Cascade Environmental is a company that has been hired by the City of Kelowna to help formulate the trails strategy for the region. In my capacity with the MTBco (the new central Okanagan bike association), I took them out for a little familiarization ride today.
We just had time for a single lap up on Gillard, but that’s good enough for one day. Still a small amount of snow up top, but it’s no big deal. Plus, I got to ride a trail I’ve never seen before. This would be “Ghost Rider”.
Here’s a fun thing to do with a New Year’s Day hangover. Go ride in the snow.
Now, lots of people who’ve never experienced this think that riding in the snow is really hard. Actually, in lots of ways it’s easier than normal. The trails fill in and get smoother, it doesn’t matter so much where your tires go, and if you do fall down it doesn’t hurt so much.
We had a really solid turnout for this one. At least 20 riders made it out for this session on Knox Mtn. I was a little late courtesy of a dead battery, but still managed to get there in time to run the shuttle for everyone. Thanks to the guy who drove the van for a lap so I could get a run in. Oh, and Barb too (I told you she’s pregnant, right? Well, she’s pregnant. I’m pretty sure it’s mine….).
Ho wabout that, an actual riding shot. All these pics are courtesy of Rich’s cell phone. I had some kind of wierd data transfer failure and lost all the pics I took. Honestly, they weren’t all that great anyway. These are better. This next one is the boys checking out the line off the top for first tracks. It was a little freaky starting out on something that tech, but once you dove in it was easy. Rob had some good times dodging trees down lower, but it was all good.
Summer sure seems a long way off from here, but really, it’s only a couple of months until we’re ripping the dirt again.
We went back to ride the results of our build and fix party today. I think we’re going to have many days like this in the future. Between fire damage and beetle kill, scenes like this are going to be all too common…
I got to ride yet another trail I didn’t know about today. RubHer Down is a quick hit lower down in Gillard that has a bunch of rad and techy airs.
Jules was sending it pretty hard in here, even though the ground was a bit slow today. I’ll only mention the “case” here in passing….
With a bunch of frost on Boss Hog, we stuck to Wobbly Pops. It’s such a nice looking trail, and it’s always fun to charge the easier stuff. Less consequences, eh?
We also had a lap on Kerplop, which as mentioned in a previous post was extrememly hard hit. It was surprisingly rideable considering the level of damage that was incurred. There’s definitely some hard hit areas, and lots of structures are gone, but some of the technical rocky steep sections are now even more fun, as they’ve gotten harder. I thought I was on the Shore at times. Sorry, no pics of that for you. Too busy riding to take the camera out. Instead enjoy these classic Kelowna shots.
That was likely the last bike ride of the year up here. MAYBE one more. I’ll let you know….