Severed D!ck, Night riding... Genius!

The plan was to ride the North Shore, Mt. Seymour at night! Now, I'm a novice shore rider, I've been a couple of times with a map and a trail bike and its always blown me away. I'm looking forward to the day I get to go on my downhill bike and shuttle some runs with someone who knows their way around, that way I can really push it. This time I was lucky enough to go with two guys who knew there way around by night and on trail bikes. We packed up the truck with our bikes on a Tuesday evening leaving Squamish and Republic Bicycles car park at 6.30pm. There was one plan, ride to the Severed D!ck trailhead by trail and ride back down flat out, you can nearly get there by road but that's kinda boring. My chosen weapon for all my night time adventures is my trusty Scott Genius, its best to be on a pedal friendly bike for most night spins you never know what's gonna happen...

The Genius is Fun, light, responsive, good technical climber/descender, has a low Bottom bracket and good angles. The Genius has crazy hydroformed tubes and a DT swiss triple chamber pull shock which works very well considering it is totally going away from the norm of MTB shocks. The Equalizer 2 has got that nice plush progressive feel and with 150mm of travel it can feel quite bottomless. There is also an option to use the 'tracloc' lever which gives three different shock positions, full lockout, 30% lockout or fully open, I chose not to install the lever at all so run it fully open, permanently. Now if you where an XC racer or used your Genius on the road or did a lot of fireroad climbing it would probably be worth using this, however I don't and I like running things fully active, also there is not a lot of pedal bob from the bike so I feel it doesn't really need it. ANYWAY... the rest of the spec is Fox 32 talas RLC Qr15, DT swiss EX1750's, Shimano SLX/XT drivetrain, Raceface bars, cranks, grips, Gravity stem, Magura Marta brakes, Maxxis Ardents 2.25. I must say everything is excellent, Shimano, Raceface, Fox and Magura all totally faultless after a continuos 8 months of solid BC XC riding. And the Genius and Equalizer 2 are exceeding the expectations I had for them.

The Genius will handle anything you should be riding on a trail bike, its not a DH bike and is not designed to be sent off big drops and jumps, but on the small stuff it is balanced and does both extremely well. Drop the forks down to 110 or 130 travel and it climbs on the technical stuff superbly, it grips and digs in when needed on all the hard technical climbing maneuvers. Having the fork set at either 130 or 150 travel mode the back ends squats down a little just to add more aggressiveness, its low bottom bracket, well thought out head angle and Qr15 keeps it in check from the fast open trails to the steep, rocky, rooty, rough stuff, this bike loves to descend.

We parked at the foot of Mt. Seymour at around 7.20pm Tuesday evening and there was talks of extending the ride but we decided to stick to the original plan, Severed D!ck was the mission. We began the climb on road but soon got on to the East section of the Baden Powell trail which is generally regarded as a blue/green trail and in many places is made of pea-gravel but don't let this fool you especially if you include the pace at which we climbed it. Thats right, flat out! This traversed West and soon we hit the main road to Mt. Seymour a quick scurry across the road and back onto the Baden Powell. Here we met a thick ground frost and a river flowing down the more beaten up baby head sections of the climb this was quite difficult in the dark, shadows always play some cruel tricks when night riding, more so when riding unfamiliar trails. You might see a big rock a little late and try avoid it or pop over it to land on another rock which pings your front wheel somewhere else and you end up having to rescue yourself from a game of pin ball by night before you know it.

Night riding itself has its own rules, take note of the bright lights in the group because if there's one behind you your own shadow will block your view. You only have a very small field of vision so your senses play tricks on you, everything around is dark except for that circular spread of trail goodness out in front and nothing else can be seen. It always feels like you are traveling at wrap speed even though you are definitely slower and a good test of this is night riding something you know very well it becomes a totally different experience. The trail is not only full of things you have never noticed before but also possesses a new kind of eerie stillness. The dark forest is no longer a safe haven and getaway from the hustle bustle of everyday life instead you become the prey and get that feeling that everything in the forest has its eyes on you.

When we reached the trailhead of 'Severed' we saw the dark icy forest floor stretch out below us and decided, as none of us where entirely sure of what was coming up, that we would stop and regroup at the bottom of each gnarly section. 'Severed' is a typical North shore trail with wooden bridges, log drops, steep rocky sections, big roots and a few very short, techy flat sections just to keep you thinking and pedaling. We had a four man crew and it took us a few minutes to settle into the craziness of 'Severed' by night but when we got warm, the riding got tight, whooping and hollering became mandatory and laughing essential. The trail is different by night so much becomes blind you begin to doubt yourself and if your following you learn from others mistakes so fast that soon you are leading and soon you become the doubter! This trail is so fast that features just keep popping up and the back end breaks loose through the fast corners then suddenly you'll come off the next greasy log bridge or someone disappears over the next drop shouting HUCK and a muffled "to flat" at which point you've already realized this and land flat bottom with your limbs fully absorbing the impact. The message gets passed back along the train the same way, it's like playing chinese whispers with a group of masochists. 'Severed' gives you great descending for the climbing and its a pretty old school fall line trail but you seem very rewarded by the time you reach the end or maybe its the feeling that you survived is the rewarding part.

Off Piste Trails on the Big Rig!

So part of the reason of setting up this blog was to talk about bikes & trails. And rather than get too monotonous and only talk about bikes or trails I'm grouping a bike with some of the best trails to ride on it... this week it's Downhill.

The Scott Gambler is the big rig and although this year it has magically shed some pounds over last years bike it is still a big bike. With its massively hydroformed down tube and huge monocoque top tube its presences is always looming below you. This year it weighs in at 42lbs and is spritely thanks to the DHX RC4, up front I have some Fox 40's with 2011 internals which are extremely plush. With the new internals they feel more like a plush Boxer and are no longer harsh or mechanical feeling at any stage of there travel, definitely a positive improvement to an already superb fork. DT swiss wheels stayed true and round all year thanks to Paulo from Spicy sports. RaceFace Atlas FR handlebars, stem, and cranks were faultless as always. And new this year was the super grippy narrow Raceface Sniper grips, exquisite! Magura brakes have mega stopping power even though I'm running smaller rotors these always work. Saint derailleur and shifter totally inspiring shifting in all conditions and it still feels like new. Continental Der Kaiser tyres what can I say buy'em, try'em and you will love'em, these absolutely hook up in every condition, from dry and dusty to greasy roots, rocks and slop!

The bike charges down rough, technical trails with ease and the low slack geometry makes it ideal for the steep technical riding I like to do. And this brings us to the two trails which I'm gonna feature here... I don't have photos of either because they both require you to ride them start to end and once I'm there I never want to stop and hike back up this mega steep terrain only to take mediocre photos that look like your riding on flat ground! Now, thats not entirely true because these two trails are sooo steep that it would still look steep in photos but who wants to stop when you have such great trails to ride.

Ride Dont Slide aka RDS is one of the worst kept secret DH tracks on Whistler mountain, you can find it on all the maps and trail guide books and many articles have been written about it. Most of the guide books say its a XC trail and it is far from it! It's definitely a DH trail and it had a makeover 3 years ago and this year it also had some more work done to it. In the years I've been riding it, RDS has seen alot of traffic and is much wider in places than it used to be, which gives you more line choice but most of the new lines are easier and are taking away from the trail itself.

RDS is remote, epic, steep, gnarly, fast, old growth forest that will change your view on DH trails. To start with you have a 30 minute hike up highway 86 and from here you will see the steep entrance dropping into the trail. It's not a good representation of the trail that's gonna follow but it is some sort of squirrel catcher at least. And then you have the all year round boggy section, there must be a spring close by because this never really dries except for the sneaky highline. The first serious steep chute follows shortly and is a two tiered chute with the first section having two options, either a super high line over some massive roots and through the narrow trees or into a small catch berm and then through the narrow trees. Bringing you onto the second part of chute one, sustained steepness which is about 4 stories high and it's long, this is the true squirrel catcher. This whole trail is made up of long, steep, rooty, technical chutes with some small catch berms interrupted with fast, flat out, pedally, pumpy sections and a few stream crossings. There is some nice steep rock faces that have an optional ride around, but the steep is why you ride RDS so the rock rolls are mandatory! Also a nice hip and new this year a tough canyon gap. I cant describe the whole trail I dont have the literacy know how and really you should go ride it to find out yourself just how addictive and amazing this trail is. RDS is around 30mins long with a couple of regroups, riding it trailhead to end is around 20mins nonstop with only shoulder checks to make sure everyone is still there and trust me this is sustained intenseness, it is a relentless DH track of the upmost fun...

To get back to lake level and Dusty's pub! there is two options and for me generally only one, unless there has been some real scary moments for the accompanying riders or its getting dark. So the first option is Big Timber fast flowy and over before you know it which in itself is an awesome trail but if you want to keep the gnar going then you must definitely hit Boyd Creek trail aka BC trail. BC trail will bring you more of the same steepness and rock rolls and exposure as RDS but much narrower, less used and even tighter in sections! It also starts immediately so you don't lose any elevation. BC trail is made up of three distinct sections divided by service road crossings and it takes nearly 20mins to complete all three so your getting good intensity for your bang! As I said early I don't have photos of these trails but they both work out to have a incline grade of roughly 25% which is superbly steep. RDS starts at 1670m ends at 960m and BC trail starts at 955m ending 240m lower down just above Dusty's pub... the beer will never have tasted so good!!

Snowy ride on Diamond Head

My first snow ride of the year happened a little over a week ago, it was cold but the sights were amazing! It was a solo adventure that was an absolute must but also a good tester to see how low the snow line had got and what was still rideable. Turns out that its very rideable if your into super slow-mo snow drifting which is great fun and definitely different to the normal conditions I'm used to at this time of year, mud mud mud!!

I set off on keeping the snowy covered trees on Diamond head in my view wondering would it come to the point where I would have to return the way I came. On arriving at the lower turning circle I saw bike tracks coming out of the woods so it was definitely possible to ride some trails.

Now deciding on what to ride was all that I could think about as I climbed up the winding frosty service road. As I got closer to the fork in my decision it was going to be something of the intermediate variety as these would hopefully see a little more traffic. I climbed as high as terrain would allow and chose the trail Pseudo-Tsuga, it would have been possible to go higher but it would have meant all hike-a-bike from here and probably that the trail down would have been a slog, slog up slog down no thanks!! Today was about snow drifting.

Off I set down the trail, no brakes needed just push the bike into every beautifully made snow berm. It felt like what I would think Skiing would feel like no brakes just the force of you acting down on the bike, it was amazing almost majestic! Corner after corner no let up, the trail ended at the mid-way point I pulled my brakes gently and managed a full 360 on my bike. It was impressive, if only I let go of the brakes a little sooner I would have rolled out of it like it was all planned. But I didnt, instead I managed a full body varial 360 ice slide to snowy thorn bushes.

When my graceful dismount eventually stopped I grabbed my bike and headed to the next part of the descent, this started off down a cold snow melt stream that had formed on the already rocky challenging trail but luckily for me I was soon turning off it onto another trail to finish my descent back to the turning circle.

Cam and Phil's trail starts off on a nice snow covered ladder bridge creek crossing that had not been ridden yet that day and I was a bit dubious after my previous mega slide. I decided to ride it anyway surely someone else would pass this way and see my tyre tracks off the bridge and start a search down the river for me.

After riding the bridge to completion the remaining part of the trail was gonna be frozen and steep. I knew there would not be much snow on it so I let rip through all the fast and tight corners and blasted out the end of the trail. This was great riding and the last ride on Diamond for me for awhile, now the snow is melting a little so maybe I'll get back up there again. Luckily for me there is a lot of lower down trails that can still be shredded but the snow riding was superb!