Okanagan Summer Mixer

The simple e-mail from Cam said it all: Interested in an Okanagan riding trip? Let me know.

When someone asks you if you want to go and ride your bike for a week somewhere and it’s pretty much all paid for, it’s hard to say no, unless the rest of your life (like your family and your paying job) get in the way.  Fortunately, the week that this tour was set for by the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association worked perfectly for me – my son was at his grandma’s for the week, I had no big meetings at work, and I was going to be travelling to the mainland anyways.  WOOT!

I spent the weekend before the trip watching the DH racing at Bear Mountain.  The race organizers from the Fraser Valley Mountain Bike Association, are all my old riding buddies from when I lived in Abbotsford, so it was cool to see them all again (even though they were all pretty busy). 

  This is what you come to Silver Star for!  Rider – Andrew Gower.  Photo ~ Ryan Kuhn

I left the Mill Pond at the base of Bear Mountain at 2 pm to try and make it to Silver Star for 6 pm – I probably should have given myself a little more time as I didn’t manage to roll up to the Bulldog until 7!  Not to worry, our host for the week, Miles Prodan of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association barely beat me to the front desk.  Besides, one of the other “media types” who would be on the tour, Steve Crowe of Briefly7 Productions wasn’t going to make it up until the next day.

Miles, myself and the fourth member of our little crew, Ryan Kuhn from Pinkbike, met at the bar for a pint, some snacks and introductions.  We went over the plan for the week, exchanged a few stories and set a time to meet the next morning.  I had never been to Silver Star before, so I was pretty pumped to get to try a new park out!  It was going to be interesting to compare Silver Star to Mt. Washington, where I usually get my lift powered adrenalin runs.

  The man who makes it all happen at the Silver Star Bike Park – Cam Sorenson.  Photo ~ Ryan Kuhn

At breakfast the next day, in the Bulldog Café again, we met our host and guide for the day Cam Sorensen, Silver Star’s Bike Park Director.  Cam’s been involved with the bike park for the last seven years, and has been the director for the last four.  As it happens, Silver Star has had its bike park open since 1991!

Before I begin to describe the trails and the mountain, I should lay out what kind of rider I am.  While I’ve been riding mountain bikes for over 20 years, I’ve only recently come over to this whole free-riding thing.  I am a bit of a wuss on jumps and drops, hate gaps (although relations are beginning to thaw) but I think I ride relatively fast.  To be honest, I ride at an advanced intermediate level. I can handle advanced trails, but not with too much grace… To top it off I was coming into this week with a lingering lower back issue that was pretty confidence sapping to say the least.

  Steve Crowe boosting.  Photo ~ Ryan Kuhn

Silver Star’s village is mid-mountain, so you always start with about a half a run before you have to ride the chair up.  The most popular route is the intermediate run called Blast Off featuring flowy berms, tables and some step-downs.  It was a great way to become familiar with the machine built trails at Silver Star and had me grinning from the first turn.

It’s a quick seven minute ride to the top of the bike park, where you can access 1600 vertical feet of going down on 18 trails.  The spread of trails is very even, with 5 beginner trails, one beginner/intermediate trail, five intermediate trails, five advanced and two expert runs to keep everyone happy.

  Making sure the flatlines suspsenision goes through its full travel!  Photo ~ Ryan Kuhn

Our first run was on Challenger – this was a really cool ride as it’s a green run, and pretty mild except that it’s liberally sprinkled with “braids of blue” that include small drops, tables and even a wall ride!  It was actually a lot of fun and I can see how it would be a great way to introduce a total beginner to bike park riding. 

For our next run we hit Shazam – a perfectly named trail!  Berms, berms, berms – perfectly linked and executed so you can carry speed and hit the table tops with confidence.  And a word about those table tops; Cam told us how they have made a big effort to keep the lips on all of their jumps consistent on all of the runs.  What does this mean?  Well, if you are happy with the first jump on a run, you can pretty much count on every other jump for the rest of the run feeling exactly the same – and they did!

  Cam Sorenson testing one of his lips.  Photo ~ Ryan Kuhn

After Shazam we progressed up again to Double Dog.  This was a more natural trail that combined some incredibly cool wooden features (originally built as the mountain’s Red Bull trail) with some speed, some gnar and ending in a little pump track linking a tight set of berms with a few airs.

Lunch was at the Bean to Cup café, and I have to say the turkey, bacon, quacamole sandwich was awesome – just the fuel I needed for more riding. After lunch we headed back out and after the necessary, and now more fun run down Blast Off we headed up for a stab at Pipe Dream.  This is a BIG trail with BIG moves, and I personally felt a little overwhelmed.  The rest of the crew had it dialed, and it was fun to watch the guys hit some pretty big airs (complete with Cam throwing down a one footer off the big step-up).  However, even with feeling a little inadequate, the fact that the berms and jumps are so well built let me rail the parts I could handle without too much trouble, and I felt pretty confident that with a couple more runs, I would be able to handle just about every feature on the trail – the hard work of the mountain’s trail crew was very obvious on this run.

  Looking back at the Village from the Mountain – Photo by Andrew Gower

After that, I was starting to feel a little beat up, and as the rest of the guys were going for another run on Pipe Dream, I decided to try another one of the blue runs solo.  My intention was to ride Superstar as I had heard a lot about it, but on the way in I got tempted by the triple wall ride at the top of LTG.  While the wall ride was a hoot, the rest of the trail was not what I was looking for at that moment.  LTG is old school single track with a whole bunch of wood features around each corner.  In the end, it was pretty fun but my back couldn’t handle the roots and gnar very well.  One feature that really stuck out was the suspension bridge. I didn’t realize what it was at first, and that’s probably a good thing as you need to carry decent speed to get across.  Other stunts included small drops, lots of skinnies and logs and even a triple teeter-totter.  All excellent for progressing up to the bigger hits on the mountain.

After meeting the rest of the crew at the bottom, we headed back up.  They were going for another run on Pipe Dream, and I was determined to actually ride Superstar this time.  Unfortunately, on the feeder trail over to Pipe Dream I didn’t quite air over the nasty rock garden about 2/3rd’s of the way down and not only managed to get a pinch flat, I blew out the rear rim on my bike!  ACKKK!!!  So, while everyone else headed down, I hiked back up to the top where my backpack, with spare tube and tools, was waiting for me.

  Relacing my back wheel on day one of the road trip! Steve Crowe lounging in a chair. Photo ~Ryan Kuhn

After struggling through the tire change while getting eaten by black flies, I managed to get off the mountain and finally got to ride Superstar – and I fell in love!  I don’t think I have ever ridden a more fun trail in my life.  Perfect berms, easy to handle jumps with every one launching you in almost exactly the same way.  I hardly even had to work and was whooping and hollering the whole way down.  It was too bad the blown rim had finished my day early, but I will definitely be coming back.

So what’s Silver Star all about?  In a word – progression.  With the obviously high level of maintenance and consistent features on all of the runs, and drops and doubles that start small and get bigger, it would be easy for anyone at any level to have fun and be challenged at this mountain.  I’m already planning next year’s road trip in my head…

  Cam Sorensen dropping off the wall ride on Double Dog. Photo ~ Ryan Kuhn

Stay tuned for more on my Okanagan Summer Sampler with the next installment – India Pale Ale in Sicamous – bitter at first but in the end very refreshing!

Major thanks to Cam Sorensen, who had to run into town for groceries that night and while he was there picked me up a new rim for my bike!  Thanks man!

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Is there anyone out there who doesn’t like the Silver Star Bike Park?  I haven’t met anyone yet.  Missing summer already?  Pine away for summer here…

For more info check out these links:
Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association
Mountain Biking at Silver Star
Bulldog Hotel
Bean to Cup Café
Clementines