Mountain Biking in Whistler BC

My friend Colin Michael invited me to come to Whistler, BC for 3 days of downhill mountain biking.  What a blast!

Here’s me at the top, the bikes we rented are Specialized Demo 8 downhill bikes – what an amazing machine.  I don’t think I’ll ever buy one, they cost over $5k and would be a bear to ride uphill, but nothing could be better for the big jumps and drops at Whistler.

Here’s an iPhone video of Colin hitting the practice jumps, I wish we had video of some of the real jumps and drops, but it’s hard to get – other than these practice jumps you’re not allowed to ride or hike back up a trail to do something over – it’s too dangerous for you and the other riders coming through.

Here’s a couple pictures we took with my real camera – (I’m lifting them straight off Colin’s blog). It was a little crazy riding with a several pound and several thousand dollar camera flopping around – and it got so muddy I had to clean every crevice of it with a toothbrush when I got home….  But it was worth it.

Colin riding up the Gondola – it was a lot warmer and drier way to get to the top than taking the chairlift.

Me taking a drop at the bottom of the run.  Colin then had to follow me with the camera – he was a little worried about breaking it – or landing on it and breaking ribs..

On some of these jumps I think he was getting 6 or 7 feet of air – I was a little more conservative, but not much…. yeehaw!!

Body armour -  very important – the crash that broke Colin’s kneepad would have been a huge injury without the pad.

I can’t thank Colin enough for inviting me – that was a blast!

~Bill