Rock Oven

Go Team…

Posted on by Smoke

Yeah Team Knolly.  A surprise visit from my old pal Margus and my new pal Ryan Berrecloth.  They needed some shots, and I’ve been telling Margus for a while that he needs shots of the Okanagan. Ryan I’ve never met, but he’s one solid dude.  Literally and figuratively…

Well, it’s getting a bit late in the season, but I figured I could find something for the boys.  But first I had to hurt ‘em a bit.  Not on purpose, just because I’ve been sitting around a lot lately.

Something like 30km, and a good 6000’ of vertical drop today.  Oh, and some seriously yellow larch trees.

Here’s a view of the route, sort of.  We did the blue line.  The yellow-y stuff is a doubletrack that can be used to access from the bottom.  We drove way around, and hiked up a firebreak for 2 km.  Sort of gnarly, but I found another section above the Derenzy FSR that will be focus of another mission.

Back to the red, yellow, and green.

Maybe not the greatest light, but a fine, fine ride.

Margus, working hard.

..and again.  Of course, with a setting like this a photographer shouldn’t have to work that hard.

Right?  Oh, I almost forgot that Travis K. came out today too.  He got to be FlashMan.

Well, maybe not the results I we could have wished for, and a late start meant that we missed the best light, but a great ride.  Tomorrow afternoon looks good, maybe we’ll make up for it then.

Rock Oven – Extended Mix

Posted on by Smoke

Sometimes, it’s just way to hard to get people to come riding.  I mean, you get the plans all set for a rad adventure, and then no-one shows up.  I mean….don’t these guys know who I am?  I’m kind of a big deal….

Andrew knows.  I can always count on him.  Every time we’ve hooked up for a ride, it’s been an epic.  Today was no exception.

I’d heard that you could ride into Rock Oven from above, but the info was sort of sketchy. After studying some maps, it didn’t look that complicated, but it’s big country.  We went for it, and with all the flailing earlier with no shows, we didn’t get going until sort of late.

Long story short: a 6km doubletrack traverse, 1.5-2 km push uphill, and then massive amounts of singletrack.

I only went the wrong way once.  Well, twice if you count this time I crashed because my hands were so tired.

Much time spent riding, hardly any spent taking pics.  Here’s a shot of a cave, man.

Standard lookout pic. This is the ‘normal’ high point.  Today this was almost at the bottom.

Oh yeah, Andrew got a flat.  And neither one of us brought a tube.  Fricken geniuses.

Well, it was a tubeless tire, so we crammed a twig in the hole and it wealed up just enough to hold about 10 psi, which was Good Enough to get out.

Well, so long as we stopped to pump the tire up every ten minutes or so anyway.  Must have been the 13th today, with the way things were going.  I’m not even going to talk about the thunderstorm.

The moose didn’t care.

Here’s where we went.  Roughly 25km and 4500’ of descending. 

Fel Ci Efo Dau Gynffon – Day 2

Posted on by Smoke

Well, that was a pretty good first day. Since it went so well, I thought we should try something a little tougher. Our old pal Vance agreed, so we all hooked up for a lap of Rock Oven.

I should have figured it would be an adventure when I broke my seatpost in the first two minutes. Ahhh, it’s a steep enough climb I can just stand the whole way anyway.

Gotta even it out for the tourists, or it’s just not fair, eh?

Vance showed us this cool overhang I didn’t know about before.

I could live there if I had too.

Oh, and did I mention that it was another hot and sunny day? At least it cooled off a bit from the day before.

Andre was lovin’ the tech climb.

Hard to believe that ski season is fast approaching. Apex looks pretty dry right now.

Richard was more interested in eating his sandwich and getting back on his bike than thinking about skiing, I think.

I think I see why….

Yeah, 1st aid for bikes. Good thing I carry a 1st aid kit.

I’m not sure why I don’t ride this trail more often.

I mean, the scenery is kind of OK…

But I guess it looks just like any other part of Wales.

Vance split at about this point. I guess we were taking too much time with the cameras.

Do you blame us?

Graham also had a ton of flat tires to add to the woes of the day.

As we had a bit of split in the crew, I let Richard (who was dominating today’s ride) go on ahead while I hung back with Mandy and took some pics.

Ooops. Richard got a split in his leg. What a drag. He didn’t even really crash, just slid his front wheel on some pine needles and sliced his leg on a sharp rock. Talk about dumb luck.

Hey, at least I had a 1st aid kit, right?

It’s only a flesh wound, we kept on riding.

It just keeps on giving, as we went on down the endless rock slabs towards Skaha Lake.

I think Rob was really liking the steeps here.

Oh, too much fun. Take a break, Holly.

Ah, finally the lake. Shall we go to the hospital then?

Sorry, no map today. You’ll have to settle for this panorama.