After a great first day of riding Whistler Bike Park yesterday, I was ready for more. The weather today called for a chance of showers which meant good grip on the trails and a real chance to get muddy and dirty on the mountain. Today was just me, which meant loading up the singles line and getting my turns on my own accord.
When I showed up in the morning, the line wasn’t bad at all and the singles line was smooth sailing. I didn’t even have time to worry about lifting my bike to the hook on the moving chairlift, I just did it and got it on the first try. It’s funny what freaked me out at the bike park, it wasn’t so much hitting a tree or rock but causing the lift to stop because I couldn’t get my bike on properly. But I got it, learned something new and will continue to do so.
Over the weekend I ran into Michelle Leroux, the woman behind many of the communications coming out of Whistler. She was kind enough to set up a demo for me through the Whistler Rental Shop underneath GLC. I was able to take out the brand new Giant Glory that retails for five grand. It’s not cheap to get a downhill bike but wow it was good. Definitely a lot more comfort in the suspension and shocks from my Giant Reign. Since I was already used to my bike, it took some adjustment to get used to the gear shifting and turning. I did manage to do the death root with it on Ho Chi Min so that was good.
I ended up only doing two chairlift laps for the day but took a couple routes to get down. The first was B-Line to get used to the bike then I’d go through Ho Chi Min and end on Heart of Darkness. My favorite is Heart of Darkness. It has the jumps, berms and trees but it’s also really fun to flow through. Plus the bottom portion has my favorite berm so far. For my second lap, I opted for the harder Ninja Cougar to Karate Monkey to Ho Chi Min to Heart of Darkness. I went slow and moved off to the side for the faster riders but I did it. By the time I got to the bottom, it was close to the time I told Carrie I’d meet her for lunch.
Ended the day on a high note, totally dirty and stoked on the weekend at Whistler Bike Park. I realized that if I was snowboarding, I probably wouldn’t have gone up in the rain but with mountain biking, it’s exactly when you wanna go ride. Definitely looking forward to more mountain biking adventures and being able to ride more of the trails this summer.
