.

It was enough to get Phil right bent.

Of course Lairy Nick couldn’t shut up about it.

Tony continued to have the ride of his life.

Even Smilin’ Andy cracked a grin over this stuff.

Not all of the log rides were death defying. This one was just unnaturally long.

Must have been a couple hundred meters of interconnected natural log riding.

Oooooooo….artsy.

Oh….fartsy.

The deep moss was so green and made the forest really quiet. Nice to spend a day in real forest, instead of the usual industrial wasteland of second growth.

Ummmm….make up your own caption.

Killer stepdown and nice afternoon light.

Another great finish to an epic day. That’s the highest point on Vancouver Island in the background. Golden Hinde, elevation 2142m.

Oh yeah, it was also Mongo’s 18th birthday, which he celebrated by pinning a huge skinny line to drop and then downing a muff diver.

So the day ended as it began, with some very tired kids in the back of a van.

Was that enough skinnies for ya, Paul?