A dry but windy day.

Ride 30

Vedder

Duck Farm Loop

I'm finally back on track! I'm averaging 10 rides a month again. This drier weather and melted snow is definitely helping out, not to mention day light savings time. Today it was planned that Dan Vandokkumberg and I where going to head out down Chilliwack Lake Rd and ride at Slesse. Dan had heard through the grapevine that the trails out there were saturated, so we did a loop on the good old reliable Duck Farm. Trails where in good shape even though a horse had managed to make its way onto the trail in a couple spots. Dan even told me about a trail higher up that links to the down side of the duck farm, what will have to wait for a day that does require me going to work later on.

Weather was dry but windy, a typically cloudy west coast day.

Quick and not very dirty.

Ride 29

Ledgeview

Flintstones, Spawn of Boulderdash, Autobahn.

Just a quick ride on my standard quick loop. No pictures as I went packless today. I can feel winter shaking off as I'm clearing climbs that had me weezing a month ago with spare lung now.

I also headed over to Life Cylces where Harv showed me the newish Santa Cruz Butcher as well as the Specialized Enduro.  Rocky is doing a demo day at the the FVMBA toonie race #2, so I'm really looking forward to that. I'm hoping to get some seat time on a Slayer.

Quick and not very dirty.

Ride 29

Ledgeview

Flintstones, Spawn of Boulderdash, Autobahn.

Just a quick ride on my standard quick loop. No pictures as I went packless today. I can feel winter shaking off as I'm clearing climbs that had me weezing a month ago with spare lung now.

I also headed over to Life Cylces where Harv showed me the newish Santa Cruz Butcher as well as the Specialized Enduro.  Rocky is doing a demo day at the the FVMBA toonie race #2, so I'm really looking forward to that.

Its a shuttle kind of life.

Ride 28

Sumas Mtn

Knob Gobbler, Noah Fear, Time Killer x3.

Three laps of the up coming Super D course. First lap was done with the FVMBA exec after our morning meeting at Matt's. Lap two was with Morgan, Jodi ad Haley. For lap three Morgan and I pinned it...well I pinned as well as I could after being in the saddle for 5 hours. Race course is running great but its looking like the upper half of Knob is going to get lobbed off due to snow, the bottom half is running smooth. Noah Fear is looking good, as is Time Killer.

Picture time!

Trevor is stoked to be shuttling.

1 of 2 vehicles loaded up.

Made it to the top of Knob Gobbler.

Trev and Fernan.

Fernan's mag cover shot.

Everyone catches up.

Morgan nailing a rock face.

Rain rain, go away.....and it did!

Ride 27

Ledgeview

Ambidexcrous, Lazy Boy, Tools of the Trade, Little Butt, Flintstones, Spawn of Boulderdash, Autobahn


Got up to Ledgeview for a XC rip once the rain yet away and the sun came out. I switched the wheels on the Heckler out for the lighter wheels from the HT. It dropped about 2 lbs from the bike and it pedaled like a whole new bike. Snagged a pic of it on Tools of the Trade. All the foliage is starting to bloom, so you won't be able to see the trail up there soon.

Falling behind!!

March 23, 2011

Ride 26

Vedder.

The Den, 2 Cents, Skidder/Hidden Pleasures, Dilema

Got first tracks on The Den. Had to push a little bit of snow to the top and little on the way down. I then proceeded to destroy the Super-D course. They have started to rebuild the road up as well.

Ledgeview north side

ride 25

the Ledge

Mixed Bag, Amy Fisher.

Quick rip after a crazy morning. Slippery and muddy, typical conditions for this time of year. Now I'm eating popcorn before heading in for an OT shift tonight.

Super DEED!

Ride 24

Sumas Mtn

Lower Knob Gobbler, Noah Fear, Lower Time Killer

Took Ian up to Sumas for his first ride there. We pedaled up from the lower gate and hit snow at the upper. Cut in to Knob Gobbler at the half way point...lots of hard, crunchy snow. The last third of Knob was good. Noah Fear was clear and running good. Time Killer was looking good too.

Ian took some photo's. I'll put them up when he's done with them.

Back at the Farm

Ride 23.

Vedder Mtn

Duck Farm Trails

Back at the Duck Farm again. No snow this time. One picture. I need lighter wheels for the Heckler. That's all.

A dry start to a soggy day.

Ride 22

Ledgeview

Ambi, Lazy Boy, Tools, Lil Butt (up), Lil Butt (down), Flintstones, Spawn of Boulderdash, Autobahn.

Got up and out early this toady. While driving up Whatcom I spotted the Saturday morning crew, so I punched to get as much of a head start as possible. We all meet up at the half way point, at which time they left me behind. I finished the ride with some very light rain, then it was off to do some trail building on Sumas.

Met up with Kim, Collin, Gary, Ryan, Eugene and his son Owen...just in time for the heavens to open. It poured on us for about 3 hours straight. We managed to get about 300m of trail roughed in for the new exit to Time Killer. All in all a fun day in the woods.

Frost Heave!!!!

Ride 21.

Sumas

Emma Peel, CYA, Police Tape

Got off my course today early so I went for a quick rip up the lower trails on Sumas. The theme of the ride....mucky spring break up. I shouldn't have rode it today, oh well. I did see evidence of the horse and rider again, post holes up the whazoo. All in all any time on the bike is good time.

Off work early.

March 07, 2011

Ride 20

Ledgeview

Ambidexcrous, Lazy Boy, Tools of the Trade, Flintstones, Spawn of Boulderdash, Autobahn.

I'm on a course this week and we got out early, home by 4 and hitting dirt by 4:15.

No pics, you've seen em.

Race Day!!

March 06, 2011

Ride 19

Heritage Park, Mission

Salamander, Gondola, Corrie's Corners.

It was race day. The first race of the FVMBA Toonie race series. Volunteer duties at the race. I rode the up portion of lap 1 and marshalled at the top, after everyone cleared from lap 2 I rode down the second half of lap 2. It was a great turn out and we had 62 racers out.

Mighty Riders. Words by Morgan Taylor.

My Flickr account.

Steve's photo's

Andrew Carmichael's pics

ride 18, sorta.

Location: Golden Ears, no wait, The Woodlot, uhmm no, Bear Mtn.

Trails: Bear Mtn DH/Jolly Rancher.

I'm tweaking my ride rules today. First off I drive to GE and it was closed due to the wind. I had time constraints today so a pedal from the main gate wasn't feasible. So I turned around and headed to the Woodlot, it was buried in ice/snow. Stopped and Bear and it was less icy/snowy. Pushed up to the rock drop and it was very icy. That's where I decided that I didn't need a broken collar bone and I was calling this a ride. I went over to the bottom of Jolly Rancher and checked out the newer bridges at the bottom. Then I came home. Total time out  of the house...2 hours 45 mins.

No pictures.

meh.

Duck Farm Redux

Ride 17. Can you believe its been 11 days since I was on my bike last? Its this weather I tell ya.

Location: Vedder Mtn

Trails: Duck Farm Loop.

So while looking at the vmta.ca website I found a digital map of the Vedder trails confirming what the signs said. The Duck Farm trail can be rode as a loop. So with a layer of snow on everything, I decided today would be a good day to do some exploring. I loaded up the HT and I headed off to Chilliwack.

If you recall my previous route it involves a bunch of road riding, a nasty climb up an old rail line turned trail and a whole bunch of multi use pathway along the Vedder Canal. I was hoping that the loop route would eliminate that, and it sure did.

Before I was parking at the Vedder bridge, this time I parked at the East end of the Majuba Hill trail just east of Yarrow, across the old BC Electric rail line. From there you head up the trail. It is pretty easy to follow as it's marked with orange reflective tags nailed into the trees. Loading up at the truck I packed along an axe as I was planning to clear some of the branches off that fallen cedar tree, turns out a chainsaw beat me too it.

The axe turned out to be a major pain in the arse, as the handle stuck out past the top of my pack about 12 inches and I kept forgetting about it. Many a branch was snagged and I eventually got used to the snow falling down my back. The climb started out on an old grown in logging road/quad trail (even though everything is clearly marked as non-motorized use), then it switched to single track and that's where things got good.

The ride up took a little longer than my previous version, but it kept my tires on dirt (or snow in this case) the entire time. The only road portion is the 500m sprint from the end of the trail to where I parked. Once you neared the top the snow got to be about 3 to 4 inches thick, with a nice layer of frozen slush underneath. So that meant you where pushing, rather than riding up hill. That's when I came across this fellow. Unfortunately he did not have any Tootsie Rolls.

That about sums up this ride. I am super stoked with this new route and am looking forward to trying it out once this white stuff eff's off. To finish, one more gratuitous bike shot.