Oregon Adventure Anniversary

Iz & I celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary this weekend by taking a mountain bike trip to Oregon.

We took off Friday morning about 10a from Coquitlam and headed south. The border crossing was as expected, under an hour, and only two questions asked!!

The traffic through both Seattle and Portland was disgusting. It ended up turning what we expected to be about an 8 hour drive into nearly 12!!

We arrived in Oakridge about 9p, and met with Randy of Oregon Adventures... at the McDonald's: hey, they had free WiFi! He led us to what would be our campsite for the next few nights. A great spot near the river on some private land. Thus the only folks camping there were folks on the tour! Our group consisted of Julie (from Vancouver) & Naoko (from LA) who were doing a 5 day tour, joing us on their day 3, our day 1, plus Beth (from Australia), Brett (from Rhode Island, Kurt (from Tacoma) and us.

Camp was pretty rad
Saturday we were up at 7:30a, eating breakfast around 8 (yummy French toast, thanks Dave) and got rolling to the trail head by just after 9, arriving and dropping in just before 10a.

Our first trail was a 99% downhill funfest called 'Moon Point'. Fun is an understatement. So much smiling, it was just great. Loose, sandy, mellow descending is a blast: going as fast as you can/want is the name of the game on this trail.


View before dropping in to 'Moon Point' trail
Rolling across the meadow before dropping in
Our next trail was a bit more pedaling, but oh so worth it. Ultimately a loss of elevation means you're having more fun going down then you have working uphill. The trail was named 'Middle Fork' and is a flowy fun rolling trail running along the Middle Fork of the Willamette River - hence the name. The only thing that wasn't fun about this trail was Iz & I being stung a combined 7 times!! We followed Brett over a wasp nest apparently. No good!! Lunch was trailside about 1/2 of the way down 'Middle Fork' set up by Paula. It was a feast!


All rides should be trail side served like this!
Total on bike time on Saturday was about 4 hours.

Sunday started off the same as Saturday - another delicious breakfast, and off to the trailhead for a 10ish start. Things went south though after we got our bikes off the roof.

When we got to the drop point, my bike was the last to be unloaded. Only to find that I had no rear brake. None. Nadda. Not your normal Avid brake pump issue either, it was plain not functioning. How could this be? It was working when I put it on the van? It worked yesterday!? Bizarre. We couldn't fix it.

Luckily Brock, one of the guides, was generous enough to lend my his. Sadly that meant he didn't get to join us. Though he admits he'd ridden the trails we were about to hit about 47 times.

With an operational brake now installed, we headed for the trailhead of 'Alpine'. It was a short pedal up the gravel road before we hit it. Then more up, but this time on nice, technical singletrack. Glorious singletrack it was. I don't mind this sort of climbing, when your mind is as engaged as your body. Actually having to pick a line and spin those legs.

We reached our peak at an entry to a meadow and dropped our seats. It was time to descend. Oh how we went downhill. So much fun!! Long, flowy sections with subtle curves and excellent sight lines into tight switchbacks. Then repeat. SWEET!!

A couple of the views....not bad
We got to the bottom, and climbed up again. We then took a turn up off the main 'Alpine' trail toward 'Tire Mountain'. A bit more climbing up over a ridge, and down we went again. This time a bit more turns on the way down, super fun and fast again until we hit another split at 'Clover Patch' where it was time for our last climb of the day.

Up and up we went. Our legs were pretty spent by now, but knowing it was our last measurable climb, we spun up quickly. Cresting the top was a stupendous occasion knowing that it was all downhill to the bottom.

Again, more fun, fast and nice and easy singletrack was ahead of us. Loads of visibility ahead, so going fast was easy, and did we go fast. When we hit the road where the van was awaiting, the tail guide Paul said that was the fastest he'd descended 'Clover' and that was seconded by the rabbit Hollis.


Hollis in behind Iz after a sweet decent
That was sure a lot more exercise than we did this same day last year. I guess we did do a lot of dancing, laughing, and even a bit of crying: but signing some papers, eating a great meal with friends, and ultimately getting married to my beautiful wife Isabelle, wasn't as exerting as this - what the locals call 'ATC'. Another 4+ hour day.

Monday was our last day of riding in Oakridge. Our day promised to be more down than up, riding a 'double' as they call it.

The day didn't start off super well as Iz got stung by a wasp again! This time as we were taking down the tent and packing the car up! Ugh, these damn yellow jackets are everywhere in this state!

The first trail was 'Lawler' which featured some amazingly fun curvy downhill on nice loamy dirt. Simply spectacular trails. Not technical, just high speed and fun!!


Just a taste of what these trails looked like
Lunch was waiting for us again at the bottom of the trail. The absolutely delicious homemade cookies by Paula were the biggest hit!!

We loaded up and headed back up to ride 'Hardesty'. The ride started out with about a 2 mile gravel road climb followed with about 1/2 mile singletrack climb to the peak. Around 1000' was ascended in that short climb.

Drop the seats, and it was all downhill. The lead guide was Hollis on his Giant Reign. His nickname 'Haul-Ass' was obvious - this kid could rocket downhill. I was following Kurt who had a little oops at one point letting Iz & I by. We ripped it up and caught Hollis, but only cause he flatted.

Brock caught up and the three of us opted to head off as a pinner group. We were bombing this trail, so fast, so fun. Brock and I hit the road and there was no Iz with us. "Uh oh" was my initial gut reaction.

Sadly it turned out to be true. After about 10 minutes Kurt came out to let us know she bit it. Apparently, Iz says, she got complacent with the straight runs to switchbacks and missed seeing a rare root, causing an unscheduled over the bars flight to the dirt. She smacked her knee pretty hard and re-aggravated a previous thumb injury.

She wasn't a happy camper, so Hollis took her down the road to the highway. Brock and I pinned it down the trail to the parking lot and I drove over to meet them.

Sure she was injured, but I think that it was her ego that' was hurt most. She shouldn't have crashed on that trail as it was pretty easy for us, all things given. Ah well. Live an learn - never get too comfortable, no matter how 'easy' the trail is. Speed makes any trail hard!


Icing the sore parts
The day finished off with a swim, and we headed off, exchanging emails with everyone and promising to meet up again sometime. A quick stop at the Woodburn outlets (number one tourist attraction in the state = sad) then dinner and a night in Tualitin. If ever here, I'd recommend the Country Hotel (bikes in room ok!) and attached Hayden's Grill restaurant.


Bikes belong inside too
All photos from the trip here.

Where "dingledoink" came from

This is sort of bike related, and I don't have any other public blog to post this, so this seemed like a good enough place as any.

Here's the story: when I was like 15, my best friend since grade 2 and I had started dabbling in both computer stuff (think dial-up to BBS time-frame here) and 'higher end' bicycles. You are now wondering how these things could possibly be connected, read on.

We lived in a smaller town called Richmond, just outside of Ottawa where nobody else was really into higher end bikes, but one day we saw a guy go whizzing by on a snazzy bike. We chased him down, and had a conversation. He took us to his place, and showed us the bikes he had and we were pretty keen to get to know him better. He was like 2 years older than us we figured. Got his name, John Dingledine, and went back home. You're likely already guessing, and you're pretty much right....

A few days later, we decided to play around on the computer one afternoon. We then started logging in to some new BBSes where we hadn't been on before, and had to create 'handles' to get on. We naturally tried "coolguy" and "theman" but they were already taken. We were dejected. Left the computer, and went for a bike ride.

While riding, we were talking "what was that guy's name again?? Dinglenuts? Dingledoink? Dingledine?" (think Dumb & Dumber) We didn't remember it, but rode over to his house anyway. He wasn't home. We rode back home and jumped back on the computer. Tried a few more variants of "thebest" etc. and finally got so fed up we tried "dingledoink" and "dinglenuts" as we thought they were hilarious from our conversation early in the day. Go figure, they were available.

So ever since, when I sign up for something new I try webhead first (highschool nickname due to my last name and being a bit of a computer geek) and if it's not available I go with dingledoink, which is very rarely taken.

There you have it!

Mt. Washington BC Cup DH

Yet another weekend on the road. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it - especially when it involves bicycle riding!!

Iz & I took off after work this past Friday to catch a ferry over to the Island for the second to last BC Cup DH race of the season. We got in to our to be home away from home for two nights, Deer Lodge, about 11p and turned it so as to be rested for practice Saturday.

We got up on good time and had our cup of Joe. I put together some yummy egg-bagel-sandwhiches for us for breakfast, and the nit was off to the lifts for some laps on the track.

This past winter Mt. Washington saw a record amount of snow, and thought that's awesome in the winter, it impacted the summer. They only opened their bike park a few weeks ago, with only a couple of trails. thankfully by the time this weekend started the weather had cooperated, and all but a few trails were still closed.

The race course was pretty new this year due to one of the aforementioned closed trails being what was normally the race course. It had been about 6 years since I'd ridden Mt. Washington, so it didn't really matter to me. It would have felt pretty new still to me!

The course went down "MHT" to "Lower Monster Mile" to "Monster Hawk Connector" to "4 Cross", which meant "pedal" to "technical" to "pedal" to "jumps", which translates ultimately to FUN!

We did 4 laps of training, as Iz was still resting her thumb/hand from Kicking Horse the previous (See: 'Whirlwind Week') weekend.

We hung out with about a dozen fellow racers, which was super fun, that night. Still managed to get to bed on good time after watching a classic movie, Speed on VHS! It was pretty funny, this place had a closet full of VHS films.



Sunday, SUNDAY, Sunday!! RACE DAY! Iz & I did another nearly top-to-bottom practice lap in the morning, along with an easy run on a blue track to keep loose, before our race runs in the afternoon.

I was first, and ripped down clean which made me super happy. Participating in this series of DH races on a 'freeride' bike has been challenging. I know I cannot go as fast as guys on real DH rigs, but am happy when I get down clean. That is all I'm looking to do, since I'm 32 and and have no aspirations to become a pro! I often finish mid-pack, and this weekend was no different. The cool thing this time was though that there were 5 riders in my category and I came second! My first podium of the season!



Iz had her run about an hour after mine, which was nice, as it allowed me to run up the hill and catch her in the jumps section. She's been pretty consistent this year (when she stays on her bike) and is currently tied for second in her category! See: http://t.co/716xaVQ for up to date standings.

She did well once again this race, and found herself also on the podium!



Here's another view of the awards area that is a bit better lit.



Where will we go this weekend?

UPDATE: some sick videos recently posted on pinkbike.com from this weekend can be found here: http://www.pinkbike.com/news/BC-Cup-Provincial-Championships-2011-Videos.html

Fromme: New Trails, and New Old Trails

Tonight I was invited to go for a lap with my good old pal Andrew.

SMILE!


Yeah, he didn't know I took that photo.

Anyway, we were a pack of 6 - a nice size group of varying abilities from ex-National XC champion Bruce to the bike shop owner to the girlfriend of one of the other guys. That said, nobody held anyone back, and the pace was sweet.

We climbed up past the 6th switchback and headed down a super old school trail I'd never even heard of and hesitate to name on here as I don't know that anyone else would enjoy it.


Well I did, it was super fun! Starting out with a nice log climb and continuing with some classic drops, and rock faces, this trail had it all. Ultimately spitting us out into the bottom of "Seventh" which took us back to the rode.

See between points 4 and 5 where that happened here: http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/sjNGIqIBpsA (yesterday I used MapMyRide, today trying endomondo as suggested by some pals)

Pedalling back up a bit more and it was down "Executioner" which now has many nicknames as it's a completely new trail after the entrance. I'd say for the best! Wow, super loamie - a must ride for anyone out here ASAP!

"Executioner" dumps you into "Dreamweaver" which is another super fun pumpfest of an XC trail.

All in all, another super fun ride, and a good workout too!!

XC Ride on Eagle

My good buddy Steve has been riding in the TriCities area for something like 20 years....there abouts anyway.... and knows the trail system like the back of his hand.

Thus, I like riding with him! He shows me good routes, and gets me pedalling in areas I've not explored.

Tonight was no different as Terry and I got out with Steve he took us up on a lap of Eagle Mountain. I couldn't even tell you the trail names, but here's the "MapMyRide" track and info - click!!

Was a nice treat to hit up these super sweet trails right in our backyard. A 2 hour XC ride that starts higher than it ends is also pretty awesome! The climb up, as you can see, was about 2.5km long, while the remaining 17km was essentially downhill. LOVED IT!

Sadly, I forgot to use my camera on this ride. next time!

A Whirlwind Week

Iz and I took a little vacation starting Saturday, July 30th.

We started off with a sailing and mountain biking trip with our friends Amber & Cris. It was their wedding gift to us. It was very enjoyable overall, but I don't think Iz is ever going to be a sailor! We headed over the Saturday morning to Deep Bay (click for map, between Nanaimo and Campbell River) where they picked us up in the boat. We ended up sleeping on the boat in Deep Bay that night, though the original plan was to sail to Hornby Island (click for map), because it was stormy outside the bay. The winds died down over night, and that caused issues with the anchor - we ended up bumping into a dock near where we'd anchored twice in the night! No damage thankfully, but it woke Cris & I up, and we went top ship to fix it up.

The Sunday we sailed to the island, and used the zodiac (no motor) to make two trips over with our bikes to the beach. That was a pretty funny process! We rode our bikes, and then had to do the same trip on the zodiac back in the evening. Worked out well, and was super fun.

The Monday we had a LONG day of sailing all the way back to Campbell River - nearly 11 hours! We got to see their new home and puppy, so that was nice. Turned in for the night, and then Cris drove us back to Deep Bay Tuesday. We took advantage of being where we were to ride our bikes on some other fun trails there in Cumberland.

Click for More Photos


Next up was our trip to the interior for some riding and racing, it was a blast! Phil (the brother in law) drove us in his truck which was super, and made it so much easier than trying to pack everything in to our car - I don't think we could have fit everything actually!

We first went to Sun Peaks resort Wednesday, Aug. 3 and rode their bike park Thursday. Had an AMAZING camp site not 10 minutes from the resort. It was/is what is called (Iz will correct me if I'm wrong) a Forrest Service Road Recreation Site. Very remote, very small, very beautiful.

Click for More Photos

We camped there again after riding Thursday night (washed up in the lake) and then drove to Golden Friday. The race organizer was kind enough to allow us to set up our tent in the yard of this 'palace' that he had been 'given' by the resort for himself, his family, and a bunch of other folks that were working for the race.

Most of those folks were professionals that Phil & I knew from magazines and movies from our younger days! Was very cool to hang out with them inside the house (race organizer offered us access to the home too - we really just slept in the tent) for the time we were there. I would say that we may have even started some friendships with a few of them, pretty cool!

The riding at Kicking Horse resort in Golden was super fun. The race track was good, had it's tough sections, but overall fun. Sadly Iz had a crash on the Saturday in her last practice run, and hurt her thumb. She iced it up though, and still raced Sunday. I'm so happy she did, even with taking her time, as she then was able to 'conquer the fears' of where she crashed, and also is now still eligible for the overall in her category - if she'd not finished, she'd not then be able to complete 5 out of 6 races!

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29937947@N07/sets/72157627274236469/ (not many really of the racing etc. in our stream, but loads here: http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Western-Open-Alberta-BC-Cup-Recap-2011.html) and a little video: http://www.pinkbike.com/video/211446/

SHAW was there too: http://sexley.pinkbike.com/channel/Western-Open-2010-SHAW/

We drove home after the race on Sunday; Phil was a trooper and did the whole 7+ hours himself! I napped early on in the trip expecting him to want to sub out, but I ended up just riding along shotgun keeping him awake for the last part.

Monday was a nice day to relax and get things back in order and do some errands before it was back to work yesterday.

Crankworx 2011

This weekend Iz and I and 5 of our friends made the annual pilgrimage up to Whistler to be a part of the biggest event in mountain biking - Crankworx.

Crankworx is a 10 day long event hosted on and around Whistler, showcasing many different disciplines of riding from downhill racing, to endurance stage events, to trial riding, to slopestyle trick riding! I know I've missed some, but that'll happen when there're 10 days of events!

Sadly we could not get up to be there for all 10 days, but headed up late Thursday afternoon so that Isabelle could participate in a 'Ladies Only' event being held at the 'Air Dome'. The idea being that ladies who've never tried "dirt" jumping before could come to a no-ego event with ladies in the same situation. Mind you there were a few experienced riders there coaching them too, so it was also a learning event.

Well, learn she did! Check out this video of her doing a back flip!! This is, 100%, the first time she'd ever tried this sort of riding. This is her 3rd or 4th attempt, and actually over rotates this one!!

www.twitvid.com/B452H

I am stoked to try this out myself some time. We're thinking we may rent the 'Air Dome' in the future for 15-20 of our cycling friends who are interested in trying their hand at this.

Friday was a day spent riding the 'Bike Park' which is always a joy. Our friends Linda & Nicole are just getting into riding, and had a blast by way of a 'Sampler Pass' which gave them 3 runs down the mountain, and the option to upgrade to a full 'unlimited' day after that if they wished. They chose to quit after 3 as it is tiring if you've not really done it before.

Here's Nicole getting some air!!

http://www.bikeparkphotos.com/Trail-Side-Photos/2011/0722-CrankitUP/18174479_NXX4k3#1396230633_HW7S6zv-XL-LB

Saturday we went for a cross country ride, then watched the Joyride event - the "pièce de résistance" for the festival, watch this to see why: http://www.ridebikess.com/2011/07/kokanee-crankworx-2011-red-bull-joyride_4015.html

Sunday was a chill relaxed day for us, but our good pal D'Arcy raced the Enduro event, which was a pretty cool staged race consisting of 5 different 'stages'. He came 8th in his category, in just over 30 minutes. The winner of the Pro Men’s was Brian Lopes, in around 25 minutes. That guys is SO fast!!

We were blessed with glorious weather, what a great west coast weekend.