kamloops

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.

ChocolateFoot – Day 2

Posted on by Smoke

Since we didn’t really get into Kamloops until late, I give you this shot of the campfire at Harper. Sweet accommodations again, right n the middle of hte trail. In fact, our breakfast was interrupted by several riders cruising through our kitchen.

It was going to be a hot and dusty one, as evidenced by the clouds of it on the warm up descent.

Nothing like Harper to get your jumping legs back.

Here’s Wa all mystical and backlit, like the woodsy little nymph that he is.

Canopy gap….

Obviously a shit day…..

Everyone loves this one, especially since Specialized made it famous. We so very nearly had a full house on it, but Phil just couldn’t get his head around it (so close … so very, very close). I guess he’ll just have to come back for more….

It’s just like being flushed down the toilet, what could be easier?

Al continued politely destroy every move in sight.

That is, when Tom hadn’t already killed it first.

Two and a half laps of Harper, we went into town for some seriously gay lattes (“Would sir like it with a lemon twist?”). I guess you had to be there. Anyway, we still had plenty of daylight left for a couple of Rose Hill runs. Once again, it was shit.

I guess because it’s so similar to England no one had any real problems with Rose.

Well, there was a little lock up on this part, but it was in part due to some sick locals hitting this HUGE stepup from ROAM that had the intimidation factor up a little. I don’t have any stills of that one, but I’ll get some vid of it up in a while.

Phil, you’d better stay back there and keep an eye on the girl.

Yeah, yeah, we get it. Bluebird and warm.

Huge day, I hope those guys get tired soon……