Nelson, British Columbia
rilor:
in: All Mountain/Enduro
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The plan for day four was to participate in 'Lumpy's Epic,' a memorial race for a legendary rider, Geoff Leidel. The morning dawned about as misty and damp as it gets, and the socked in, rainy drizzle spelled winter in bold words. The Fitzsimmons chairlift hung empty, dead in the fog. The craziness of summertime Whistler was long gone. However, there is much, much more to Whistler's mountain bike prospects than just the bike park. We hit up a local joint for coffee and bagels, and ran into hot shit freerider Mike Hopkins, who was just about to drive to Vancouver to hop a plane to the Redbull Rampage. We wished him the best, and piled into the truck, headed to the Stonebridge Development just outside of town. Climbing up the Flank Trail, the rain tinkled down and the pebbly surface and occasional wet root slowed us to a crawl. The steep climb took it's toll, but we grinned and laughed our way upwards. The knowledge that we were signed up for an XC race entailing roughly 3,000 vertical feet of climbing, which started in a few hours, was scoffed at as a thing of the future, not to be worried about. Reaching the top, the sky was a gray pea soup and the rain a constant. We dove into Korova Milk Bar and Rockwork Orange, two trails that totally blew my mind. I was really impressed with the gnarl-factor, and as usual, Dre ground the trail to bits with his hard hitting riding style. Connor showed us his rock solid bike handling skills, negotiating tough terrain with a fifty pound camera pack on his back.