harper mtn

WSFE – Day 10

Posted on by Smoke

Well here we are, on the last ful day of the tour.

You’d think by now Wade would have figured out how to put up a tent.

Of course, you’d also think he’d know how to ride a log, too.

Harper Mtn., still my favourite riding spot of all time. So much flow and variety here, anyone is going to have a great day on this stuff.

While everyone was riding great, today was really the Barb Haley show. I think that the rest of the crew might have bee a little tired on their TENTH DAY.

Well, and George had gone home too. He kind of wrecked his back at SilverStar. That put the pressure on Niclas to step up his game. Which he did in fine fashion.

For that matter, Niclas really came out of his shell in the last couple of days of the trip and had us all laughing.

Nicole, tired though she might have been after ten days, also felt the Harper vibe and continued to beat every hit into submission.

Tihs would be Andreas, our random Austrian. We ran into Andreas at the bottom of the hill and set up some shuttles with him. He was pretty stoked to be riding with our crew (cycling fame is a much bigger deal in Europe). Maybe a little TOO stoked (cue the foreshadow music).

More of the Barb Haley show…

..and the Wade show.

Oh, our old pal Nelly from Williams Lake also made a guest appearance. So even without Danika (she had to go home yesterday) there were still lots of girlies rocking the big moves in our crew.

In fact, on this particular set, there were MORE girls than boys hitting it up.

Now this may have led to some other events down further. I’m not sure…

Of course, it could have been the Williams Lake girls’ tradition of “flashing” just before the boys hit the lip of the jump…

I’m really not sure.

At any rate, Andreas bit off a bit more than he could chew on one of the gaps and ended up casing a lip, which led to this:

So for the first time ALL tour the 1st Aid Kit came out. Typical that it’s for someone not actually on tour. We cleaned him up and bandaged him as best as possible, and sent him to the hospital.

Ten stitches. Not a bad souvenier, even if he says that he never noticed the “flash.”

Band of Bros – Redux Day 3

Posted on by Smoke

For sale: One (1) Sleeping Bag — Slightly Used

Ummmm, I guess you kind of had to be there. At any rate, Steve departed thet trip early this morning, and left us that little memento of his stay. I guess he got all he wanted outta the trip.

Too bad for him, as we went up to Kamloops today to charge Harper.

I guess he didn’t know about the chairlift (too bad it doesn’t run in the summer).

On to the goods. We dabbled with a couple of dumb skinnies to shake last nights hangover.

Some were dabbling more tha others….

After the first lap, we ran into Bev and Dave. They are Harper Mtn OG’s, as Dave is one of the infamous Falcon brothers that carved the original lines on Harper.

Round 2 was more airtime oriented.

The bros seemed to really like this place. No wonder, Harper is the best.

Well, except for the occasional off rhythm gapper.

Feel his pain….

Jason was getting pretty quick at rebuilding his forks between runs.

Meanwhile, Grog hunt fish for lunch.

Too bad Grog missed. So did this guy. Oops…..

Oh well, shit happens, which is how this next jump got the name “Hurtin’ Albertan.”

I guess that the Albertan in question spent a couple nights in the hospital after hitting this one wrong.

Hey, that X is almost all the way ’round now…..

Lap four and the light is failing.

All the boys got into this one. Hit of the tour, for sure.

There you go, fully X’d up.

We hit the road after an extended dinner break at Earls (cute chicks, but slow service). Looks like tomorrow might be a bit damp for the last day.

Corn Stars – Day 2

Posted on by Smoke

How’s this for a surprise on your bike tour? Today we went up to Kamloops to help out with the KBRA trail day on Harper Mtn. A full day of building with a barbeque dinner and campout was in order.

We got there late morning and headed up to the Bridge to Nowhere to fix up some old woodwork that was getting wort of beat.

Most of the big projects were taken, but we recycled some old stuf into an improved a-frame over a stump.

It was quite the all ages gig, and I was surprised to see so many faces I didn’t know and almost none that I did.

Lots of quality work got done.

This place is so popular, the stunts were getting hit efore they were even finished (it was OK, we told them to hit it).

Proud builders watching the first rider over their work.

With a short time left before the end of the day, we built one more jump. It’s got a total crap landing, but hey…youcan take the guy outta the Shore, but you can’t—you know what I mean.

Time to hit the new and improved.

The fun part of this for me is that Barb and I built a lot of the original lines way back in ’99. They’ve been greatly improved since then, but we still feel sort of like parents on this stuff.

Here’s the spiral ramp. It was getting ready to collapse, so it got a full overhaul.

Good lookin’ out with the chainsaw. I think this was part of the KBC crew working on this one.

The flowers are going off at this time of year. I’ve never ridden here when it’s blooming.

..and blooming it was.

A slight damper was put on the BBQ as a light rain started to fall.

I have a hard time calling 5 minutes of mist “rain,” but it was enough to send lots of people home for the night. We kept warm by burning some old stunts.

By the end of the night the Kamloops locals were in the minority, with a couple of Swiss kids, a pair of ‘Mericans, and some joker from Westbank outnumbering the 3 hardy Kamloopsians that stayed put.