Dynomite – Day 1

What happened?  Good way to start a trip, now jump in the lake and sober up.  Who knew that this was gong to be the warmest water we’d see all week?

Here’s the guys that caused all the trouble.  Some Legends in there if you know your North Shore history.

It would appear that the boys brought some Pennsylvania weather with them.  It was wet and cool today.  Luckily, it’s been like that all spring back east, so they were fired up and ready to hit Big Ed.

OK, so that’s how it’s gonna be.  To think that I was a bit worried about starting out on one of the harder trails in the Okanagan.  These guys lapped it up like it was cream.

Actually, it was pretty good.  Will this do for day one, John?

We took some time to session a few of the smaller booters to get into the flow. Jim was charging everything pretty hard, a theme that was to be repeated throughout the week.

John also had a theme.  He keeps nailing great shots, but if you were there…..yikes.  This wasn’t just a cased landing; he actually hit the lip with his FRONT wheel.

Joe just quietly rode it all.

John is a much better skinny rider than a hucker.  although for a technician, his bike maintenance skills are a bit…curious.

Just ignore the dab and pretend he rode it.

We were in the presence of one of the Whistler legends for today too.  Binty rode this lap with us, but for some strange reason I have no pics of him.  If you think you’re a good XC rider, head on out to Binty’s Highline in Whistler and see how you feel.   That guy has been riding Whistler on a little bike for something like 25 years.

He had no reservations about this rock line, and we got a full house on it.  That’s Jim in the pic.

Another angle with John, and we’re out for lap one.

We had plenty of time to kill for day one, so I thought we’d go over to McDougall for an All Mountain run.

Yeah, it’s a bit pedally, but when you get views like these coupled with a solid 45 minute downhill, what’s to complain about?

Dynomite – Pre Game

What else are you going to call a tour with three brothers whose initials are “JJ”?

Jim, Joe, and John.  AKA Slug, Boyd, and Newman.  I didn’t ask, so I can’t tell you.  Picked them up in afternoon and went straight up to Oop’s place in Vernon for something this crew of OG North Shore types calls “Suffer Fest”.  It’s horrible.  I made the boys build their own bikes.

Meanwhile, the rest of us suffered through this little scene on the deck.

The rest of the guys were out wake surfing when we arrived, so they missed out on…..absolutely nothing.

We had already stopped for some food, so as the sun set we really suffered when the food came out.

Oh yeah, leg of lamb and Kokanee (actually, some damn fine reds were going down).

Great start to a tour and it was awesome to see some faces from the old ‘hood again.

Big Ed

Rabbit season…duck season…rabbit season…….BUG season.  Here’s Brant finding out why you don’t want to wear black around biting insects.

We had a plan to do a couple of laps up Big Ed today.  Of course, I was with the DH buys, so there’s no riding pics.  Just this view off the top….

..and this shot of Justin’s swellbow.  So only one run (and a lost helmet, and general flailing and dumbness from all involved)

We’re always having a good time, eh?