Whistler Report #14

A little ranting and a lot of pictures from the first couple of days of Crankworx…

Those who know me well know that there’s a phrase that I like to use a lot, and it’s applicable to most things in life: “Perspective is a wonderful thing.” In this case, I applied it to myself. Having spent a week and a half riding bikes over in France, it totally changed my perspective of riding here in our happy little world class valley.

While the scope and scale of the lift-accessed riding over the in the Alps dwarfs anything we’ll have in this area ever, it was the quality and condition of our lift-accessed mountain bike trails that reinforced the fact that the fine folks at the Whistler bike park have developed the best lift-accessed downhill bike trails in the world.

In the dual slalom, Fairclough led Gee Atherton out in this heat, but Gee ended up advancing.

Anyone who thinks the trails here are blown out or braking bumped up needs a little perspective adjustment, and I certainly got one myself! I guess like anything in life we always end up taking things for granted, but it only took a few laps of steep, braking bumped, braided, non-maintained bike specific trails in Les Duex Alpes and Morzine to realize how good we have it here in Whistler.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of good about the riding over there, and I certainly enjoyed it, but when it comes to straight up bikepark downhill trails, Whistler is still the king. And let me tell you, it’s always good to come home to some of the best biking in the world.

Mick Hannah was racing hard, but it was Mitch Ropelatto who ended up taking this heat and advanced to the finals.

That being said, what Europe has that we don’t is ridiculously huge mountains, amazing all mountain lift accessed riding, the ability to use more lifts that you can shake a stick at and travel between countries. While Whistler certainly has bikepark and valley XC riding on lockdown, one thing that was definitely highlighted by my trip was our lack of lift-accessed, all mountain riding, and legal alpine riding.

Friends, and anyone who seems remotely interested in my ranting has probably been subjected to me going off on this topic over the past years. I understand that budgets are tight, and there isn’t a lot of money for new trail building projects, but I fully believe that the Whistler bike park needs to start looking at this segment of the mountain biking world to really keep on being leaders in the lift-accessed world.

Micayla Gatto just kept getting faster and faster through the rounds, and in the end took the victory in the Dual Slalom.

There are many people who ride who have no interest in the standard downhill bike park riding, and I think diversifying the offerings via lift access would definitely see more of those people willing to take a lift if it meant accessing longer distance trails through some of that epic alpine terrain and provided more of an afternoon adventure style ride as opposed to smashing out 20 laps on the downhill trails. They are very different segments of the sport and one is not being addressed in the valley.

Gee fought some really tight battles all evening, but in the end he always had a little bit more than his competitors. He kept it fast and smooth all night and took the Men’s title.

Anyway, I digress… I know that this topic is definitely on the radar of the powers that be as I’ve heard some rumblings about. I just want to throw my support behind the concept and say that I’ve talked to a lot of people around the valley who also would really like to see something in this vein. So make it happen sooner than later because it’s wanted, and frankly I think needed to fully make Whistler a world leader again!

Apparently it’s been 5 years since Anne-Caroline Chausson has riding a downhill bike, doesn’t seem
like she’s lost much speed, winning the Garbanzo downhill by 18 seconds!

Everyone seems pretty up to speed on Crankworx events so I won’t get into them too much, but after talking to Richie Schley about his Vertical Challenge event that takes place this Saturday, it appears that there hasn’t been a lot of pre-registration taking place. I’ll admit that has surprised me.

I thought more people would be signing up for this event as it’s a pretty unique format: three descents off the Flank Trail will be timed – the climbs are not – and the lowest combined time wins. Trails to be used for the event include Billy Epic/Rebob, Cheap Thrills/Danimal, and High Society/3 Birds/ACDC.

Squamish ripper Miranda Miller rode fast and smooth to come in second in the Garbanzo Downhill.

There are no downhill bikes permitted, but then again with a few short climbs along the way, I’m not sure one would want to use a DH bike anyway. These are the premiere trails on the westside, and this event is going to be fun, so head over to the WORCA site and sign up, and then come out for a fun morning of riding on Saturday. Hope to see you out there.

Whistler local Tristian Merrick put in a solid showing and beat a lot of fast guys to take 21^st spot.
Stoked for you, buddy!

One other event that took place this week – a fundraiser in support of Hans Rey’s Wheels 4 Life charity, which buys new bikes for people in developing countries. Please visit the web site and make a donation to this very worthy cause.

Sik Mick rails one of the loose rocky corners on Monkey Hands at the end of the Garbanzo Downhill.

The wildly popular Deep Summer Photo Challenge show is also happening again this year. I’m really excited to see – it will be interesting to see how some out-of-towners view our riding through their lenses.

The rest of the week is jammed packed with events every day, so get on up and join in the madness, maybe I’ll see you up on Heckler’s Ridge on Sunday afternoon for the Canadian Open. Bring your screaming lungs and lots of noisemakers!

In the end it was Chris Kovarik smashing all comers in the Garbo DH, it’s always good to see
this vet racers come out on top of the long gnarly races!

What do you think about the idea of using the chair to access the alpine? Sound like a good idea? And why the hell aren’t you going out for Richie’s race? Take your excuses over to the board.