peat bog

Who Could Imagine…..

Posted on by Smoke

….that they would Freak Out?

In Penticton? (Pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen…..)

Huge day.

Absolutely epic.

Ladies and Gentlemen, present you with 3 runs of the Peat Bog.

Go go Gadget Legs.

Stouph, expressing his sensitivity through fashion.

Paul, gettin rad.

Jedi on Emergency Exit.

Martin on the double teeter.

More homoerotic type shenanigans.

Way-y-y-y up there.

Stouph, seconds before a quadruple flat fest.

Dropping!

Now for the Knuckleduster SkyBridge Gap. Finally, a half decent shot of yours truly.

Gnarly Bird gapping my girlfriend.

Yep, they’re real. Both of them (pssst! Down here!)

For the last run, a full top to bottom down Ellis Canyon.

Right to the beach.

..and another shitty day in Paradise comes to a close.


5 Japanese Guys in a Van

Posted on by Smoke

I’m ba-a-a-a-ck!

Say hello to Shin, Noz, and Takeshi (left to right). You’ll also get to know Koji and Toga as we go.

This crew comes to you courtesy of longtime Cove mountain bike legend Paul Chetwynd, who runs Freeride Adventures Japan. I’ll be doing an interview with Paul later in the season so that those of you who weren’t around in the early days can find out a bit about your Canadian Mountain Bike heritage.

Hi Paul. Whatcha doin?

A typical scenic rest stop.

Ahhh, jet lag.

Finally, we’re riding. An easy one, the Rusty Muffler to start. It turns out these guys are not only pretty good, but totally psyched to improve.

OK, here’s a classic on the side of the trail.

Is the name a coincidence or what?

Happy boys.

Surfing the clay.

The end of the trail ends up in the lake. The lake is up a bit from last time. The crew was BLOWN AWAY by the experience. Then again, so am I.

So…..Round 2 on the day was the Peat Bog and Code Four. Lets see if the boys can jump.

That’s Noz, who is the editor of a major Japanese bike magazine. Strong BMX background. No worries on the Canuck singletrack.

Here’s Shin doing his first huck.

…and Koji. Total wildman, that Koji. He has a new see through bike. Crazy Japanese and their technology.

Then it rained a bit. Well, 65mm to be exact. And tons of lightning. Here we are hiding out from it.

So there you are. The first day of the trip. Penticton is such a special place.

Especially when Elvis is everywhere…

Interior Freeride

Posted on by Smoke

OK,so I’ve been ignoring my updates for a while.

After the Cypress ride we got cleaned up, loaded our gear, picked up the Germans from the airport, and went to Penticton.

Some of these shots are a little sad because currently the area is on fire and some of these trails may disappear.

That’s still in the future at this point.

Here’s what we woke up to in Summerland.

Everyone was a little worn out by all the travel, so we had a bit of a slow start. The sun was well up by the time we hit Penticton.

When we were getting ready, we met a couple of young punks from Nelson getting dropped in the woods by their Mom. Feeling that I owe a debt to anyone from the Kootenays just for being from there, I offered to bring them the good way through.

Kevin and Geoff showed early that the Kootenay kids get the job done.

They made up for riding good by proceeding to blow every tube we had. Well, maybe I got a couple too.

Back to more stellar Peat Bog trail.

The thing about the Okanagan rides is the sheer size. Here we are approaching the end of the third hour of the FIRST run of the day.

If the trail seems easy, remember that you keep getting distracted by all the killer scenery.

On our second lap we did a little exploring and found this cool little sand drop. You buried your wheels up to the axles on impact, but it was prett cool.

It’s the end of the day which always makes it for me.

Oh….so THAT’S why they call me “meat.”

Dinner. Ever notice the correlation of off center pictures and empty beer bottles on the table?

…and finally, this is how you look at the end of a day with the Bush Pilot. So tired even Harry Potter can’t keep your eyes open.

Next update I will have some pics of the Arawana trails plus some news about whether they have survived the fires.