RMS – 2

Todays forecast….shower, rain, chance of thundershowers, with more showers after that.  Reeeeaaaaalllyyyyyy…….  Guess we should just HTFU and go climb some mountains on our bikes.

One thing I’ll say about Fernie, they sure like their climbs hard.  This is only a small climb, and it was tough.  The excessive rainfall is making it much harder than usual, I’m guessing.  It was a lot like pedaling in baby food to get up here.  Easy descents though.  Must be a lot of old school XC riders around here.

Ahhhh…there’s that rain.  You can see how ludicrous this is by our expressions (well, maybe not Susan.  She seems…somewhat nonplussed by the event).

Except that now the sun has decided to come out.  Too bad we were blown at this point.  On the advice of some locals, we went up to a trail called Hyperventilation.  which was actually quite nice.  Unfortunately the approaches were a bit reminiscent of the trenches of Ypres.  I think at one point I was getting my back wheel to spin 6 times to every one time my front one went around.  Ground up greasy gopher guts, for sure. You can taste the pain in Susan’s expression here, and this is still on the lower reaches.

No dude, you’re supposed to RIDE it!  Go back and do it again….

What do you mean, this isn’t the top?  

Doug lets his opinion be known through actions, not words.

It’s an awesome viewpoint, even if it’s not the top.  Actually, it’s a pretty cool climb for all it’s difficulty.  I think if we’d known to skip the lower sections and approach on the road we’d have enjoyed it a lot more though.  That’s what those little tiny folks on the right side of this next shot did, and they seemed to be having a great time.

Some great colour up here towards the top.  At least the rain is washing everything clean….

Yeah, that’s the top.  We’re not as hurtin’ as Chris’ expression would leave you to believe. 

Although, once again…sort of a lame descent for that much effort.  For a 1700’ climb, I want more!  Maybe tomorrow.  We’ll see if the weather will open up for us to try the notorious Slunt line.

RMS – 1

Just when things are looking a bit slow out there, the phone rings.  It seems that Sacred Rides, the venerable outfit based in Fernie, had gone and double booked a couple of tours which left them a bit short on guides.  No problem, I can help. 

Even though I haven’t ridden any of the trails up there, or even been to Fernie in 10 years, or worked for this company before.  Oh, and it’s also the wettest June in recorded history with flash flooding all around.  With all the mayhem that occurred and the high percentage of Aussies on the trip, I was going to call this one HTFU (not exactly safe for work, that link, but it’s still funny).  In my mind, I think it always will be…

After dealing with lost bikes, mixed up rooms, rental bike confusion and the like, we finally got to riding around midday.

This is Richard.  He’s reasonably hard, actually.  He just needs to pull his pants up.

Just say no to crack, kids.

As you can tell, it’s a bit wet out there.  It’s just a bit of extra incentive to try to stay on the wood.  The swampland around can swallow you whole.

Well, you can tell from the early impressions who the aggressive riders are.  Doug…

..and Richard.

This turtle is hard enough already.

Day one is a pretty mellow affair.  Lets see how the crew fares tomorrow, eh?

Daddy Day – 2012

LOTS of pics and stuff to get through today.  Father’s Day around here means we ditch the kids for the most part, and shred some big vert in the South Okanagan.  We did manage to freak out mom here, by treeing her and her two cubs.

Quite a few dads came out for this one.  It’s always fun to open a beer, say “Here ya go Dad”, and see how many hands reach for it.  Oh, and our pal Chris from Merritt came along too.  He’s not a dad…yet…  That’s him on the left, and Jason is on the right riding one of my bikes. 

He looks pretty good on that rig.

Halfway down, and much hilarity has ensued.  We wrecked a chainsaw (watch for an upcoming vid with a chainsaw in manual mode), I had a wicked wreck, and conditions really could NOT be better.

I want you to note that strange material hanging in the air behind the riders.  Yes, in spite of the wettest June ever recorded, and overnight rain, there is dust on the trail.

Gotta love the desert in the springtime.

Oh, almost forgot…  Darcy finally brought Jordan up, and as he’s not a little kid anymore we thought we’d try him out on Cawston Creek.  He had a couple of small crashes, but overall he killed it.

Beer break with Dad…s.

Darcy and Jordan.  Probably the raddest Father/Son day ever.

Yeah dude.  I’d be smiling too.

Foote of course never stops smiling.  Just about the most stoked guy I’ve ever met.

A couple of heavily edited shots on the hoodoos.  Just playing with some camera settings.  I’ve taken so many pics here, I’m almost (but not quite) bored with it.

OK, that was just the warmup.  Time for round 2.  DING!

As is the usual when shredding with the crew, the pace has picked up as some riders dropped out for TKO.  Therefore I got relatively few shots.  We smashed off the first half of the trail, with no breaks until the big log ride.

Even at that, I barely had time to run back to get these few shots.

Hang it out, buddy! You’ll make it!

Halfway down, time to reset the brain.  The second half is way steep, so you gotta take it a lot less aggro than the 1st half.  Plus, it’s a nice view.

Not that it looks very steep here, but the colours are sure nice.

Whoa!  Who’s that handsome devil?

This next shot is special.  Not so much because it’s of me, or that Jason took it, but because it’s shot #10 000!  Yes that’s right.  There is now over 10k images on this site.  That should keep ya busy for a while.

OW!

Yeah, wettest spring ever.  I hear it stays pretty cloudy when it rains in Vancouver.  Here…not so much.

And another lame pic of scenery on the drive home.