Big White, SiverStar, Sun Peaks. Where to live?

PB Forum :: Canada - West
Big White, SiverStar, Sun Peaks. Where to live?
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flag benlevy
Posted: Mar 6, 2021 at 12:37 Quote
So, long story short, my wife and I am looking at buying a house in the Okanagan.

A huge factor is proximity to a Ski / Bike mountain. We are not super aggressive. Let's just say intermediate.

For biking, we like more flow and smaller jump trails.

* quick edit * we are interested in downhill biking.

We have not been to any of these mountains. Actually, we are going to snowboard at Sun Peaks and SilverStar this week.

So, if anyone is familiar with these mountains, please let us know your thoughts. Feel free to comment on the Kamloops, Vernon, and Kelowna while you are at it. Also, thoughts on the winter side would be appreciated too. We both snowboard and like park type snowboarding.

Thanks in advance.
Ben
flag Poachninja
O+
Posted: Mar 6, 2021 at 18:37 Quote
If you aren’t aggressive, prefer flow and are basing your decision on the bike parks and not the trail systems outside the park, then Silver Star is a no brainer. Big White is growing fast but it isn’t really a fully fledged bike park yet, at least not of the scale of sun peaks and silver star. Big white also lacks the dirt for a good flow network. They put in an effort but it erodes quickly. Their aggressive rocky tech trails are amazing but that’s not what you’re looking for. Similarly, sun peaks has amazing steep, fall line tech like you’ll never find in any other bike park, but it lacks flow. They put in one top to bottom blue flow trail and re did another low down the mountain but then that’s it. The next level flow trail is pretty much a double black, with lots of mandatory gaps and such. Silver Star is mostly flow with decent progression. It has some quirks, like the signature black jump line Rock Star having some odd jump builds here and there, but it has a lot of selection, variety and good progression. Silver Star did have some COVID related issues with lift line crowding Last year but, hopefully, that gets sorted out this summer.

I’ve never skied at SP or BW but silver Star does have decent terrain parks.
flag DugS
O+
Posted: Mar 7, 2021 at 8:48 Quote
I agree with Poachninja, Silverstar fits the bill for flow & smaller jump line trails, where as Sun Peaks is more about steep tech.
flag Starsky686
O+
Posted: Mar 7, 2021 at 11:49 Quote
Poachninja wrote:
If you aren’t aggressive, prefer flow and are basing your decision on the bike parks and not the trail systems outside the park, then Silver Star is a no brainer. Big White is growing fast but it isn’t really a fully fledged bike park yet, at least not of the scale of sun peaks and silver star. Big white also lacks the dirt for a good flow network. They put in an effort but it erodes quickly. Their aggressive rocky tech trails are amazing but that’s not what you’re looking for. Similarly, sun peaks has amazing steep, fall line tech like you’ll never find in any other bike park, but it lacks flow. They put in one top to bottom blue flow trail and re did another low down the mountain but then that’s it. The next level flow trail is pretty much a double black, with lots of mandatory gaps and such. Silver Star is mostly flow with decent progression. It has some quirks, like the signature black jump line Rock Star having some odd jump builds here and there, but it has a lot of selection, variety and good progression. Silver Star did have some COVID related issues with lift line crowding Last year but, hopefully, that gets sorted out this summer.

I’ve never skied at SP or BW but silver Star does have decent terrain parks.

Adding to this and having lived in and had Ski passes at all three mountains during various points of my life. Kamloops has more/better off the ski mountain biking and way more terrain during the ski season. Vernon, however, has the beaches/proximity to the rest of the Okanagan when you're not riding or snowboarding. (I haven't ridden Bigwhite in the summer, nor much of the single track)

You really can't go wrong with either, so the house/job situation would be my decider.
flag Joeym92
O+
Posted: Mar 10, 2021 at 16:03 Quote
I personally haven't ridden all the bike parks but from what I understand silverstar might be the closest to what you're looking for in terms of riding trails. That being said you're definitely going to want to consider the difference in the cost of real estate throughout the Okanagan as it's a little all over the place. Kelowna as much as it's the crown jewel of the valley is wayyyy more expensive than Vernon or even Kamloops.
flag p0zi
O+
Posted: Mar 16, 2021 at 21:32 Quote
You can’t really go wrong with any to be honest.

The thing that I think Vernon wins over them all though is proximity. SS is 20 min from town and the trails jn the area are decent with no terrible traffic. More importantly you are central to all the other regions including the really good one, Revelstoke which is 90 minutes away. There is a pretty incredible bike community here and it’s a very outdoorsy town.

Big white is a bit of a drive and really small in options. Good riding in the general area. More traffic though.

I live in Vernon so am biased but I did live in Kelowna and Vancouver in a prior life. First thing I noticed in Vernon was how half the cars in town have a bike rack or tailgate pads.
flag cmcrawfo
Posted: Mar 16, 2021 at 23:11 Quote
Vernon Sucks, dont come here.

But..if you are looking for a real-estate agent, I know a guy.
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