Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Rolling in the Deep

Like an amoeba, the bike gang multiplied on Sunday. We had nine eager folks, all dudes except for me, loading the 9:40am ferry over to the Sunshine Coast. Riding from the terminal up an impossibly long hill, we finally arrived at Sprockids forest to enjoy the flowy trails that had recently been ridden by participants in the BC Bike Race.

Despite the weather forecast saying temps wouldn't break into the double digits on Sunday, Mother Nature proved us wrong and we climbed forever through a muggy 20C forest.

I hauled my camera for all 40kms of riding but wrangling a group of 9 for photos is kind of like herding cats. Here are some b-roll shots of what I did get:











And one for good luck, my man Ryan took this one of me!

Monday, July 4, 2011

Good Decisions

GPS is the best thing to happen to mankind since sliced bread. Seriously, without GPS, yesterday my bike gang and I would have either a) died in the mountains or b) turned around and missed out on a fantastic bike ride.

We didn't have GPS of course. It was the hapless or helpful pair of geniuses who decided to ride Tenquille early season as well... thankfully earlier than us, otherwise we wouldn't have had any tracks to follow in the insane amounts of snow we hike-a-biked through.

Not gonna lie, by the time I post-holed to my thigh for the third time I was pretty done. Really, really ready to call it a day and call a helicopter right out of that godforsaken forest.

Within all this lies the importance of a bike gang. Gangs take care of their own, and in our case, makes sure our own eats even when we think we don't need to. It was pouring rain down on us the entire time we hiked through snow, which was about 2 miles of the toughest traversing of my life. I can barely move today.

In 7 hours of travel, only 2 was spent actually biking. The rest was spent slogging through snow, over creeks, and around tree wells. Tree wells in July! Seriously!

Anyway, here are some photos of the mayhem... I love my bike gang.