We are on a roll! It's almost like everything we touch turns to pure AWESOME! We've been here 3 full days and the weather has been perfect - the nicest 3 days Whistler has seen all year. After a long day of walking yesterday, today was our day with the 2-wheeled vehicles. We packed ourselves some goodies for a picnic, grabbed the boys, lots of water and headed off in search of some singletrack bike action.
We rented some bikes from a friend of a friend of Carolyn's who let us rent them on the house. WICKED! We then made our way (after I got us semi-lost) back towards Lost Lake where all the singletrack X-country trails are. Our first tackle? TIN PANTS! (If you want more information on that one, you'll have to ask Carolyn, she read the info sign... I was too busy thinking about how SORE my rear end was going to be after the day was through). Tin Pants was long but fun, criss-crossing with many other trails and taking us up, down and all around, in every direction imaginable. Tough climbs and wicked switchbacks, great lookouts and sweets speeds down. The only thing getting us through most of the endless climbs? What goes UP, must come DOWN! HURRAY! Not gonna lie, we made ALOT of pit stops (not for lack of fitness, for lack of padding...) but we covered alot of ground. We stopped for lunch at Lost Lake and carried on onto Molly Hogan, Tommy Moore, Hooktender (with crazy sandy switchbacks), Siwash and Green Lake Lookout (the climb was retarted but the view was more than worth it!)
We made our way to Meadow Park to fill up our water bottles and found an Outdoor Fitness Park. This is by far the coolest park I have seen since Parc de la Vilette in Paris. It had 5 park-style gym machines, complete with "proper use instructions". Get'em started young! Only the pictures really do it justice... 4.5 hours after our expedition began we decided to call it in, knowing we were scheduled for some downhill action at 6pm and we would not be able to sit for the next week if we kept going.
Short break in hotel hot tub...
Women's Night at the bike park every Monday and Wednesday. Very grateful to Carolyn's friend of a friend for the tip. We got our gear, a bike, a lift pass, a riding lesson/guide, a beer and Carolyn won a prize! We also met 3 awesome girls who made up our group of Hardcore Ass Kickers (team chant: OH SHIIIT!) ready to take on this giant mountain! NO FEAR!!! Ok... well just a little fear, but we had a "sick" coach from England who used such expressions as "fetch my bike" and "I believe in you". His name was Matt and he became the 6th member of our unofficial international family (Sudburians, Irish, South African, British... can't you see the resemblance?) Downhill is an entirely different form of biking and although the technique you use can be transfered to other forms of biking (i.e. x-country) learning to downhill is a entirely different from stardard biking practices. After practicing in the skills area for a while, Matt lead us down the hill. CRRAAAAAZZZYYYYY SHIT!!!!!!! Hold on to your helmets, we're goin' for
a ride! One would think if you are just going downhill, it's not much work - just coast down... NOT SO MUCH... In fact, you have to use all of your muscles (including some you never knew you needed for biking) in order to survive this sport. Carolyn and I were in PAIN but adrenaline kicks in, takes over and it is one hell of a ride down :) And as Matt says: "the better you get at this sport, the more fun you have..."We worked hard to earn our beers and I enjoyed every last drop of mine (and most of Carolyn's as well)... we got to know our little family a little better and aside from the brish change in temperature, it was an awesome night! We might just do it again...
On a different note... I have to ask. If you are the only person standing in a line, is there really a line?
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