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05/12/2008
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Cypress Closing
Day
What's up for next year?
Cam McRae
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Record numbers of riders turned out for the final day of the Cypress Bike Park's
first season. Last I heard about 250 riders had rolled through the turnstiles
and for the most part everyone seemed to be having a good time. A highlight
for me was Digger's steep and tricky new trail. Below you'll find a move
by move photo essay of the yet to be named gnarler.
Digger's newest trail on Cypress bears his signature
but no name. Here's Papparazzi Pete Chambers tackling
the opening pitch. It's steep but still loamy and forgiving. The
loam won't last for long next year though.
Cypress had a rather inauspicious start but things began to roll later
in the season. Their trail cocktail needed a little more potency and
now that's been added with Old School, the trail you see here, as well as
a new ending highlighted by a very tricky wall ride/launch combo and five
table tops. You can tell that Cypress is getting better at building
jumps but there is still some unwelcome randomness. Some allow you
to hit the tranny with very little speed, some just drop away without any
tranny and at least one is so long that even Cedric Gracia couldn't hit
the down slope. A couple of bottlenecks remain in the bike park but
even on the busiest day of the year it wasn't a major hassle.
Overall though the trend invites optimism and all in all Cypress is doing
great considering this was year one.
Stefano Piccone testing an RMX.
This move is tricky but not particularly rewarding.
Building is done for this year and some stunts and berms will need to be decommissioned
for the winter season. Construction will begin again once the snow melts
next year. It's too bad there isn't the opportunity to build now to give
new trails some time to age and mature under the snow pack. Weather wise
it doesn't get much better than this either. Last spring was incredibly
wet and muddy up there making trail construction very difficult. Hopefully
this coming spring will be cherry.
This is actually a teeter but if you roll it fast it doesn't
move much and it feels like a launch. I think it would be more fun
if it was just nailed down.
Also in the works for next year is a Slopestyle area similar to, but less ambitious
than, Whistler's Boneyard . A wrinkle in the plans for both Whistler and
Cypress is the 2010 Winter Olympics which will be held in Vancouver, on the
North Shore and in Whistler. Basically it seems they can do whatever they
want to make each venue perfect for the competitors. Cypress will be the
venue for snowboarding and freestyle skiing while Whistler will host Alpine
Skiing, Biathlon, Cross-country Skiing, Nordic Combined, Ski Jumping, Bobsleigh,
Luge and Skeleton. Apparently much of No Joke will be lost because of
changes to be made to Whistler and the highly aniticipated Freight Train Trail
wasn't completed because it too would have faced the Olympic ax.
Lift accessed riding on the Shore was long overdue. I'm stoked the good
people at Cypress stepped up to the plate and that they are listening to riders
like you and I.
This is a finicky little arched skinny to a small drop.
This rock roll is steep and but what makes it interesting
is what comes next.
Immediately after the steep rock you hit a
platform made from milled lumber (2 x 4s) On Sunday it was as slimy as
a slug's belly. At this point you can launch the 4-footer
or roll down a narrow plank. The conditions had us opting for door
number 2.
Then you emerge onto the ski run but things don't get
easier. The first move is a steep left hander. Dave Smith
managed to dial it...
but his buddy Paul Drabble found himself in the rhubarb.
After that there is another tricky, steep rock section to master before
you join another trail.
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