In the fall of 2001, I decided that it was time. I had been dreaming for long enough. It was time to put my ideas into motion and research the possibility of running mountain biking trips in the Alps. My parents had been operating cycling trips in Europe for 30-plus years, so I knew where to start.

I speak French, so France, or the French-speaking region of Switzerland would be the two obvious places to look into. I knew that the potential in the Alps was mind blowing: the locals there had been building hiking trails for a thousand years or so and had created a lift and hut network like nowhere on the planet.

I stumbled on a dude on the Internet named Francois Panchard who was born and bred in the Valais, and had grown up climbing mountains with his mountaineer father. He owned a company called Bike Explorer that mapped epics throughout Switzerland with GPS, photos and video. I told him what I was planning to do and that I was actually coming over to Verbier in a month or so to guide a ski trip.

It turned out that he lived just over the mountains in a small town called Haute Nendaz. "Why don't you come to my chalet, meet my wife Agi and have fondue?" he proposed. I took him up on his offer. That night we downed a few large Cardinal beers, ate a pound of cheese and instantly got along like old friends.

The next summer I came back for my first recon mission with two best friends from B.C.: Paddy Kaye and Ryan Bowland. By the second day of riding, we had ridden numerous trails that broke into my top five of all time. Never-ending and fast downhills littered with natural berms and jumps - ripping through towns, backyards and vineyards with lifts everywhere and views to die for.

By the end of the trip, I was floored - exhausted from day after day of mind-blowing riding - and from the ridiculously fun trails that we'd ridden. Panchard dubbed it the Crazy Canuck Freeride Challenge, or CCFC, after the original Crazy Canucks skiing sensations of the late '70s and '80'. Sure, I thought, Ken Read, Steve Podborski, Dave Irvin, Dave Murray, they are legends, they pinned it like we do - sounds good to me.

Riding in the Alps was as I'd imagined, but way, way better. Insane. I could see where he was going with the CCFC thing - it was a freeride challenge indeed.

I came home and knew that I was onto something and it was fate that I had met Panchard, who knew the riding in his local mountains better than anyone. For next summer's version, I would invite a bigger crew.

Flash forward to the next summer: the summer of 2003. Back again, I found myself cruising down the Swiss autoroute in 5th gear, past Lausanne and into the Alps. It was a balmy evening and we had the windows down. In the van with Panchard and I was a crew of B.C. rippers: Andrew Shandro, Wade Simmons, Chad Onyschuk, JJ Desormeaux, Sean Dinwoodie, Dave Burch, Mitch Scott, Sterling Lorence and Derek "Gov" from Ottawa.

In classic B.C. style, JJ pulled out a 60-pounder of Jack Daniels, took a long pull and passed it around. The setting sun reflecting off Lake Geneva had cast a warm orange glow on the vineyards and castles that we blurred past. The booze and fatigue of travel were taking hold yet the energy within us buzzed with palpable force.

Taking the gondola ALL the way up to the top

Looking back, the scene seems surreal. Maybe it was the Jack. Maybe it was the jet lag. Probably both. Either way, we didn't even realize it, but we heading down the road to a riding trip of all time. We began with a few days of rest and warm-up rides. Then our pace picked up dramatically and for 12 straight days all we did was eat, drink, sleep and ride some of the most unreal rides imaginable - from sunrise to sunset. We rode dozens of different lifts, climbed our bikes up passes, over peaks and descended until our disk brakes smoked with a purple haze.

Most often, the trails were snaking and compact and on a perfect downhill grade - the kind of grade where you can take your hands off the brakes for long stretches and just concentrate on cornering and looking ahead.

Descents would consist of a 15-minute long high alpine grassy meadow stretch, past grazing cows, into the sub-alpine, through villages and narrow streets, then dive into forest and a man-made bobsled track used to link up villages in the wintertime - that would go on for another 15 minutes. Finally, the trail would end up ripping through a vineyard and end up at a café in the hot valley. 30-40 minutes of high speed riding with a few short stops in there. It was ridiculous.

By the end of our trip we had descended nearly 80,000' - with some days over 14,000' - and slept and drank wine in high alpine chalets overlooking towns and peaks for as far as the eye could see. By day seven, it became hard to recall all of the previous rides. A mind-spinning climb would blend into another and one descent of all-time would blend into another.

As he did the previous summer, Panchard invited a posse of his Swiss friends to join us. After some time it was unanimously agreed that the Swiss Valaisien riders are just like B.C. riders: pinning it on the trail and drinking wine like it's the Last Supper. The crew melded like a brotherhood; we raced each other, laughed, and rolled through the countryside on fire. For 2004, the CCFC has its sights on more big mountains in new areas. This year's Europe trip is hitting the Bernese Oberland region - more big-ass Swiss epics in one of the country's most picturesque zones. Francois has contacts in the region and the itinerary is coming together nicely. If all goes as planned, it looks we might also take our bikes to North Africa's Atlas Mountains, an exotic cultural chaos with hundreds of miles of singletrack, multiple 13,000'-plus peaks and a landscape like nowhere on the planet. Perfect.

JJ Desormeaux cruising the cobbled streets of Grimenz.

The CCFC has evolved into an annual epic with a tight crew of pro riders and rippers, photographers, writers from B.C. and Switzerland - on a recon mission under the direction of Panchard, myself and others, who come together each year, reserch a new location and document it.

We ride with the locals, fine-tune the line-up of singletrack and hone the logistics. My dreaming is over. Well, not really at all. I've called the tour company Big Mountain and this is only the beginning. From the CCFC bounty, we take the data, tweak it and create dream trips. We're also doing trips right here at home in B.C. Check it out.

Check out RideBig.com and ccfc.ch.