Introduction:

I am an XC rider. I’ll do small jumps and logs but mostly I like to stay on the ground. But I also enjoy the variety of cycling. I’ll ride an all-mountain bike, singlespeed, 29er, cross bike, road bike and I’ll always have a big grin on my face.

I haven’t really delved too much into downhill. About 5-10 years ago, I tried Mammoth, Northstar, Squaw resorts and was just not impressed. It just seemed too fast, dusty and rocky with only the upside of not having to pedal up.

Fast forward a few years and I keep hearing about this place in British Columbia called Whistler Bike Park. Folks started calling it the ‘mecca’ or an ‘awesome place to learn’. Still, I discounted it as just a place for downhillers and dirt jumpers.

Then I saw the Whistler segments in the DVD’s ‘Roam’ and ‘Seasons.’ “Wow, Now we’re talking!” I thought that singletrack actually looked pretty special.

The Trip:

By pure luck, my extended family decided to have a group vacation in Whistler. Who was I to object? If biking happened, bonus. If not, no problem.

Whistler is two and half hours north of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. The road is narrow and slow-going as they are trying to widen the single-lane highway before they host the 2010 Winter Olympics. Whistler features a stunning village/downtown area which is about a quarter-mile long with shops, restaurants, groceries and four Starbucks coffee shops. Some of the finest hotels are represented here and the architecture of each building complements the rest.

There’s a kids activity park with zip lines, luge carts and fun attractions. Also, the Village hosts at least a dozen adventures like ATV rides, rafting, guided hikes, etc.

The Biking:

It becomes obvious however that the king of all summer activities here is mountain biking. There’s about 10 bike shops in the village that sell and rent a huge selection of bikes and gear.

Outside the Village, there is a paved bike trail that goes for miles and loops around a few lakes in the area. Nearby, there is a fascinating trail system called Lost Lake. It features smooth fire roads as well as manicured singletrack topped with crushed gravel. And intertwined with all these trails in Lost Lake is an intermediate/advanced trail system called the Zappa trails. These trails feature rocks and roots and elevated wooden structures that is sure to challenge and thrill any rider.

There are also a ton of trails around the area. Trails like ‘Cut yer Bars’, ‘A river runs through it’ and others give the Whistler rider a lot of options.

In the Whistler Village, there is an indoor bike jump park with a foam pit for those super cushy landings. There is also a bmx style jump park on a flat area near the river.

Riding with the family:

I have two small kids and a big family and we had zero bikes and gear. Problem? Not at Whistler. There’s a lot of riding for any level of rider. Eight of us stormed a bike shop at 4pm and we were fully equipped with bikes, trailer-bikes, helmets within thirty minutes. We did the Lost Lake system and the kids had the time of their lives. We did this twice riding from the Village and finished off both rides at Lost Lake which sports a beach/picnic area.

When we had beginners in the group, like my 70-year old dad, we stuck to the village paved trail and were treated to incredible views at Alta Lake.

With a more experienced group, we did the Zappa trails at Lost Lake. These trails are a series of short, technical and absolutely fun trails all connected together. Each section is named after a song by the great Frank Zappa. I was introduced to elevated wooden ramps here. All the ramps are low, consistent in width and very solid in build. Plus the cedar wood used seemed to have great traction.

The Whistler Bike Park

I met with Rob McSkimming, VP of Business Development at Whistler and here are some of the things I learned about the bike park:

• The Whistler Bike Park has been in existence now for 10 years.
• It is open for about 150 days a year from mid-May to October 15.
• There are about 25-30 people maintaining and building trails with 4 excavating machines at their disposal.
• The Bike Park sells about 100,000 visitor day tickets a year. For comparison, they get about 2.2 million skiing visit days a year.
• The average bike visitor does about 8 lift runs a day. This delivers about 10,000 feet of vertical descent.
• The two lifts available are the Fitzimmons lift which goes up 1200 feet and above it is the Garbanzo lift which goes up 2200 feet.
• Kids as young as 7-8 years old normally ride the Bike Park downhill trails.
• The park’s famous runs are: A-line trail, Crank it Up, Freight Train and Original Sin

The costs:

• An all-day lift ticket costs $49/day or $115/3 days (all rates are in Canadian dollars)
• The official park bike, the Kona Garbanzo bike rents for $100/day
• Full pads and full-face helmet is $45/day
• There are many other bike options available around the village at about $50/day

Rob asked me if I had time to ride and I gladly obliged. I rode two whole days, one with Rob and the bike park manager, Brian Finestone. I rode the Kona Garbanzo bike with flat pedals and put on the full-face helmet and arm and leg armor. I gotta at least look the part right?

We started out on ‘Green - easiest’ trails and worked our way up. What I experienced after that was a real eye-opener. The bottom line is, Whistler is about the perfect product experience. The product is the trail and everybody here is passionate about building and maintaining the perfect trails.

Aside from being blessed with soft, tacky soil with natural granite features, the crew has spent thousands of hours building the best trails. There’s four levels of trails (green, blue, black and double-black) and each trail is consistent from top to bottom in terms of difficulty. It seems like every drop is labeled and steeper sections are labeled as well to give the rider time to prepare and make the right choices.

And of course there are the jumps. Whistler has jumps and they are all well-built table tops. In addition, the launch points of each jump is labeled each side by small orange flags. All these jumps can be rolled or launched.

And then there’s the berms. Have you ever gone through a corner without touching the brakes? Well at the Whistler ‘excavated’ trails, it is certainly doable. The berms are perfect and are usually 4-8 feet high. These berms whip you around corners and get you ready to launch the series of jumps coming up on the ‘Crank it Up’ trail.
Learning by Repetition

“It’s about learning by repetition here” says Rob McSkimming. Instead of having a couple of opportunities to learn how to take a couple of jumps at your local trail, how about a couple hundred opportunities to do jumps in a single day at Whistler. The ability to do a technical and well-constructed trail over and over, in a time and energy efficient manner is almost guaranteed to make you a better descender.

Also, Whistler features graduated stunts on many areas of the park. An example is a wooden drop that comes in four sizes side by side, from small to extra-large. This allows the riders to start with what they’re comfortable with and work their way up.

Finally, there’s specified ‘Skills Areas’ where there are stunts and features specifically built for teaching the rider how to tackle new obstacles and learn new skills.

A Revelation

I started day one on Green trails with my first time on a downhill bike and my first time ever on flat pedals. It was a foreign animal even on the easiest trails of the park. But with perfect conditions and extremely well-built trails, I gained confidence quickly. Rob was very astute as he always guaged my comfort level always took me up to the next level at every opportunity.

He took me to the excavated, carved-out jump and bermed ‘Crank it Up’ and ‘B-line’ trails. Then he showed me the tight, perfect singletrack of ‘Karate Monkey’. We then flowed down the wooden ramp trails of ‘Devils Club’. I was having the time of my life and I was learning!

At first I had difficulty with my flat pedals as I felt like I was separating from my pedals as I pulled up on the handlebars to jump. Brian Finestone said “Don’t pull up. Just preload the bars and pedals on the jump then release when your front wheel hits the lip of the jump.” What great advice! The bike came up to meet me and I stayed on the pedals. He asked me to work on my timing too and that made a big difference with the direction of the bike in mid-air. So by the end of the day, I was jumping comfortably and hitting the backside of some jumps.

We went up the Garbanzo lift and experienced the big elevation of trails like Freight Train and Duffman. All the way down, the descent lasted forever as we went down 3400 feet in elevation back to the bottom.

Day Two and beyond

On day two, I did half a dozen runs on Crank it up, a run on Freight Train, Angry Pirate, A-line. Then I saw some mtbr friends and they took me down the double-black level Schleyer trail. It was daunting but doable!

I came out smiling, unscratched, with so much more confidence and a much better feel for the bike. All this in two days? I wondered how much I could learn if I had more time.

It was such an enlightening feeling since I’ve been riding for fifteen years and haven’t really improved my descending and jumping abilities in the last five years. And I thought this place wasn’t for my style of riding! The truth is descending is for every style of riding and it is what us mountain bikers enjoy the most.

But what if you’re already a great downhiller? Does Whistler still deliver? Does it pose enough challenges and still promote learning? Heck yes. We’ll let these photos speak for themselves.

I’ve been home now and riding my local trails and I’m a different rider taking new lines. I’ve taken a few of the difficult log drops for the first time ever and scary descents just seem tamer now. And more important, I feel safer and have a bigger smile on my face.

I’ve taken a piece of Whistler home with me and that is a good thing. One thing for sure though, I want more and I will be back.

So how would I rate Whistler? Well for value at $50 a day, it is 5-star. The lifts and the dozens of trails are clearly worth much, much more. It’s all the other amenities that can get expensive at Whistler.

For overall rating, it is again 5-star and beyond. How can you knock something that has no equal? Whistler exceeds all expectations and it gets better year after year.

Am I still an XC rider? I think so. I’m a better XC rider now. And I can dream of the days when I can once again flow and fly through the trails of Whistler.

Value Rating:

5 out of 5 Stars

Overall Rating:

5 out of 5 Stars

For more info: http://www.whistlerbike.com/index.htm