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.