powers creek

Manfest! – 3

Posted on by Smoke

Yep, that’s one broken arm alright.  Good thing you’re a dentist.  Imagine if you needed your hands for work…

So, the deluge continues.  Unlike the North Shore, this area is not really built around wet weather.  The wood and rock here is deadly slick, which makes the riding in these pics doubly impressive.

We’re at Gillard this morning.  A few quick laps to see if we can get the stoke flowing today.

The crew seems to be enjoying themselves.  In case you didn’t figure it out, I’m one of the younger guys in this bunch.  There’s a couple of 20-ish year olds, but most of these guys are in the their 40’s or even 50’s.

And they’re sending this stuff blind…in the rain.

Makes ya think, eh whippersnappers?

Dr. No is rad enough in the dry.

In the wet?

Well, not everyone was nailing it.

Check it out, you can even see the raindrops in this one.

Hey cuz.  Those BMX skills never quite go away, do they?

This was one of the best sessions I’ve seen here.  Lots of the crew stepping up on Boss Hog.

I also didn’t even consider this rockface in the rain, but then again I can just come back when it’s dry.  Most of these guys won’t get back here again.

Sick drop.

Slicker wall.  Actually, it was the mucky bit after the wall that was taking guys out.

Traditional passed out in the van shot.

That was it for a lot of the crew.   The weather was just too much.  I have a feeling that the early departures will be regretting their choice, though.  This seems to be a group that knows how to hold a grudge.

The afternoon laps were just a handful of survivors.  We went back over to Powers to hit some of the older trails and some stuff we didn’t get to see yesterday.

Shiny wet.  With leaves.

And then, when you thought it just might clear up, the skies darken and the heavens open up:

Yeah, that really was the end of it.   Awesome couple of days riding with this bunch, and it’s hard to award a Princess when over half the crew splits early, but there ya are.

And I’m out.  Make up yer own story for this.

Manfest! – 2

Posted on by Smoke

Ahhhh, here we go.   Well, it’s a good thing these guys are all from either Rossland or the North Shore, because the wet weather is back.  Actually, the crew all has a Rossland connection of some kind of another, which is good for me since my Dad is from there.

Now you can see the weather we’re in for.  One really good thing about the wet; since these guys are looking for some tough riding, this makes everything out here pretty rad.  Say hi to my cousin Eric.  He’s the stylish dude in the lower left corner there.  Ask him about old BMX races when he was a kid and he would make Schley and Simmons cry.

No log riding around here.  Just fog riding.

Another theme with a big crew.  Lots of flat tires.   They’re not used to the hard rock we got here, eh?

It gave us some time to session some little jumps though.

Two minutes more riding, and yet another set of flat tires.  Seriously guys, put more than 12psi in, OK?

They really liked this steep drop section. 

It’s ‘busy’ as I like to say.  Some chicken wire, a little steep roller, a gap, and a berm.

…and all so close together that it becomes like a single move.  Especially when it’s this slick.  I like how the gallery makes it look like a World Cup DH course or something.

Allez allez!

Speaking of World Cups, former Canadian DH champ Eric Goss was with us today.

That ride was shit.  This on the other hand, is a nice lamb sausage.

A seriously full van.  For you old skiers out there, that’s former Alpine Canada super star Felix Belczyk smilin’ at ya there.  Trivia:  he was the first North American to win a WC Super G event.  Props, yo.

We had lots left in the tank, and as the gang was off to Kelowna anyway, we hit up Powers Creek for some more.  It was deadly in the wet.  I had some wicked near misses on slick woodwork.  There was a gnarly crash here too.  One guy no-footed it onto Crazy Train (not on purpose) and ended up in the hole on the lower left of the pic.  Walked away with no real injuries.  Yikes…

This was surprisingly not any harder in the wet than the dry.

Nor was the CIA log.

Some wildlife.  Somehow I don’t think this is a native species to the area.

Uh oh.   I didn’t see it, but this was a high speed balk at a wood to wood gap.  He cut all his speed by breaking a 2×4 the thick way with his forearm.  It didn’t look too bad, but we splinted it and took it easy on the way out.  As it turns out, he’d shattered his arm and it would require more than a couple of pins to fix.  Oh, and a few stitches in the chin.   My perfect season with no medicals is looooooong gone now.

The end of the day, and the traditional awards ceremonies.

There you go princess.  That nice drop you did above doesn’t count now, does it?

Salad Doggers – 7

Posted on by Smoke

Since we’re stuck in Revy, we figured we’d go out on the town.  And with all the pics from yesterday, I’m putting the after midnight shots up for today. 

See if you can see how many things are wrong in this next pic…

OK, now how ‘bout this one?

The morning dawned wet and gloomy, so I let the boys sleep while I dealt with the van.  Luckily it was a fairly easy fix and there’s some great mechanics in town.  $60 and a few hours waiting around was all it took.  If you ever break down in Revy, call Trukars.  Good folks.

Tart?

Luckily, the boys are pretty tired at this point, so a half day ride was fine with them.  I took them out for an afternoon session in Westbank on the Powers Creek trails, and they got their gap on.

Big time.

For guys that don’t jump, they are taking too it quickly.

Having a trail like Builders Only is a bonus though. Makes it easy to get that monkey off the back.

Speaking of monkeys, Mark was on fire today.

Almost like blue sky up there.  I remember when this trail was dusty (it’s better this way).

Lee, suck yer butt in!

More Mark ‘Monkeyman’ Sheffield domination.

He even sent this large-ish gap at the end of Crazy Train.   Couldn’t get anyone to do the whole line, but he did hit this jump a few times.  Which is actually harder to do without hitting the rest of the stuff buy whatever…makes for a good reason for them all to come back next year.