Hayward Lake Loop (Jan. 24, 2009)

I decided to tryout the Hayward Lake trail once again, hopefully without any difficulties from snow. I have never ridden around Hayward Lake before, which is around 17 km round trip. My plan was to start at the Railroad trail parking lot on the west side of the Ruskin Dam at around 10:30am and make my way around the lake. Unfortunately Friday night I discovered that I had a blown seal on my rear brake caliper and it had spewed fluid all over my rotor and brake pads. Of course none of the bike shops in Maple Ridge were open until 10am so my plan for an early start was shot. By the time I had replaced the seal and re-bled my brake it was noon.

Just like last week I had to be somewhere for dinner that night which meant I had to keep a solid pace. I had just bought a Schwinn bicycle computer from Canadian tire for 25 bucks, it is a pretty decent one too for the money, so now I can keep track of my progress. I gave myself three hours to complete the 17km of trail, I figured I could handle an average speed of 6 km/h. At this pace I decided I would stop every kilometer and take a picture of my ride instead of writing about it. So here goes.

1km: The remains of the old railway bridge sticking out of the frozen lake. My computer also has a thermometer which read a balmy 0'C.

2km: following a packed down path on the snowy trail takes some serious concentration.

3km: A nice view of the lake with the odd dead tree protruding. You can see frost covering the trees on the other side of the lake.

4km: Some more of the old railway.

5km: No more path to follow, but luckily the snow here is extremely crusty and actually holds the weight of me and Bicyclese. This was actually a lot faster riding on top of the snow than following someone's footstep.

6km: I got under the shelter of the trees here but unfortunately the path was now covered with patches of ice.

7km: The bridge crossing the river between the Stave dam and Hayward Lake.

8km: A view of Stave Lake from the Stave dam.

I had to throw in this pic because I am probly 60-70 feet above the ground riding on this grate material. My wife would hate this part.

9km: A little bit of drainage work.

10km: A nice bridge over a creek, infortunately there were many areas of this side of the dam that I could not ride due to the ice, but I manage to negotiate most of it.

11km: Another nice bridge, it would appear that I was exhaling during this picture.

12km: this would be my last shot before my camera batteries died.

I managed crank out the last five and a half km back to my warm awaiting car where Amanda was waiting to pick me up. The computer, and rear brake worked flawlessly and besides the ice it was a great ride. I am looking forward to trying this again with less snow and ice and hopefully get some pics of the waterfalls and the floating bridge that crosses a section of the lake.

Trans Canada Trail take one. (Jan. 18, 2009)

Canada Place: the TCT starting point.

Well I finally made my first attempt at riding the Trans Canand Trail (TCT). I figured since the snow was still plentiful on the mountains that I would give the tct a try since the weather was so beautiful.

The floatplanes.

My plan was to swap out my big freeride tires for a couple 2.1" xc tires. Prepping ol Bicyclese for this adventure was more complicated than I thought it would be. I decided to remove my dirty bike wheels from my bike and bring them into the house to thaw out to ease the tire swapping procedure. I litterally took the blow-dryer to my wheels to soften up the rubber in order to get the tires off. Once I had taken the big meats off the rims I put the 2.1" WTB Velociraptor and Tioga Psycho on and pumped them up to 40 psi thanks to the air compressor at the nearest gas station (the deep Mag30 rims make using a hand pump very awkward). Now with the wheels remounted, it was now time to bring the bike inside the house for some more power thawing. My rear derailer pulleys and my front derailer were frozen solid from one of my previous night rides.

A lighthouse at Stanley Park.

Bicyclese is all tuned up, I am all geared up and pedaling my way to the Port Haney train station to catch the West Coast Express bus to Waterfront station downtown. The bus arrived and didnt have a bike rack so I had to stow it away in the luggage hold underneath the bus. My bike route was to follow the sea wall around Stanley Park, into Granville Island, past Science World and along back roads and paved pathways through Vancouver until I meet up with the Burnaby section of the TCT. The Burnaby section would consist of trails on Burnaby Mountain and paved pathway through Port Moody until Coquitlam. Coquitlam would consist of trails through many parks, including Coquitlam River park and Minnekhada and the dikes along Pitt river. The last leg of the journey would include a long looping jaunt along the dikes in Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge before cutting through parks along pathways making it's way toward Kanaka Creek and the Albion Ferry terminal. I would finish my ride by cutting off just before Kanaka and pedaling up the hill to my home. A projected 79km trip overall.

Lions Gate bridge peeking above the fog.

After a lengthy bus ride I arrived at Waterfront close to 12pm. The air was cold but the sun was bright and off I pedaled towards the seawall. I began by zigging around some people who were filming for something, at this time I saw my first TCT sign and followed some people around a construction detour and down three long sets of stairs and out onto the seawall by the float planes, which were firing up. Soon I ended up in the fog and the cruz ships were blaring their fog horn "OOOH CAAA-NA-DAAAAAAAAA!" I was crusin along trying keep a solid pace. I was giving my self 5 hours to get home in time to meet up with Amanda at my parents for dinner, which meant that I need to keep up a pace of atleast 16km/h. Eventually a construction on the seawall detoured my up a switch backed trail to the lookout of Lions Gate bridge, which was just peeking out above the fog.

Bicyclese and Science World.

I stopped for a sandwich and some water at the lookout as well as removing a tshirt since it was getting warmer. I put my long sleeve jersey and Goretex jacket back on and carried on, this time along the road through Stanley park before cutting off on a gravel path and blasting down the hill past other cyclists and those out walking their dogs. Cutting across the grass I plunked overe a little retaining wall and back onto the seawall. The view now was nothing but fog as I made my way along English Bay before ascending the pavement to the Burrard Streeet bridge. Crossing this bridge brought back memories of watching Chris Holmes riding his unicycle along the concrete sides of the bridge in the North Shore Extreme movies. The fog was now behind me and I was pedaling out under the sun onwards to Granville Island. I have been making pretty good time so far. I soon rode past Science World and was now riding through Chinatown. I ended up riding through quiet residential neighborhoods in central Vancouver.

Burnaby trail?

I had been pedaling for quite some time through the neighborhoods until I fanally got to actual dirt trail. " Alright, I'm now on the Burnaby section" I said to myself. I was soon climbing some good grades and then actually climbed up some really steep sections on crusty snow. This must be the big climb up Burnaby Mountain, I thought. Eventually I came out of the forest and onto East Hastings near Willingdon! I just finished the Vancouver section. The last section of trail was four inches of slushy snow and a real chore to even ride at all let alone at a pace of 16km/h. I rode up to the base of Burnaby Mountain and realised my lack of energy and time. This was not going to happen. I would be lucky to make it to Pitt Meadows by cutting out Burnaby Mtn and the entire dikes section in Poco and PM. I chose to take the Barnet Hwy and take the paved paths through Port Moody.

The crusty snow climb (traction wasnt bad)

Of course I forgot to realise the the north side of Burnaby Mtn hasnt seen sunlight in two months and it was literally freezing. I was only shorts, a thin jersey and a my gortex jacket. Luckily I brought my Goretex over-mitts which I wore over top of my full finger bike gloves. The salt from the road was splattering all over my face and sunglasses. My legs would have been burning from the effort I was exerting just to get through this long ugly stretch of highway, but the cold was numbing my legs and I didn't notice the burning. I ended up calling my wife from a pay phone in Port Moody to come and pick me up at a Burger King in Coquitlam near the late Black Dog Bikes. I waited for an hour at BK pounding back hot chocolate to try make my shivering stop. And there she was, my little knight in shining Pontiac, there to save me. I shoved my faithful steed into the back of the Vibe and we drove off into the east, in time for dinner with my parents.

BBBB (January 10, 2009)

Since my last tour de Fraser valley posting I managed to sneak in a few short early winter rides up at the Woodlot before all the snow hit. Then came December. BAM! Four feet of snow, relentlessly falling for a week, mixed with a long stretch of sub-zero temperatures. The initial snowfalls wouldnt have been a problem, in fact it would have been ideal for some awsome snowbiking, however it was the roads which made getting to any mountains near impossible.

Cory finally coming to a rest after a long run through the slush.

Finally the snow stopped, and the rains came. This is where we begin the first bike adventure of the year. JordanK coined this particular ride the quad "b" or B.B.B.B. which stands for breakfast, beer, biking, beer. The day began with JordanK and I driving out to CoryS's place for breakfast and beer. After a lovely morning meal we loaded the Kantola Van up with bikes and headed out to the Railroad trail at near the Ruskin dam in Mission.

Jordan overlooking the snow-covered Hayward Lake.

It was raining out and the snow was still fairly deep and slushy. I have to say, the riding conditions were quite terrible. There was a packed down path in the middle of the trail that was very slick. The problem was staying on this slippery packed down part of the trail because if you started to slide to eaither side you would get stuck in the deep slush. After the first initially trying section we came to a nice viewpoint of the lake where the trail wasnt so snowy. We continued on along the trail cutting in and out of the forest and back out near the lake. After some time we decided it was best to start heading back before we had left ourselves with too long of a trudge and too little daylight. We decided that a wooden bridge along the shore of the lake under the shelter of a huge fir was as best a place as any for the last "b".

Mountain bike rockstars: Bicyclese Mark II, Bigfoot, & Hoss.

With brews uncapped, we had time to reflect on the awsome creations that we have the luxury to call our playground. Unfortunately the cold beers didnt make our cold wet carcasses any warmer so it was back to work grunting through the snow. Of course on our way back to the van it started to snow again. We made quick work getting back to van and firing up the heat. And thus ends the first adventure of 2009 and the first BBBB. I am looking forward to riding the full Hayward lake trail when the snow melts.

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.

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.

Operation: "East Canyon" Part I (Sept. 6, 2008)

Well, it has been a long time since I have posted anything on my bike blog. I have been on many a great bike adventure since my last posting, including an entire summer of riding in Kamloops. My new bike-related goal is to ressurect the East Canyon trail in Golden Ears park (which is already open to mountain bikers) in a more mountain bike friendly trail and eliminate the need for any hike-a-biking.

I began this quest back in the fall of 2007 when I went out for a cross country ride on Menzie's trail (also in Golden Ears park) which is an 8 or 9 km trail from Mike Lake to Gold Creek. However I spent a large portion of my ride dragging branches and fallen trees off the trail, which was apparently too daunting a task for hikers which are content to just walk around it all! The following weekend I returned to Menzie's trail armed with a plain old handsaw and went to work on some 8" diameter fallen cedars that were much too big for me to drag off the trail. After a couple weeks I had managed to single handedly clear away all the large branches and trees that had fallen due to wind storms that fall.

I decide to continue my trail cleanup on East Canyon trail which continues on from Gold Creek parking lot and follows Gold Creek itsef up the valley. I havent been able to get a firm answer yet on the total length of this trail but one source claims it is 15 km one way. I had heard from another source that it is over 20km! I guess there is only one way to find out.

Now armed with a new collapsable saw shoved into my camelbak I headed up the trail from Gold Creek. The main gravel road was in perfect condition for the 5 km until the actual trail starts at Viewpoint beach. From the beach I headed into the denser forrest where I began clearing away big rotton logs lying across the trail and any fallen trees under 10" in diameter. Some sections of the trail were really overgrown and will need to be cut back, I will wait until late fall to due that when there are less leaves. I managed to make it to the 8km mark before the fallen trees were well over 12" in diameter and will need to be powersawed, (I'll have to talk with the park rangers about this). I continued riding and clearing the trail as I went for another kilometer until I got to 9 km beach. Here the trail was not much more than marking tape to follow as I left my bike to bush wack through the foliage until I found the continuing trail. And Wow, the rest of the trail looks like fun, now snaking its way through dark forest with no underbrush excpt the odd fern. I wanted to continue the exploration as this was the farthest I had ever been on this trail, nearly 9.5 km out, the farthest I had been before was only 8 km.

It was now 1:18pm and I had been riding now for 5 hours and I had to get back. It took me less than 2 hours to get back to the Gold Creek parking lot now that I had cleared the trail. There is still a lot of work to be done on this trail and I hope to keep it up and get other groups to help in this quest of building an epic biking trail here in Maple Ridge.

Longtime no Seymour (April 21, 2007)

Finally managed to hook up with another riding buddy: Cory "bag-a-cheese" Biagi, or just C-bag for short. Anyways it's been way too long since we rode together and it's been over a year since I've been riding at Seymour so finally I can journal about a ride somewhere other thatn the Woodlot. Of if we're going to Seymour we have to ride CBC, which we did, and the trail work was unreal. I didn't manage to get a picture of the rockwork on the upper portion of the trail but it was like riding a wave of paving stones! The bridgework aswell was second to non, which can be seen in the photos.

Myself flowing the bridgework on upper CBC

C-bag riding the roller coaster of bridgework on CBC aboard his Ryan Leach edition Norco Team Trials.

C-bag and I managed to flow the whole trail without coming across another rider, which is very unusual for CBC. Cory even managed to clean the skinny zig-zag section ( I wish I took more pictures). We continued on down the mountain and made our way to Boogieman which had just recently been worked on by NSMBA and cleaned up from the fallen trees of the winter wind storms. I havent ridden Boogieman in years and it was cool to ride it again and be scared of the same sections again. We came across Kim Steed and a friend of his riding some huge rockfaces and the end of Boogieman. I'll admit I was scared of those rock faces and chose the ride around route, which was not easy but less daunting. Finally we continued on down ol' Baden Powel back towards the parking lot. On the way to the parking lot we came across some people filming an add or something on the trail for what looked to be Sleeman's. There were two girls dressed up as german barmaids hodling bottles of Sleeman's. Talk about the perfect ending to an epic ride on the shore right? Well, they didn't actually give us beer but it was a pretty funny sight (again, why didn't I take a picture?!). Now what's missing from this latest installment of Jason's ride journal? Snow! Well wouldn't you know it once we got back to the top parking lot to get my car it was starting to snow. The end.

Old bike new owner. (Mar. 31, 2007)

The last ride of March. Uncle Jim was out here from Nelson and has newly aquired the Big Red Sled Norco Team DH from my dad. This will be Uncle Jim's innaugural full suspension ride. The ride consisted of myself, my dad and uncle Jim. We met at the Woodlot, of course, and decided to head up to Tsuga.

Uncle Jim and his new freeride machine.

L-R: Me, Dadman(he's not a midget he's hunched over), Unkie Jim

Tsuga in the gloomy rainforest.

Uncle Jim making the turn.

Uncle Jim at the bottom of the turn and approaching the bridge.

Uncle Jim riding the bridge.

Dadman hitting the turn with speed

A wider shot of Tsuga and all its mossy-ness with dad and Jimbo in the background.

Me riding the ugly lower rockface on Tsuga. The photographer forgot the flash on this one.

After riding Tsuga we follwed it up with Snakes N Ladders we didn't get any pictures though. Snakes was in awsome condition and we flew down it and finished off the ride with Shotgun.

Uncle Jim poppin up the front wheel on Shotgun




My dad gettin both wheels in the air

Me airing out the same section on Shotgun from another angle

Birthday ride 2007! (Mar. 17, 2007)

A few years back my uncle and I have started a tradition of the Birthday bike ride. Since my birthday and my uncle Jim's are only a couple days apart. In the past all the cousins would come down to Maple Ridge from Kamloops and or Nelson to ride the Woodlot. This particular year Jordan, Justin, and Jared had to work and couldn't make it down. But unkie Jim and Jesse were joined by myself and my dad for a ride. My little Manda unfortunately did not come out this time. :(

Jesse gearing up for the climb up the mountain

The four of us decided to head up to Tsuga. It had been pouring rain the day before and the forest was wet and foggy. Jesse (my youngest cousin) has been improving a lot and it was cool to see him conquer new things on the trail. We got to Tsuga and armored up for the descent. I led the chase down the trail so I could stop and take some pics. The trail was well packed down and not muddy or greasy at all (by my standards). My old man rode down the big rock face again unfortunately the fog made picture taking difficult with a flash and the pics would blur without it!

Unkie Jim cruisin over the longest cedar bridge on Tsuga

Jesse crusin over the same bridge, this time the fog was in the way.

Jesse again, this time I didn't use the flash. You can see some of the rock work and another bridge in the background.

The Brentman riding down the first rock face on Tsuga, the fog returned again for this shot.

After Tsuga we continued on with Snakes N Ladders. The Jesster rode the entire log ride/ladder bridge section for the first time! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture. There was a bunch of new construction done on Snakes, including a new bridge on top of the ol log ride that required you to hop off the side and some rock work around the big rock face and an entirely new bridge that eliminates riding through the goopy mud just before the steep ride-down.


Finally we finished off in classic fashion by racing down Shotgun. I led the pack with Jesse right behind me, who later was passed by my dad, and followed by uncle Jim. No wipe outs, and only minor mechanical problems made for another classic Birthday ride.