My first Norco ride (Feb. 23, 2007)

Last weekend it was sunny and warm out and it looked like winter had finally come to an end. But nature had its own plans, it has snowed the last couple days. I was off work early and so was my dad so we decided to go hit up the woodlot for a ride. It was a cloudy day with the odd sunny break and there was fresh snow on the trail. I came straight from Vancouver so I didn't have my bike with me so I had to borrow the old man's 2002 Norco Team DH, and he rode his 2005 Norco Shore 1. This will be my first time riding a Norco ( and one size too small at that).

We decided to head up to upper Toadstool and then hook up with B-line since there has been some new work done on B-line, then finish off the ride with Hoots then Shotgun. There was a nice dusting of snow on the forest access road on the way up.

Dad and his '05 Shore ready to descend Toadstool.

My loaner bike for the day : medium '02 Team DH.

Upper Toadstool had about 5mm of snow on it which left the roots a little slick but other than that the trail was in fine condition. Surprisingly the medium Norco didn't feel too small for me once I got the feel for it on the downhill. The suspension action of the Team DH felt much nicer than my Devinci Magma and pedalling performance was noticeably better on the Norco. The two of us cruised down to B-line. I hadn't ridden B-line for some time and the snow made it difficult to actually see where the trail lay whereas dadman just had to follow my tracks which meant I had to ride even faster to keep him off my tail. I managed to navigate the trail just fine up to the steep middle section which was slick and rooty with tight bend at the bottom. I managed to cruise down the steep and just narrowly avoided crashing in the tight turn at the bottom when I heard a loud crash behind me. My dad had had endoed just before the turn at the bottom and actually slid head first past the turn. End result: charlie horse and a broken visor.

My dad's new "batman" visor.

After a short crash recovery we kept on. I guess with the layer of snow on the trail we missed the new section of B-line. The original trail however is always a blast at the end.

The main line on Hoots was free of snow which made for some good speed through the clear cut. The VPS rode flawlessly over the rough and pedalled fast out of every turn. We exited Hoots and were too lazy to climb back up to the top of Shotgun so we just cut in at the bottom half. We decided not to race down to the parking lot this time but had some fun hittin' some of the obstacles an practicing some high speed turns.

Me puttin' some high speed into a turn on Shotgun.

Me exiting the turn in racing form.

Riding over the ol' rock.

Dadman showin' how it's done!

My first experience riding a Norco VPS was definitely a good one. Maybe one day I will try out a Norco in my size and really put it to the test either way there's no better way to spend a Friday afternoon than to go for a ride, and yet another snow ride at that.