Epictember Vol. Three

Some of you might remember the original epictember? Last year I ended up riding for 35 days in a row in September and early October, I decided I needed to get in shape again this year. Fast forward four years and I have a ''new'' bike now, my old Bullit bit the dust after over five years of hard riding. Santa Cruz hooked me up with a nomad frame at a decent price, just in time for my first Moab trip at the end of 2012. I love my bike so much that my good old trail bike started collecting dust so I sold it hoping to get a new downhill bike. No dropper post, no 11 speed, no carbon parts (other than the stock link), just 32 pounds of pure fun. Started by putting two new tires (Magic Mary's) on my bike, more on that later.


Back to Epictember! I can't think of a better way to start this crazy adventure: a road trip with about 30 of my best riding buddies, destination: Christana Lake. First day a few of us headed to Rossland to ride the infamous 7 summits trail, it's still August but it feels really cold in the alpine already. Huckleberries are absolutely everywhere so we stop a lot along the way.


Back to the lake after a long day on the bike to meet all our friends for dinner and beers around the fire. Tonight for dinner I made poutine for everyone with the help of a few friends, it was a huge success.

Second day at the lake and we piled as many bikes as we can in our shuttle trucks to go ride the freshly built ''Dave Swetland memorial trail''. Many of the old school riders probably remember him from the early Kranked movies. We kept going with a few laps of the classic freeride trails on the other side of the lake and finish with a double dewdney which is almost 20km of singletrack with nearly 5000' of vertical descending. Many thanks to Wendy and Peter at Parklane Resort, if you ever happen to be in Christina Lake I highly recommend staying at their campground. They will be able to give you precise directions for all the trails in the area and if you ask nicely, Peter might even drive your shuttle truck back down for you.


Seth sending it on a 150 year old trail

Next few days are spent riding near my home in Kelowna, usually one hour or two after work. Then came the weekend and I was itching to ride something new, my good friend Jason suggested he'd show us around this new trail in Penticton and it did not suck. G-spot (it does really exist) to six stitches with a loop on the silver buck trail. After the ride we were thirsty and hungry so we decided to check out this new brewpub called Bad tattoo brewery for some delicious pizza and craft beer.


During Sunday morning I went for a solo ride at Kalamalka lake provincial park to check out their new climbing trail, way better than the steep double track that was previously used as the only way up to the trails. Afterwards I met a few friends for a rock climbing afternoon at nearby Cougar Canyon then finished the day with a dip in the lake with a cold beer on the beach, gotta take advantage of the last few days of summer. Again weekdays are spent on local trails but come Friday I started having mechanical problems, first a loose rock totally destroyed my XT dérailleur and the next day I got a flat on my totally worn out two week old Schwalbe Magic Mary. I made sure I fixed every issue on my bike because the ride the next day is as epic as it gets. Sunday was the birthday ride of three of my friends and we had big plans, 7500' descent accessed via helicopter.

Ultimate shuttle vehicle

Waiting for the bikes

Then off we go

Best ride this year

Enough said

All high on life from yesterdays ride I go back to work for another five long days. Tuesday night I went on a group ride at Rose valley, on the way down a fast section of trail we heard a big rattlesnake that sounded really mad, thankfully no one got bitten.

Rose valley

On the fourth weekend, I hit the road for a day trip in Salmon Arm to ride the wicked trails at Rubberhead with a few friends. Mike's truck broke down, alternator died but at least we had already done a few laps so we called a tow truck and we headed to the brewpub for a meal and a couple of beers while we waited for my roommate to come to our rescue.


Already the last week of September and I had no plans as to what I'm going to ride but I'm not worried at all because there's so much more I haven't ridden yet. I can feel the cardio is much better than when I started this crazy project a few weeks prior. Since this Epictember is slowly coming to an end I decided to mix things up a bit more. Checking out a new trail on Knox mountain built by the city of Kelowna, night riding at Smith Creek, an odd loop at Myra-Bellevue Provincial park then some ''secret trails'' in Joe rich area. The weekend finally came, we decided to go explore some alpine trails in the area, we had a bit of a late start so we rode fast but still ended up riding in the dark with the magicshine lights on our helmets.



After 40 km in high alpine, I decided to take it easy and went for an easy hour long solo ride. I drove to Penticton in the afternoon for rock climbing at the world famous Skaha Bluffs and to finish this epic month of September, a live concert with Dropkick Murphys. After a few more local rides I ended up riding for 34 days in a row. Cheers my friends, it's beer o'clock

---

Mentions: @punkaddic

---

Posted In:
Stories Reader Stories