The straight goods on Kicking Horse Bike Park, straight from the trail crew's fingertips.New wall ride on Superberm to replace the holey, duffy, pseudo-dirt berm cut into a manufactured ski run.
Showdown The big news at the end of July at Kicking Horse is the start of the much-anticipated reworking of Showdown. There were some unfortunate mistakes made in the original construction, but it is so difficult to get a machine back into that zone that we only recently dared try it. Machine time is very limited, so not all the magic will be done this year, but the worst offending section is being completely rerouted to reduce the angle so it is more of a flowazilla and less of a brakealooza.
Lars Kuhle showing Showdown he's down with what's what.
The start of the new reroute on Showdown. Hard to believe I know, but there is dirt in the area.
Here's where the rocks ended up after shaking them out of the dirt.
Training Wheels The old Training Wheels was a rutted out old animal trail with the personality of an overripe cucumber. So Aaron Enns spearheaded a complete rerouting to create a meandering trail in the sub-alpine. The old trail took about 10 seconds to ride. Now it is about 6 times that.
The old, straight trail is under that bridge.
The connector to Training Wheels and Dirt Devil had become a bit of a swiss cheese sponge. If it was an old teddy bear, our dirt would be the new stuffing.
Northern LightsThis high-speed alpine zinger opened a couple of weeks ago after a strenuous effort to recreate half the trail after it washed down the hill at the end of winter.
Recovering Northern Lights after a spring of abuse.
Rock Garden opened last week to light the entire run board green (if we had an electronic run board). While traipsing through the nearby alpine on an exploratory mission, we stumbled upon the Great Drink Container Dying Grounds. Their remains were scattered throughout the trees. It was sobering.
Remains of weak winter brains.
Easy RiderAfter a year of talking about it, we got on with rerouting another section of Easy Rider as part of the greenification of our green runs. It is rough at the moment, but we want to see how it rides in then we'll go back to it.
School MarmThe section on the left of this image is Nasty School Mistress. Punishing and ugly. So now there is a detour with an optional short practice rock slab at the end.
The route on the left just plain sucks. The new one on the right doesn't.
Western Open is running next week. If you are the racing kind and like to race on very demanding singletrack, you should come to this. Other than that, summer is here (hope that's not just wishful thinking), come for a ride.
Crank Card gets you a deal on ticket prices.
Here's a video to summarize all those words above for people who prefer not to read:
Some may decry this photo as staged. But I ask you this, what is 'staged'? Does it mean using art to visually create a situation that doesn't exist in its own right, on a stage? Well, I don't see any stages in this photo.
Ride on.
Crowe
Kicking Horse Bike ParkIf I was a pirate, these would be parrots.
KHMR, still a personal favorite for me.
And that new trail cut into the mountain looked pretty dope, (pic #3)
That would be a great life to live and have..