Tour de Fraser Valley Part II (Oct. 18, 2008)

For Part II of the Tour I decided to hit up the Woodlot again since there are so many great trails we could easily make another great ride of all new trails. The group was smaller this time, consisting of just myself and Jordan K, and we met at the Woodlot parking lot once more.

It had been raining pretty much all week and my 10 year old IRC Kujo front tire with duct tape holding the sidewall together just wasnt giving me much confidence so I opted for a 2.5" Kenda Nevegal. The sticky rubber of this tire should give me some extra traction on the wet roots.



After suiting up in the parking lot we decided to head up to the power lines. The weather today was perfect, sun and cloud and in the low teens kept us from getting too hot. At the p-lines I decided to add our choice of trails for the day to the "wheel of trails" mounted to the stump. We started off the ride on Crazy Carpenter once more. The builders had done some very nice work to the logride on upper Carpenter and the traction wasnt even an issue on the wet logs. The new tire had definitely helped with added traction.

(Me versus the ugly climb up the power lines.)

(The wheel of trails!)

(I'm suited up and ready for downhill.)

(Jordan and his Norco ready to go.)

(I'm testing out the traction on the wet logs on upper Crazy Carpenter.)

(The traction was fine, better keep coasting though.)

(Jordan on some of the well built bridges on Crazy Carpenter.)

Jordan and I cut out of Carpenter early to hike up to Blood Donor. We met up with three other riders and a border collie out for a ride aswell. We cruised down the berms and smooth upper section of Blood Donor and decided to spend some time taking some pics on the log/ bridge section midway down the trail. We continued down the trail and eventually parted ways with the other riders and dog as we continued on to Giant Killer.

(Jordan cruisin the log/ bridge sections on Blood Donor.)

Jordan and I spent some time trying to conquer the long log section on the upper part of the trail. I managed to clean the whole thing first shot then kept falling off when I tried it again. Jordan gave the log ride a shot and got a ways down before slipping off, just another thing to conquer in the future. I have not ridden this trail in a while and there were some major changes: new slats on the teeter totter platform and the lower logride section was taken out completely! The lower logride section was one of the obstacles that this trail was known for. All for the best I guess since it was rotting away and previous wind fall had landed on it. Not wanting to risk re-injuring an already injured thumb and wrist I decided to play it safe and bypass the final drop and gap jump since I have a Judo tournament next weekend.


We popped out of the trail into the warm sun on the road above the clear cut and dropped back into Hoots. I introduced Jordan to a nice big rockface to try out. The rock always has great traction even in the wet weather. We hit a couple jumps on our way down and cut back up the road again to finish off the ride on Shotgun. Shotgun was in great condition and we rode it fast.

(Jordan at the top of the rockface on Hoots.)

(Jordan carfully picking his line down the rockface as opposed to picking his face on the rockline.)

Other than losing my balance slightly off a drop on Carpenter and skidding into a tree, the Kenda Nevegal performed flawlessly on this typical wet fall trail conditions. It was only 3 o'clock and it was warm and sunny out, I wish I had time to go hit up another mountain but the old stomach was empty, so until another weekend for part III or the Tour de Fraser Valley.

Tour de Fraser Valley Part I (Oct. 11, 2008)

Okay so Mike D and I decided to plan out a Tour de Fraser Valley , by mountain biking on a different mountain or a atleast a different set of trails each weekend as Mike and other buddies of mine have not expereienced riding on many of the other mountains in our area. So it was planned, this Saturday, the 11th of October at 10 am we were to meet at the Woodlot in Maple Ridge, stop number one on the Tour. The innaugural ride was to consist of myself, Mike D and Derek H (from the ol work place), and Jason C (biking buddy who had not been out riding in forever), and Jordan K and Cory S (two newbies stoked to go check out some new trails).

(Map is courtesy of http://www.gutsploder.com/)

Come Saturday morning it was only Jason, Jordan and I at the Woodlot parking lot. As they say, "you snooze, you lose", and the three of us started of the tour on an absolutely perfect riding day. The weather had been dry for a few days and the trail conditions were mint, the roots and logs were dry and there was traction to spare.

We trekked up the logging road to the power lines and armoured up for the descent down Crazy Carpenter, We made out way down the log rides and bridges back down to the main road again and hiked back up a little ways and dropped into Tsuga which is a sweet flowing trail with a couple big rock faces and some beautiful bridgework over some formerly boggy sections. We linked up Tsuga with Snakes 'n Ladders. At one point Jason was chasing me down as we trained a long elevated ladder bridge and log ride section. After Snakes 'n Ladders we hiked back up the road a little more to finish off the ride with Heckle Jeckle. Again the wood was perfectly dry and I was able to ride out the elevated platform to log ride section with is normally quite treacherous with a minimal amount of moisture. We cruised along the huge sweeping berms on our way back to the lower logging road. We cut in to Shotgun halfway and boogied back to the parking lot. Wow, a lot of trails packed into just a few hours, cant wait for part 2 of the Tour.

Operation East Canyon Part III (Sept. 27, 2008)

This time around I brought along Mike , a buddy from work, who was keen on tagging along on the adventure that was operation East Canyon Cleanup. It was a perfect day out, the weather was beautiful, and we cruised along the first 5 km to the single track portion of the trail. The leaves and bushes were still very damp from the overnight rains in the mountains and we were soon soaking wet from the overgrown portions of the trail. Luckily the weather was nice and warm and we managed to dry off eventually. We pushed on for quite a ways moving logs and fallen trees that we could until we got to a large area that was covered with wind fallen trees, some of which were 4 foot diameter firs. This was past the 10 km mark and we decided to leave to leave the bkes behind and hike the trail to the supposed creek crossing at the 11 km mark.

After walking from fallen log to fallen log ,suspended many feet above the forest floor, we managed to cross the jungle of fallen logs and continue along the trail. Eventually we got to the "11 km" creek crossing although we believe the distance to be a very conservative 11 km. It was warm and sunny out and the water of Gold Creek was perfectly clear and was very inviting but decided against crossing the creek and to save it for another day.

After the amount of trees we had to move and the countless others we didnt and couldnt move at the time, we deemed that it would be necessary to come back another time without bikes and dedicate our time solely to clearing the trail. Along our now long and exhausting ride back to the parking lot, a conversation about starting a mountain biking tour of the Fraser Valley would be fun. To go out and ride a new Mountain or an entirely different set of trails each weekend. And so starts another continuing biking adventure.

Operation East Canyon Part II (Sept. 13, 2008)

Well, I managed to cleanup the East Canyon Trail pretty good all the way up to the 8 km mark last ride. This time I managed to continue my trail cleanup to about the 10 km range. There are however still several large logs past the 8 km mark that will have be power-sawed but I took care of the rest. During my toils of sawing and moving fallen logs I happened across a salamander under one rotten log I moved, I had been trying to find one during a summer camp trip at Rolley Lake to no avail and now when I find one when I have no one around.

After bush-wacking for a bit at the 9.5 km mark I got back onto the main trail again and was able to ride for a little while before I had to dismount and break out the saw again for three large trees that had fallen across the trail. I had been out in the woods now for 4+ hours and hadn't seen a single person or animal and was just dragging a cut tree off the trail when I turn around to see a golden retriever looking at me curiously. I dropped the tree and the dog ran off barking. Now coming down the trail were four women who had been up the trail camping ( one of them being the owner of the dog). They applauded me for my trail work and said that they had been up as far as the 11km where they had camped. I asked them how far the trail went and if they knew where it led to. At last my questions had been answered. They gave me a map of the trail and told me the trail led to Hector Ferguson Lake and it was a 14km trip to the lake. I thanked them for the map and they went on their way.

I decided to ditch my bike after cutting and moving one of the large trees and to hike up the trail and see how it looked. The trail up ahead looked promising but also needed a lot of work. I decided to leave it for another and got on the ol Devinci and headed back along the 10 km of trail to the parking lot.