Tour de Fraser Valley Part VI (Nov. 16 & 23, 2008)

The day after a lengthy ride out in Golden Ears Park I decided at the last minute to squeeze in an afternoon ride since the sun had been out all day and it was just too nice out to pass up. After a quick stop at a shop out in Coquitlam to pick up some inner tubes Jordan and I headed up to Burke Mountain in Port Coquitlam for the next leg of the bike tour.

The gravel road and surrounding parking area near the Burke-Pinecone Provincial Park gate was packed with cars with empty bike racks, apparently others had the same idea. We saddled up our bikes and geared down for the steep gruelling climb up the access road. We pushed ahead at quick pace and an hour later we were at the trail head to Upper Vic's. Vic, for those who don't know, is a man of 70 years who constructed many of the early trails on Burke and used the natural terrain and the surrounding materials and features to create these extremely challenging technical and steep trails.

Jordan and I decided to cut down the mountian on upper and lower Vic's, two of the most technical trails. The dirt offered great traction which is a good thing since the roots were very slick and the terrain was very steep. We managed to conquer upper Vic's and the daylight was fading fast. Next trail: Lower Vic's. This trail isnt as steep but offers some cool rock features to ride and near the end of the trail we follow a fast tight and twisty and narrow line along the edge of a roaring creek: a real rush. The last hoorah, is a narly rooty drop off out into the open and onto an access road. The light was fading to much for another trail so we ended up just booting down the access road to the car. It was a fun ride but it required another ride the following weekend to really appreciate that which is Burke Mountain.

The following week, the riders are assembled. For the second part of this stop on the tour we have myself, Jordan, my dad abourd his Norco Shore, and Mike D on his Specialized P. It is another beautiful day and the four of us head up that same "beautiful" climb up the mountain. The plan for the day is to ride the classic Triple Crown, although we will be subtracting the last crown due to development on the mountain. We grunt up the road to Vic's where we take a left which levels off and we pedal away through the coastal rainforest to the trail head. After amoring up I lead the charge down a muddy upper section. Mike finds a tricky line to try riding down the side of a rock where he apparantly lost his balance and ejected last minute. I gave it a try and barely pulled it out thanks to abundant front wheel travel. The rest of the trail is loaded with root drops to pop some air off on the way down and handfuls of tricky off-camber turns to keep you on your toes.

Myself, Mike and my Dad waited under the power lines for Jordan who had apparently crashed hard somewhere behind us and bruised his hip good but kept pushing on ahead and was ready for more. The next trail was steeper than the first had some good built up rocks to launch off of and we cruised down to the lower access road this time accident free. Triple Crown was over pretty quick so we cut up to the Garbage Trail to end off the ride. The ol Garbage Trail is a great, flowy fun trail with some old school root and rock drops to flat landings as well as a couple small dirt jumps thrown in. Mike and I ended up chasing each other down the final section and off a decent sized rock drop before popping out in the p-lot right at our vehicles.

Tour de Fraser Valley Part V (Nov. 15, 2008)

For this leg of the tour I decided to mix things up a little and throw in some "all-mountain" type of riding. The destination: Golden Ears Park in Maple Ridge. The riders: myself, Jordan K, Cory S, and Derek H.

We met at the big ol' goat sign then at the entrance to the provincial park then headed to Mike Lake where we dropped off all our gear and one vehicle, then Derek and I drove our vehicles down to Gold Creek to drop off his Ford Ranger as the recovery vehicle. After making the trip back to Mike Lake from Gold creek, we were ready to start the adventure. Cory and Jordan heard from a couple other riders that the forest access road was closed due to some construction which meant we had to make our way up the dreaded Incline trail. The Incline trail, as opposed to the gradual sloped meandering forest access road, is a steep straight line trail right up the side of the mountain. Although the trail is much shorter than the road it requires a lot more exertion and often times isnt any faster because you have to take more breaks. Somehow we perservered and powered our way up the trail in one of the fastest times I can remember ever climbing the Incline.

After a short pow-wow at the top of the Incline we checked our gearing and brakes and dropped into the Eric Dunning trail. Derek's pristine Devinci Magma had only seen a few rides and the brake rotors looked untouched, that will soon change. The four of us booted down the through the switch-backs and jumped any root or rock we came across. As I came to the end of the trail I jumped the log drop at the end and waited at the roadside for the others. Cory wasn't far behind me and he too jumped the log drop. Cory had been on my tail the whole way down Eric Dunning. Not far behind Cory was Derek whose brakes were squealing away as they were breaking-in. We waited a few minutes before Jordan came down the trail walking his bike with a flat rear tire. Time for a trailside lesson in bike repair.

After using up an entire patch kit on both my spare tube, which had hole in it, and Jordan's tube, which had a double snakebite, we were back on our way again. Now we were coasting down a short stretch of the Mike Lake road towards Menzie's trail. The seat posts were raised and the gears were dropped and Derek led the charge up the trail towards the waterfall. I soon ran out of gas after the first steep section and was overtaken by Cory and eventually by Jordan and was left grinding away to keep up with them. The four of us reconvened at the falls to catch our breaths and check out some ancient wooden pipes from back in the logging days. Derek then started off pedaling through the creek and I followed but ended aiming straight for the deeper section and completely soaked my feet. Very cold. A few minutes later we were at the peak of the trail overlooking Alouette Lake and the clouded-shrouded Blue Mountain across the way.

After some food, it was time at for the 7km of gradual downhill towards Gold creek. We steamed ahead, jumping roots, and pedaling through the countless puddles along the way. This section of Menzies is a long green corridor running throught the forest parallel to the main road throught the park, with the odd abrupt creek crossing and rooty section to keep things interesting. After crossing the road and back again, the trail made a short climb up to a branch of Gold creek where, oddly enough, the were three guys with their dog just standing around drinking beer. They quoted "drinking in the forest beats drinking in the city". I suppose. Anyways, we ended up ripping up the last part of the ride which was fast and flowy and ended with a sandy swithback on to the park road right beside Derek's truck. Derek then suprised us with a cold post ride beer each. Wouldnt you know it, those three guys and their dog were right, it was way better out in the forest.

Completely soaked and entirely muddy we loaded up the Ranger and headed back to Mike Lake and our waiting vehicles and so ends another epic instalment of the Tour.

Tour de Fraser Valley part IV (Nov. 8, 2008)

(Fraser Valley )

( Some GPS map of the trail.)

The ol bike blog may get confusing this time because I was riding with two Jordans. Usual suspect Jordan K along for this part of the bike tour along with my Kamloopian cousin Jordan O (yet another hardtail hero). The forecast called for intensely rainy and crappy biking conditions, which will not be the norm for the next several months, so I decided that we should ride somewhere that has always seemed to have good drainage. Destination: Bear Mountain in Mission.

Jordan K and I drove out to Whonnock to pick up Jordan O who was staying with our grandparents for the weekend. Apparently he forgot to bring biking attire, (ie shorts, bike jersey, etc.) and instead was borrowing a pair of grandpa's coveralls! I wish I had a camera for this this ride, he looked like a pit-crew member with coveralls and a fullface helmet on.

The initial plan was to try out the Arduum downhill course on Red Mountain, which none of us had ridden yet, then across the street to the Bear Mountain dh course. Seeing as how the trails would be extremely wet we decided to play it safe and to just ride Bear Mountain, which neither of the Jordans had ridden yet. Despite the negative weather forecast we lucked out again and had perfect weather, no rain and the sun even peeked out for a while.

The three of us hoofed our way up the hill while checking out the specific lines we were going to take on the way down. There had been a significant amount of work put into the course this past year and it looked even smoother than I had remembered. After a quick snack and armouring up at the top of the mountain we launched off the starting gate and tore into the course. I could hear yelling behind me as the Jordans both splashed through the same huge puddle that had just soaked me. We raced down through the brighter upper section just below the clear cut before making the hard left then flying down the exposed rock section that had become a series of water falls.

There was a short section of trail that was wide and level where we could pick up speed just in time to grab some brakes to maintain barely enough control down the steep rocky upper section that eventually ended with a nice banked right turn which prepared us for the sweet smooth high speed turns to come. We spent some time sessioning a beautifully berm laden section which culminated with a big tabletop jump. After we had our fill of that section we tore on down the course until we got to the rock drop where JordanO and I proceded to launch off of it. Jordan K opted to take the racer's line and shoot over the root drop in a narrow section adjacent to the rock drop. The final section left s with a lot of mud and some very sketchy wet leaves all over the trail which hid many a root. Exhilerated and entirely mud-soaked we rolled into the parking lot at the ol Mill Pond.

Surprising enough Jordan O's coveralls managed to actually shed a lot of the mud and was a lot cleaner thatn the rest of us, he may be on to something with that. Where will the next destination be?... Who knows, that is part of the adventure.

Tour de Fraser Valley part III (Nov.1, 2008)

(Old school Blue Mountain trail map)

This part of the tour we moved onto a new destination, although technically it is still the same mountain as the Woodlot. In this leg of the tour the biking crew consisted again of myself and Jordan K. I figure if we continue the bike tour in a westerly direction then the next destination would be Blue Mountain. We drove out to east Maple Ridge along Dewdney Trunk Road and turned up McNutt road until we got to a small parking area near the gate. The weather forecast had called for 15-20mm of rain so we had come prepared with jackets and garbage bags for our gear. Luckily for us we had another perfect riding day and it didnt rain on us at all and the trails were fairly dry. There were even the odd surprisingly warm breezes which were both nice and very unusual.

The plan was to ride out to a trail called The Chute. This particular ride was a favorite back in the days prior to the Woodlot. Active logging in recent years had required the main road up the mountain to be regraded which made for a much easier climb than in the past. We made our way up the mountain to the "parking lot" just above the power lines where the main connector road would take us west toward The Chute. The connector road unlike most mountains is an enjoyable part of the ride, there is no real change in elevation along this trail so we were able to keep riding along at a good pace and there were some technical rocky sections as well some nice exposed rock sections to try to master and then add in a few creek crossings for good measure.

Eventually we made it to the trail head of The Chute. We had noticed a lot of nice signs that clearly marked each trail. Looks like Blue Mountain Motorcycle Club put some good work into keeping the trail system alive. Jordan and I suited up at the trail head and ready for the descent. The Chute was just how I had remembered it: wide, and fast! We bombed down the trail and managed to pedal through the huge mud bogs along the way, one of them the famed "Colonel Sanders". I do not remember why we had named this particular mud pit that.

After negotiating our way through some rocky sections and across the remains of some old skid roads we came upon Upper Muzz. This trail was a sweet tight twisty single track that snaked its way through the forest until it came to a "t" in the trail. From here we could right on Muzz, which look really gnarly with rocks and fallen trees strewn about, or left on Lower Muzz which looked much more ridden and "maintained". We figured that Lower Muzz since it was designated "lower" would actually take us lower down the mountain, turns out it kept going uphill, so we turned around and took Muzz.

Muzz ended up being a decent trail and we took this for quite a ways until we found a smaller trail that would take out to the power lines again. Somewhere in the mix Jordan managed to crash on the trail and had his bike land right on him, other that being even muddier he was ok.

Once under the power we were left to figure out where exactly we were in relation to the way out of date map I had. After some hiking up and down the power lines we ended up taking an old logging road down the mountain that was very rocky in sections and included some nice slick rock sections to ride. After a few minutes of thudding our way down this rocky route we came upon a gem of a trail called Black Flies. Except for the occasional deep muddy rut, which is typical of the dirtbike trails of Blue Mountain, this trail was sweet. Black Flies ended up taking us most of the way back and it was a fun trail with some nice flowy twisty sections and several bridges built over creeks and fast wide turns hub deep with watery mud.

All good things must come to an end at some time and we ended up popping out on the lower logging just when a lady and her golden retriever were jogging by, startling both of them. After a quick chat with the woman and her golden dog, they jogged off out of site and we then set out in the same direction towards the waiting vehicle. Entirely muddy and entirely satisfied with ride we successfully completed part III of the Tour de Fraser Valley.