Norquay12

But you go right on talking down BC (or anywhere else for that matter)...because that will leave all these rich trails for us to share with others that can appreciate them. By the way, love the skiing in Park City and the Little Cottonwood Canyon and can’t wait to get back to the Rampage sites. Truly some of the great trails that all of us have to privilege to ride. Oh and one more thing, most of the areas I’ve mentioned have grown organically (and continue to be), mostly in our Crown Land area; No permits, no legal actions, just continuous development. The only areas that become a problem are the National Parks (even then there are literally hundreds of kilometers of bike trails throughout Banff/Jasper/Yoho to name a few), a little bit in the provincial parks and private land. Then at a critical point some type of trail association has been created, for the voluntary further development of the areas and maintenance of the trails (almost all through a huge volunteering base). So please continue to ride big, ride strong and enjoy everybody.

We’re also short of vertical up here; whistler ~5,400 ft, kicking horse ~4,000 ft, Nelson area ~6,000 ft, and Revelstoke mountain ~10,000+ ft (can’t remember the exact vertical here). So all in all, our mountain bike trails could use for a little more height. The city trails suck too. I mean Vancouver has all those pathetic trails over 3 mountains on the North Shore (Cypress, Frome and Seymour) and Kamloops only has the Bike farm and their “few” trails throughout the city boundaries. Overall the biking is pretty awful, not close to anything, sucks on vertical, the variety is horrible and not very technical at all. What I’ve loved about the mountain biking community has been the love for sport and the surrounding natural trails they enjoy (and promote), the patience people have to help those less skilled to get better and stay excited about do it, the promotion of safety and the respect for the land use. Most of what is said in Pikebike has been gracious, polite, excited and just generally upbeat comments regarding anything to do with mountain biking (although, I won’t bring up the tire size issues people are still having, lol). People seem to understand that it’s not where you’re from but the fact that we mountain bike and make the most of and enjoy the trails where we live, and promote the adventure of mountain biking. I’ve been lucky enough to have been a number of places such as (if you couldn’t tell) throughout southern BC, Alberta, Ontario, Washington State, Utah, a little in Cali, the UK and a few days in the French Alps. I live in Calgary, Alberta and really enjoy the trails in our mountains (Kananaskis). The trails, only 45 min away, number in the thousand plus kilometers and join quite a few of our small towns (Exshaw, Seebe, Deadmans Flats, Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, etc...) all the way to Calgary.

First I’ve got to say this...really awesome shots of the trails up in the Park City area. Even with our long winter this year, it is still cool to see the snow shots. I really don’t do this very much, but I couldn’t help react to the comments made. You see, you are right; BC is falling behind because thoses “few” major ski resorts that have mountain biking trails have been doing such a poor job in developing bike park, such as; Whistler, Kicking Horse, Panorama, Fernie, Kimberley, Silver Star, Revelstoke, Sun Peaks, Red Mountain, (sorry on not mentioning the numerous smaller resorts). Besides these resorts, BC’s small numbers of areas only have several thousand square kilometers (and hundreds of trails in just the Nelson and Fernie area alone). Here are some of the “small” number of areas of back country; Whistler (wow...just realized this came up twice in the count), Pemberton, Squamish, Coastal Mountain Bike park, Sunshine Coast, Cumberland, Campbell River, Mount Washington, Nanaimo, Duncan, Comox Valley, Cumberland Valley, Nelson, Weimer/Christina Lake, Revelstoke, Fernie, Cranbrook, Lake Okanagan, Fraser Valley, Kaslo/Retallack/New Denver, Williams Lake, North Shore (Vancouver), Kamloops (including the Bike Farm), all the small towns up and down the Fraser River from Hope to Prince George, the Columbia Valley area connecting 8 small towns and Castlegar. Again, sorry for all of those I’ve missed (including all of central and northern BC).