Month: June 2009

Dynomite – Day 5

Posted on by Smoke

Did yesterday really happen?  Yes, it did.  Now get up and do it again.

That’s right….ride, eat, sleep, repeat.  Now we’re off to Gillard for some more.

As an added bonus, we checked out French Johnny’s latest work.  The boys have been out in force resurrecting old trails that have been out of action since before the big fire of 2003.

There’s also all the usual fave’s, like this one on Rub-Her-Down.

Oh, and the Boss Hog wall ride.

Lush…

We even managed a Kerplop, and the sun made an appearance or two.

I think the crew may be getting their fill.  We only managed a few runs today, and then we were beat.

Just as well, as we had a premiere of the latest Radical Films release, Revolve, to go check out.

There were a few hundred in attendance, and we made the keeners do pushups for prizes.

Not a bad turnout, considering it was the first day of Silverstar being open.

Later we went out for beers with Spuds.

He’s with stupid….

Dynomite – Day 4

Posted on by Smoke

Finally, a little break in the weather.  Should be ideal conditions for Kobau.

There was even a bit of fresh snow in the high country, but still, all that rain this week was still not enough to really settle the dust.  I don’t care what various government officials are trying not to say….we’re in a drought here.

It was still awesome conditions for riding.

John makes this look huge, eh?  He’s only 3 feet tall though.

This is the part of the day that makes everyone realize just how big these hills are.

Hi Stash!  the camera just loves you, did you know that?  i always get the raddest pics of this girl.  With Gary on babysitting detail, Stash was able to get another lap in with us today.

Oh, there she is again.

Joe on the same line. 

Many thousands of feet of dust and sagebrush later, we’re still descending.

Maybe it’s not a full bluebird day, but we’re still having a great time.  Brant, Rob, and Gabe tagged along today to fill out the group.  Lots of Kobau virgins along for the rip this time.

OK, it’s time for the Rogues’ Gallery…

Rob

John

Stash

Joe and Jim.

Jim.

..and Gabe.

Of course, that was only round one.  Round two is TKO, and it was in awesome shape again.

You never get many pics on TKO.  You’re just too busy hanging on to the bars on that trail.   It was definitely getting bonier than the last time we were here.  The lower half was pretty sketchy in places. We found out later that an Oliver local crashed at the worst spot on the trail just before sunset, and had to get Search and Rescue out to keep him company overnight so he could get heli’ed out in the morning.  This is big mountain riding, you have to respect this one.

Besides, you don’t want to miss out on the wine tasting at the bottom.  We went to Hester Creek this time.

We actually managed to finish up early enough (these are the longest days of the year after all) that we could go for a swim in Okanagan Lake, and have a couple games of bottles.  It’s like horseshoes, but it involves beer bottles instead.  Don’t worry, the rules make it impossible to break one.

He also shamrocks walks on the beach, sunsets, and sleeping in vans.

Dynomite – Day 3

Posted on by Smoke

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.