Stag Ride

Every once in a while I get a call from the past, and usually it involves some guy I used to ride with that is getting married soon.

Poor buggers…

I haven’t ridden with Keith since….well it may have been around 1997 or so when we did the first heli drop into Disneyland.  That does take it back a bit.  I guess I’d better treat this crew right, then.

Yes, that’s wet wood right there.  Gotta make the coastal boys feel at home, right?

The wet wouldn’t last long, though.  I think these guys scared the bad weather away.  The ladies clinic we ran across at the top looked a little nervous, at any rate.

They aren’t scary…they’re all rainbows and flowers, see?

Actually, had I known that the average level in the crew was this high, I would have…done exactly what we did.  Naramata is the bomb.  We picked off three of the best routes possible today.

Although we kept the pace up, we did find time to session a few of the classic hits like the reshaped Redemption Compression.

Also ducks.

Can you quack like a duck? (Very NSFW….you’ve been warned…)

An excellent first group of the season.  Very, very good times, with 3 solid runs and 9k’ of perfect tackiness.  Thanks to Santana for the driving.

 

Return of ANOTHER Stag

These guys came out a few years ago for the grand occasion of one of their crew getting married, and low and behold another soldier has fallen.

It’s Aaron’s turn this time, and since last time we rode we cracked off 8 runs on the Sunshine Coast I figured we should probably do a big vert day on Kobau.

As always, it’s dry as a bone out here.  So much so that I managed a pretty decent crash in my first run when I missed a small ramp at speed and flipped over some logs.  Good thing I had padding on for a change.

All crashing aside, it was a solid session of brown pow today.

My old coach and current boss at the Ski club was our driver today.  He’s never really been exposed to the reality of mountain biking before.  He was a bit shocked to say the least when he saw us shredding through the sage at high speed.  I think we may have a convert.

Round two got me yet another crash, and this time I got it good.  Forgot my pads for one, and also it was one of those ones when you tag your bars off a tree at high speed.  I got a gnarly hemaetoma on my right thigh, and lost a bunch of skin on my left knee and arm.  Crap.  At least I could still ride, but I did cry a little when nobody was looking.  That one hurt.

At least I’ve got conditions like this to keep my mind off the pain.

After two laps on Cawston Creek it was time for the finishing run on TKO.  I was thinking that with how dry it was that it was going to be ultra gnar and loose, but it was actually as good as I’ve ever seen it.  Truly an epic lap.  Even managed to forget how much the leg hurt.

Here’s the crew (minus one casualty from the first two.  Tired and beat up from the weekend).  I think we all crashed out pretty hard at one point today, but it was the sort of day for pushing limits.

Managed to get lost down lower too.  This run was way longer than it needed to be, but it was still pretty nice cruising game trails in the desert.

A final group shot at Hester Creek before bugging out.

Oh, and if you see this little BBQ hut in Oliver, you gotta drop in.  Unreal eats for cheap.  Can’t believe I’ve never stopped there before.

Way more pics here in this slideshow.  Enjoy…

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The Return of the Son of It’s Yet Another Stag Ride – Aftermath

Wow, don’t you wish you stayed up all night drinking with the crazy chicks in the next cabin?  I think Blair doesn’t.

I got a strange request to shuttle up today, but with all the XC bikes, I thought we’d better just shuttle half way.  You know, for the sake of good form.

Our old buddy Vance came out today to show us some of the lesser known routes in the area.  This is “High Pony”.

It sucks.

Oh wait, that’s not right.  It RULES!

The return of more typical Okanagan weather helped though.

Careful, that’s a bit of a drop eh?

OK, everyone gets their pic on this corner, don’t screw it up.

Good thing we had Vance with us.  Here’s a shot of a typical trail junction out here.  There’s actually a turn there, as we rode out past those random rocks to another trail.

See?

Dude….that’s not the line.

More sick fall riding.

Hang on, let me get my shades.  I think I see something over here.

Ha!  Good times…  Look while you can, you’re about to be married.  Anyway, thanks to Peter for calling up for this one, and to Lee for the recommendation.