Chilcotin September 2008 Day 1 - Little Paradise - Manson - Tyoax - September 4, 2008 Words by Lee Lau. Photos by, Sharon Bader and Rob McLachlan unless otherwise noted. (Hyperlinks in the titles lead to the full story with large pictures)

Useful links:

• Trail Ventures Map
• Spruce Lake Wilderness Adventures
• Tyax Air
• Our trip planning page
• Link to search for various trips I have done in this area (Taseko - Lorna - Spruce - Tyax - Shulaps areas)
• BC Parks Spruce Lake Protected Area page
• Chilcotin Wilderness Society
• Bridge River community page
• For some of you who don’t know what the South Chilcotins mountain biking experience is all about read about Lee’s Chilcotin Wanderings:

The Southern Chilcotin has been getting some play in the mtb media. A segment in The Collective showing riders ripping along velvety singletrack had adrenaline racing and many people saying “Where is that? And how do I get there?” I’ve had the good fortune of knowing the Chilcotin from the days of rigid forks, long stems and cantilever brakes - having embarked on my first expedition there some 12 years ago.

Mountain-bikers are latecomers to this area. While I’ve documented many trips to the Chilcotin with photos and words on my private site (and left just as many trips unrecorded), I’ve always felt protective about the area. Call it elitism, call it secret-trail-society syndrome, the southern Chilcotin has always been my little slice of paradise shared only with a few other adventurous souls interested in venturing off the beaten path.

Things change, the word gets out and as the sport of mountain-biking has grown in popularity the number of people who are interested in venturing away from the safe confines of the Lower Mainland around Vancouver have increased. Resources like the first decent map of the area, and guided tours have made some trails “crowded”. Having said that, crowded is a relative term. I now see other people on the Gun Creek grasslands milk-run where I never used to see other tracks. Fortunately it really isn’t that hard to ride for hours and not see another person if you take the time to explore.

The area where most people bike, hike and ride horses is known as the Southern Chilcotin-Spruce Lake Wilderness Area, designated as such by the British Columbia government in 2001 after almost 70 years of lobbying by environmental and preservation groups. A step of protection below provincial park designation, a wilderness area permits mechanized and self-propelled transport but prohibits resource exploitation (ie mining and logging).

Our bikes wait patiently at the hitching posts then get loaded in the horse truck for transportation 30km down the road to the end of the non 4×4 part of the Relay Creek FSR

Introduction

Rocky Mountain Bicycles (RMB) will be resurrecting a venerable name from history when they release the Altitude in 2009. A marked departure from the racing-light steel hardtails that formerly bore the name Altitude, this new Altitude is described as a trail bike that keeps its wheels on the ground for “epic cross country”.

RMB provided me with a prototype Altitude aluminium 50 frame for review. The Altitude is slated to replace the ETS-X in the category which RMB calls XC Marathon and what other manufacturers loosely refer to as “all-mountain”. It will be produced in an aluminium version and in a (lighter, higher-end spec and more expensive) carbon version. As the Altitude is further refined to a production frame with a production spec, some details of this review may be redundant (I’ll highlight those details further in the review) so I urge the readers to also check the RMB website which should be considered to be authoritative.

I’ll note at the outset that I am reviewing the frame and NOT the components. My bike was built with a heavier-then-stock package for riding the Downieville downhill course. Although it is difficult to separate the bike from its parts, I will do my level best to confine my remarks to the performance of the frame. Because there is currently a paucity of information about the Altitude, I will be excerpting from a RMB presentation about this bike in lieu of my standard practise of directing readers to a website. I’ll then present my general impressions about this frame’s performance.

Whistler Alpine

South Chilcotin ~ photo Mark Rowe