24/08/06
Home Sweet Home
Well, ya'll, I'm back in town. My holiday to Canada is over, so now it's back to the grind stone!! Ian, Carli and I had a sweet time in Canada and we all can't wait to go back again next year!!
There were 2 major cycling events during the holiday, riding in Fernie and riding in Whistler. By far the highlight of the trip was riding in Fernie, with the guys from Fernie Fat Tire Adventures. I've been on the FFTA tours for 3 years now and everytime i go i'm blown away by their tours. Their total professionalism, trail knowledge, care, skill, relaxness (if that's even a word), organisation and vibe is spot on!! What an amazing trip!!! They always turn on a sweet time and somehow manage to speak to someone about the weather!! The trails, and amount of riding we did was perfect. Standing at the bottom of most trails with Ian, and him saying (more than once) "Doug, that was the BEST freaking trail I have EVER ridden!!" was tooo priceless!!! He has offically got 2 loves in his live now (not sure if Carli is first or not!!). We rode with them for a week and for the whole week we didn't ride the same trail twice!!!
The second week we rode at Whistler, with a group called Ticket2Ride. We didn't know much about this tour group, we just knew that they operated out of Whistler. This tour was the disappointment of our Canada riding trip. The organisation and communication between the tour guides and the riders was shite. There trails were pretty average, with one day i reccon we hiker-biked about 70% of the day, not cool. For the week i reccon we rode 60% fire roads, 30% walking trails and 20% technical single track. All the guides were from Britain, live in Britain and have only come over for the summer. So, their aint locals and they have shite knowledge of the trails. Their skill level wasn't even that good. Anyway, I wouldn't reccemend that tour group to anyone. They suck. Riding Whistler park was good, however I'd get sick of it pretty quick. Ian had a massive stack on the last run, i think his bike is totalled, oh well, looks like a spiffy new Rock Mountain Slayer 70 is on the way for him!!!! Haha!!! One funny thing at Whistler i saw. We were all out in a bar one night and playing on a giant screen was the MTB movie ROAM. Then when i went to the dunny, above each urinal was a small tv screen with that same movie playing on it!!!! JOY!!!! THEN, surrounding each tv screen were pics of scattily clad women!!!! I was in heaven.......a heaven that smelt like...............piss!!!
One of the sweet bits around Whistler
Anyway, despite the disappointment of Ticket2Ride, Fernie made up for the whole thing. I'd deffinetly reccomend them to any MTBker out there. Maybe I'll organise a larger group to go next year!! Any takers???
Cheers
D