Astro Boy goes East - the Adventures of Astro Boy

On a Friday afternoon in August, three guys carried through on plans for a long overdue adventure. Chris H, Steve "mo-magic" and I loaded the Astro Boy(C-Team's Astro Van) with bikes and gear. We headed east away from the media darlings(and our backyards) of the Shore and Whistler. We wanted to explore the lesser known but equally worthy riding spots of BC's southern interior.
During our week we found what we were seeking. There was no one single highlight - just consistently great trails, good people and incredible views. 2005 is another great year to be a mountain biker in BC.

The province has no shortage of great riding. Each mountain resort we visited was vying for the attention of the thrill seeking mountain biker. Good trails, challenging terrain, friendly staff. Every community we went to could have provided us with a weeks worth of riding(that is just to do a ride through of the trails, let alone the time required to wire them). The challenge was choosing what trails to ride.

Highlights included...
-Silver Star's Blast Off. The people behind this trail should be at the head of BC's Ministry of BERMS. My favourite Vernonites Sam B and Chris showed us the goods at the Star.


-Sunpeaks has speed, Oh and Sugar too!


-The Kamloops Bike Park had the best jump trail of the trip. It also has some great natural wall rides.
-Golden's Mount 7(Redbull Psychosis) is worthy of the hype(and I rode down from the 5km mark). Shout outs to friends French Matt and DR. Mark.


-Kicking Horse is steep. It also had some of the most incredible views on the trip.


-Fernie on a map is a heck of a distance away from Vancouver. Even if Panorama and Kimberly weren't on the way it would still be worthy of the effort. Unfortuneately due to time and a diversity of wills we collectively choose not to stop at Pano. or Kimberly. We did pay Fernie a visit. The mountain and town of Fernie are willing photo subjects. The people are cool and the riding scene is tightknit. I got to do a local race when I was there and the after-party was super friendly-all of the participants hung around for a drink.
-Rossland's Oasis represents everything good about interior riding-techie alpine, fast old single track challenging low consequence stunts.


-Finally Kelowna's Powers Creek was the premier stunt trail of the trip.
No other trail we rode had such a great range of stunts. Too much fun!

I could go on and on. If you haven't done so already, I hope you're inspired to gather your friends and strike out to create your own adventures. As I've already written its a great time to be a Mountain Biker in BC.


Jason Bond is a member of the C-Team.
The C-Team is supported by CANNONDALE, MAGURA, BEASTGEAR, BSP, RYDERS EYEWEAR, and PINKBIKE.COM

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