Mountain Biking in Whistler

Mountain Biking in Whistler Day 1

So, we stopped along our traverse of British Columbia in a small mountain town called Revelstoke hoping to find an outdoor enthusiast community like Boulder, but were not impressed. The town was dead, and we figured it was more of a ski or winter time recreational area. Or maybe the biking was up closer to the ski area. So we decided to continue on eager to get to Whistler for the legendary mountain biking.
We picked up a map from a local mountain bike guide shop and drove out to the trailhead. The ride was called “A River Runs Through It” on the map it was marked black diamond with double black diamond sections throughout. Of course Andy chose probably the most difficult trail on the map. It turns out that a black diamond marking in Canada (Whistler) is quite a bit more challenging than a black diamond marking in Colorado. We also started out riding the trail in the wrong direction. So as you can imagine, when we hit the double black diamond section which had many features including bridges and planks only 12inches wide and 6 plus feet off the ground…I was freaked. With this being our first official encounter with such features, we needed a little practice.
In the end, Andy figured out the right direction to ride the trail, and kept practicing, I rode back to the car and took Payton for a trail run, equip with my camera. I got some great action shots of Andy riding the bridges.

Mountain Biking in Whistler Day 2
Shortly after our intense zip line tour, we got changed into our biking gear, and headed out on some trails near the base of the ski mountain. This time we had a more detailed map, and did some research before riding. We asked around at a couple of the local bike shops and got the unanimous, “Ride the trails at the base of the mountain” report, and decided to check it out. I was planning on only checking out the blue or intermediate trails today and was still met with some challenging features. Andy was now an expert, but waited for me and encouraged me to try some of the smaller bridges that weren’t as high off the ground. After some time practicing I began to feel comfortable. We rode through a spaghetti plate of intersecting single track, which included, burmed turns, rollers, bridges, and planks. There were a number of challenging uphills and downhills. We rode for a couple of hours and then took some time practicing some of the features that they had in a mini practice park. All in all today was a much better ride than yesterday for me.