Two Rides. Wait. Make that walks.

The last two rides at the Woodlot haven't been anything to write home about.

A few weeks ago, Dean, Dave, and I decided to hike up Cabin Trail for a snow ride. Well, the snow was brutal. Frozen. Just generally yucky. Unless the trail was pointed almost straight down, we had to walk. Walking all the way up was bad. Walking more than halfway down SUCKED ASS!

Snakes was in good shape so we got to ride most of it, but I wasn't feeling it on this day because of the crappy upper part of the ride. We rode out Shotgun and headed home.

This past weekend Dean and I decided we'd go to the top in search of a trail we know is there, but have never seen. We found 21/2 ft of snow instead. It was deep. The last 400 meters of our climb were tough. We had to carry our bikes. Again, just as the last time we were up there, we had to walk our bikes down. We couldn't ride until we got to Lower Toadstool. Over halfway down the hill. While riding Lower Toadstool, we ran into Denise and Gregg building a nice ladder ride halfway down the trail. It will have a mini drop on the end. They are doing some SWEET work on that trail and have improved it ten fold. We chatted for a bit, then went on our way. Maybe we should have stayed chatting. We got to the bottom of the trail and I noticed my bike was a little squishy. After some fiddling around it was determined that my rear shock was blown. WONDERFUL! A nice $200 expense coming. Wahoooooo!

I nursed her down Shotgun to the truck and headed home. At least Dean had a sweet last half of the ride.

A couple of days later at work, I got a call from Dean. Him and I have been trying for the RCMP over the last little bit. Dean has been going through the BGI and finally got the call on Tuesday. He is set to go to Depot on the 4th of February. Goin' to the Pig Farm. Congratulations buddy!

I will miss my friend.

Who will Mr. Woodlot ride with now?

I need to ride

Happy New Year to all of Mr. Woodlot's faithful readers. I love you all!

I need to ride.

Looks like Saturday morning at the Woodlot with Dave and his wif. Good times.

Work. Lots of it.

So we've had some pretty messed up weather over the last month. Heavy rain. High wind. -15 temeratures with over a foot of snow. Messed up to say the least. It has wreaked havoc on the trails.

Yesterday we took a crew of four up to Snakes to clear it and then go for a ride. We didn't expect the carange that we found. There were probably 20 trees down on the trail. Not just on here or there, but in groups everywhere. It was madness.

With all the trees down though, not one bridge on Snakes was damaged.

So, we(Dave, Dean, Tim and I)hiked up to Snakes. There were even trees down on the road, but we decided to take care of the trail first. We got to the top and saw first hand how bad it was going to be. We stashed the bikes and hiked down the trail. Starting at the bottom, we worked up. The first few trees we cleared went pretty quick. It was nothing too big. We cleared up to the LALR when I spied a new ladder across the forest. There is an old trail over there called SOS that has seen some new work lately. We went to check it out. The work is Ok, but a little ghetto. Not even close to our high standards, but whatever. Not our trail.

Back to the task at hand. We hiked up our trail a bit more to the Jump section. The carnage here was bad. The DJ gap was totally blocked off by about six trees that had fallen. The trail gap had two or three blocking it. Even the squid line had some down on it. With some work, we got it clear. Up around the corner, there was another group of five trees lying across the trail. Dean and Tim worked on clearing this, while Dave and I headed up the trail with our axes to work on some other stuff.

There is now a cool cedar tunnel on Snakes just before the trail up to the rock drop thanks to a croup of around five trees that fell there.

At around 10am I had to leave so I suited up and ripped the trail we just cleared. I forgot my helmet so I was wearing Dave's skid lid. That coupled with the fact that it was my first ride of the year on the hartail made for a cautious ride. Snakes flowed well after all the work we had done, but there are still a lot of trees that need to be cleared on the road out. Shotgun was cool. It still had a bit of snow and there were some trees that were cut and cleared there as well.

There's still a ton of work to be done, and with the forcast calling for winds in excess of 90kmh today, I imagine there will be even more by the weekend.

I found it VERY rewarding yesterday. Working to clear the trail for others to ride, and hanging out with buddies. Seriously. What could be better than that?

L8er Sk8ers.

Eye Candy!!!!

A little bit of eye Candy from the last year:

Mr. Woodlot at the gaps during the Bear Mountain DH. (below)

Mr. Woodlots now deceased RM-7. BEAUTIFUL custom paint job. She's now hanging on the wall at Rocky Mountain Bikes Research and Development Department.

Don't go into the woods at night!

A sweet video thedude and I shot.

Fromme Upper Oil Can Dean and Rob risk it all and ride the infamous Upper Oil Can....in the dark.

Has it been over a year?????

Wow! I can't believe my last post was over a year ago. What has happend in that year? Lots.

Mr. Woodlot got himself a hardtail. Nothing special, but good enough for me. A Brodie Alpha with ghetto hydros and a 2003 Rock Shox Psylo on the front. I haven't ridden her much, but I will.

I also sold the old Atomik that I had been riding for the last three years. It was my first bike and it was hard to let it go. I picked up a 2005 Santa Cruz Heckler. What a great bike. I have two setups that I ride on it. The park set up. That is for Whistler, Sun Peaks and Silver Star and I have a 7" Super T on the front. Then there is the winter setup. That is for, well, the winter and instead of the 7" Super T's I have a 6" DJII on there.

So those are the two rides in the stable, now the rides.

I can't remember them all, but I'll list a bunch.

Many rides at the Woodlot for sure. A few night rides stand out. Like Cabin Trail/Snakes/Shotgun in the torrential rains of last February with Dean. I had a rather large crash and if the ground wasn't so saturated from the rain, I might still be up there.

A few trips to the Shore worth mentioning. One EARLY morning ride. I rode up Seymour and then down Corkscrew/Salvation/Pingu/Pangor/Empress. All before 7:30am. Another one with Tim where we ripped a secret trail to CBC then down the usual. Second run we did Boogieman and Mr. Woodlot got owned.

Bear Mtn DH was great this year. For Dean and I anyway. Dean placed second and I placed 9th with a decent time. To top it off I hit the huge set of doubles at the bottom. Easily the biggest gap I ever hit. Tim didn't fare so well. He crashed on the same jumps and concussed himself quite bad. He doesn't remember anything from that day.

Two weeks after the race I hit up the Woodlot where I believe I had an epipheny. I was riding Snakes and stopped to do a little work on the trannie to the trail gap. After working on it I hit it up. In the air, the world seemed to stop. It was dead quiet. You could have heard a worm fart at that very moment. Mountain biking bliss. I ripped the rest of the trail, got back to the car and just smiled. It was truly a beautiful moment for me.

After two years of planning, the 2006 Lift Extravaganza went off without a hitch. Well, I shouldn't say that. There were a lot of mechanicals on day 1, but other than that......perfect. Whistler Friday. Sun Peaks Saturday and Silver Star Sunday. We stayed in a beautiful chalet by the golf course from Friday night to Sunday morning. It was a great weekend that will no doubt be even better this year.

The 4th Annual Rememberence Day ride on Fromme took place on Saturday November 11th. We hit 7th Secret/Oil Can/Boundry this year. The ride was good highlighted by Dean blowing up his rear wheel on Boundry.

I've already had three night rides this year. I'm starting to enjoy it more. Tim even brought Dean and I a couple beers one night when he couldn't ride with us. We came down and found them sitting on our bumpers. Nice.

That's it in a nutshell. I will start updating this with my rides a little more often I think.

Until then...............

Lest we forget.

It is Rememberence Day 2005. Time to remember our war heros and time for the Third Annual Rememberence Day Ride.

TheDude, Greenspringer and I were to hit Fromme for the third straight year. I needed to be home for the ceromonies at the cenetaph so we headed out EARLY. We met at Seymour's pub at 6am. We were parked, and climbing by 6:15. It was a good climb with lots of chatter, joking around, and good times. In the back of all of our minds though, were the vets. Without them, we may not be able to do something as simple as riding bikes. We all love to ride, and we have them to thank for it.

So, we got to the top of Pink Starfish at around 8:15. The plan was to go up to Oilcan, but I was running out of time. I told TD and G to keep going and I headed down PS. This trail is old school. Lot's of dorps to flat and some really cool stunts. A few dumb ones too. Today, riding alone, I was very tentative and avoided most of the big stuff. There are things on there I know I can do, but not until I'm riding with somebody.

After PS, I hit Upper Digger. The first ever trail built on Mt. Fromme. Way back in 1995 by the famous Digger. I enjoyed the trail and all it's natural beauty. There were some cool skinnies which Digger is famous for. They were low level too, so very good for anyone who wants to try them.

After Digger, I hit Boundry. The builder on Boundry is doing a wonderful job. The woodwork is great and the trail is a super fun rip. I bailed pretty good on one of the rolldowns. The wood was slick. I touched my front brake to control my speed and my tires just whipped out from under me. No harm done though. I cruised the rest, giving the big stunts a miss and headed back to the truck and home.

Got home with plenty of time to get cleaned up and go pay my respects to the Vets.

Later at home I called TD to see how their ride went. TD had had an unfortunate accident and really hurt his ankle. That sucks. He's off to Mexico for two weeks now to heal it up though. When he comes back, we build.

Werd.

Woodlot Virgin

It was a simply glorious day in the lower mainland today. You know what I hate? Is when people say the Pacific Northwest. We don't live in the freaking Pacific Northwest. We aren't American. If anything, we live in the Pacific Southwest. Get it?

Anyway, TheDude and I took my friend John to the Woodlot today. He had just bought a 2004 Norco Six a couple of weeks earlier and wanted to try it out. Today was the day.

John and I got to the parking area around 12:30. TheDude was up on Snakes doing a little bit of dirt works so we started up to meet him. We got there around 12:45 and we all headed up to Goldmine. The push was uneventful with lots of good chatter. We got to the top and suited up for John's virgin decent.

Away we went. TheDude in the lead, me, then John. Not too far in John's chain popped off and got pretty stuck. It took me a few minutes to get it fixed but I did eventually and off we went. Goldmine is a different trail in the wet. There are a lot of roots so the trail becomes instantly harder. We cruised down at a decent pace, not having to wait too long for John. At one point TD pointed out what looked like a trail up the hill. We took a quick look and agreed we'd come back and hike it at a later date to see where it went.

Next up were the fast flowy jumps of Snakes. It has been over two months since I rode it so I was a little rusty. The Snakes jump was cool(John hit it to which was good)as usual. Then we hit the gappers. I went into the first one a little hot and almost augered in the pit, but made it out OK. Cased the landing a tad on the trail gap, but made it through. Normally I'd go back up and do it again, but we were pressed for time. Down we went. Log ride, rock face, rock face, rolldown, bottom. Snakes is good. I love Snakes. I want to marry it.

We pedalled up to the road and headed down to Shotgun. As always, it was a blast. Out of all the trails on the hill, I'd say it is in the best shape. Says a lot about the maintenance seeing as how it is the busiest trail on the hill.

John did well today and enjoyed himself quite a bit. I can't wait to take him out again.

Next up for Mr. Woodlot? The Third Annual Remberence Day Ride on Mt. Fromme. See you then?