Back To Basics
3 Jun 2013
Morgie and I have been doing everything we can to squeeze in a few rides mid week, mostly when we should both be at work. I gotta say I cannot wait for the park to be open until 8pm. June 15th can’t come soon enough.
Yesterday we had some buddies in town and we decided to hit the park. BJ and Jeff are both not bad riders, BJ is a pretty keen BMX rider so he was stoked to hit the flow trails, and Jeff had ridden the trails on the Shore so he was keen to ride the technical trails. Bikes were rented, extra armor was dusted off, and the boys were ready to rock.
Riding up the lift, you can see the Joyride crew starting to rebuild the Boneyard. It’s just roughed in but it is a complete revamp of last year and it looks sick already. It will be awesome to see the big guys rip it up at Crankworx, but if that’s all you see on your first upload it is easy to feel outclassed and anxious.
We started off pretty easy just so the guys could get the feel for the park. Laps were had on B-Line, Devil’s Club, Heart of Darkness, Ninja Cougar, and Crank It Up. It felt really good to kill it on the blue trails rather than be in full survival mode on the harder trails, and our buddies loved it. It really shows that there is something for anyone to ride in the Whistler Bike Park.
We got seven laps in and then decided we would grab some food. It was a really quiet day, just barley raining, Monday mid day, almost like we had the place to ourselves. So we decided to check out lower A-line just so they could have a peak at what some of the harder stuff looks like. Sure a lot of jumps were cased but they did fine and were blown away by the terrain.
We were sitting just above GLC and ready to head for our last lap down Crank It Up. Morgie and I blasted off over the bridge to GLC drop. We headed left and went for little GLC drop. I got to the bottom and looked over my shoulder for the other two guys. Keep in mind this is their first day in the park and the very first time hitting GLC drop. Jeff has just come down the bypass and BJ is just about to tee up the drop. All of a sudden a look of sheer terror came up on his face, brakes locked up but he knew he is too late to stop before the drop. At the last second he released and tried to commit to the drop. He was moving way too slow and has way to much weight on his front tire at this point, but it’s all too late because he’s in the air already. BJ has dropped about four feet and his front tire taps a rock with about three more feet to the landing; it’s looking bad for BJ. Even the GLC patrons have gone quiet to watch this one. Somehow, amazingly, unbelievably, he rides out and saves himself from going head over the handlebars. The cheers, whistles and clapping from those who saw, break the silence.
Lesson learned from the day: Always look before you huck.
- Ben
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