The QnR report - The Good life, Pura Vida 2005!

As a Canadian, biking in January usually involves rain, snow and brutally cold temperatures. This translates to short rides, minimum vertical and lots of clothes to keep warm. This year I said no to the cold and headed South, way south. Imagine riding in 30C weather in the middle of January in Costa Rica! How about 6000 vertical feet in one run! How about not having to worry about any accommodations, food, logistics or even what trail you are riding. "Life is pretty good when all there is to do that day is ride your bike" - Wade Simmons, Pura Vida Costa Rica 2005.
I caught wind of this trip in early November through an ad Chris Winter @ Big Mountain Adventures posted on Nsmb. If you’re not familiar with Chris or his company, see one of many articles featured on his website www.ridebig.com or else check out the Swiss Alps feature in the film Half Way to Nowhere (www.mtbfilms.com). Chris has been running tours too Whistler British Columbia, the Swiss Alps & Morocco for the past 2 seasons. For upcoming years he’s adding Costa Rica to the already impressive line-up of places to ride.


I, like most adventurous individuals on this planet, am always in search of those “once in a life-time experiences”. Foreign countries, new terrain, great people, diverse culture, epic conditions; you know the dream DH trip; well this trip was just that! When I first spoke with Chris all I knew was we where heading to Costa Rica, and that the trails we were riding were similar to the ones featured in New World Disorder IV.

Upon arriving in Costa Rica I met up with our group in the airport which included Thomas Vanderham, Wade Simmons , Dave Watson, Gabe Fox from Covebikes, Cody Swansbourgh, Jeff Bartell, photographer Ian Hylands, my good friend Justin Bateman, Dave Kim and finally our Costa Rica connection Paulo Valle and his buddy’s Carlos and NeNe. Paulo is a former cross-country and downhill Costa Rican national champion, and these days spends most of his time riding, guiding clients and exploring/building new trails throughout his homeland.

First off I’m not going to bore you with the details of our accommodations throughout the trip, however pulling up to places with signs like these made us all realize that we were going to living the good life for the next couple of weeks.


The trip started out early the next morning with what we soon discovered was the typical and most frequent Costa Rican breakfast. “Gallo Pinto” or else Rice, beans and Eggs. We ate, we built our bikes, we suited up and off we went to ride a short shuttle trail near our first hotel. This trail was more oriented around warming up and allowing us to get comfortable with our bikes and work out the quirks of traveling. In the afternoon we drove across town to a dormant Volcano. This entailed shuttling the crew as high as we could and a short 30 minute walk just in time to drop into the trail and experience our first Costa Rican Sunset. WOW…what a trail, what a view!!! Imagine tight single-track engrossed with huge bermed corners, wall rides, rolling jumps and a few greasy spots in the high-speed areas to make things interesting. I think we all agreed that trail was one of the best any of us had ever ridden. When you here guys like Cody Swansbourgh say “That made Garbanzo feel like a rope-tow”, you know you’re onto something great!




The days following we traveled around San Jose to what seemed to be all of the highest peaks in the surrounding area. Each trail at some point transitioned through dried out creek beds that you can only ride in the summer time as the winter season in Costa Rica brings copious amounts of rain. Each trail brought VERY diverse conditions & terrain.; huge bermed corners, tight rocky chutes, jumps, gaps, steeps, roots, rocks, leaves, moss, dusty loose boulder fields, you name it, each trail had it. With the diverse features also came diverse conditions. Costa Rica as a country is one of the most diverse eco-systems in the world. The trails themselves follow the same pattern; on one given trail specifically, we dropped in @ 10,000+ feet above the clouds in the mist & rain, only to be greeted with a Sun soaked valley below and 30C temperatures. We all agreed there really isn’t any more we could ask for…this place has it all, a true DH paradise.


One of the greatest aspects of this entire trip was the logistics. Everything from getting picked up at the airport with the appropriate shuttling vehicles, staying in unreal accommodations, to riding literally right into the back yard of our next night’s accommodation. Paulo & Chris had everything set up perfectly…and the food…wow…the Costa Rican’s sure know how to cook up some mean eats!!!

So what do you do after you’ve been riding for the past 6 day’s straight averaging 10,000+ feet of vertical a day? Go to the Beach silly! On Day 8 of the trip we traded in our bikes for surf boards and headed west to a small surf community called Mal Pais. This was a nice change in pace for all of us, as there really is no such thing as a schedule when you go to the beach, other than low tide, high tide & maybe dinner time.


Surfing for me is a new sport I’ve always wanted to get into. I had the chance 3 to 4 years ago when I use to live in Los Angeles playing lacrosse and going to school, however due to time commitments and living on a student budget I never made it out. So, this was my first time attempting to get rad like Johnny Utah in Point Break. Ha Ha, bad joke. But at least our hotel on the beach was called just that, “Point Break”. It’s official though, surfing is the most difficult sport I’ve ever tried, but wow is it ever rewarding when you do stand-up and catch that one wave you’ve been waiting so patiently for. Throughout the course of the trip in the evenings we mixed things up with soccer, intense poker sessions, catching up on reading, enjoying the local nightlife and just plain chilling out. All of which are things I don’t endure much at home so it was a welcomed turn of events for me.


Costa Rica is a country filled with a very diverse amount of culture, fortunately for us we got a small glimmer of it’s cities, it’s small towns, the riding, the nightlife, the beach life, and the surfing culture all wrapped up into one need little package. So down the road if the opportunity ever arises to head to Costa Rica to ride…I’ve got one word for you “GO!”. It’s that simple!!

To make that opportunity come true…check www.ridebig.com and let Chris take you on his little idea of the perfect mountain bike adventure.

Pura Vida!!!

Thanks to Chris @ Big Mtn, and all the riders for making it the trip of a lifetime!!


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