Coastal Escape: Ditching Spring Snow For the Sunshine Coast

Coast Gravity Park, the Sunshine Coast. For mountain bikers in the Pacific North West, these names—and the casual plans to go there—are about as common as arguing over bike lanes and deciding which farmers market to go to. For the rest of us though, that area can seem like a magical, far-off land that you’d have to catch a ride on a fairy, err, ferry, to get to. What’s Coast Gravity Park like for mere mortals who don’t do superman seat grabs in their warmup run? Once the shuttle trucks are parked for the night, where can you eat/drink/sleep? I’ve been meaning to answer these questions for myself for a while now, so when the latest dump of springtime snow hit my hometown, I knew it was time to pay a visit.

After a quick hour and a half flight, we were at Vancouver International Airport, where typically you'd have to figure out a way to get over to the ferry terminal and on to the Sunshine Coast. For this trip, though, we decided to take the easy (and fast) route with Harbour Air.

Harbour Air has a location right off the south YVR terminal, which is about as convenient as it gets for people wanting to get out to Coast Gravity ASAP.

We caught a ten-minute shuttle from our terminal over to Harbour Air and after that, it was literally a twenty-minute flight over to Sechelt. That’s less than two hours of total flight time to go from wading through snow to riding through lush, green forest. Crazy.




We wanted to pack light, so renting bikes was a must. Off The Edge Adventure Sports stocks rental bikes for whatever style of riding you want to do. Beth picked out her 160mm weapon of choice and I went with a full-on DH rig. They had pads, helmets and basically anything else you need. They even had a replacement lens for my goggles that I wasn’t able to find back home. Me like. Gary (co-owner of the shop with his wife, Lydia) gave us some background on the Sechelt area and how Coast Gravity Park came to be, which was a pretty interesting story. He also told us about the huge network of trails around Sechelt and the heli-drop service that’s about to unlock even more terrain, but you’ll hear more about that later this year.

Off The Edge Adventure Sports set us up with gear for the weekend. They're right in Sechelt and a relatively quick drive down the hill from Coast Gravity Park.

Enter: Coast Gravity Park


When you roll up to CGP, you understand instantly that this place is built purely for riding. There’s a parking area, an eating/hanging out area where you wait for the shuttle truck and a jump area, off to the side. The Starbucks’ and vacation shoppers of typical riding centres are nowhere to be seen. It’s a refreshing experience. Dotted throughout the park are decommissioned relics once used as features in some of the best slopestyle and freeride edits of the last few years.



I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that the riding was incredible. The placement of every roller, berm, jump and rock seems to have been meticulously thought through for maximum stoke no matter what speed you're going. I feel like I could have sessioned one trail all day and would still be finding new lines and transfers by the end of it, depending on how fast I wanted to go and how brave I was feeling. I think the biggest testament to a great trail centre is when it gives the rider confidence to push their skills forward, which is exactly what we found at CGP.





After a full day of riding, we went to go check in at Rockwater Secret Cove Resort.


A winding network of boardwalks takes you to your "tent".





There were plenty of restaurants to choose from in the area. We went with The Gumboot for the first night. The food was tasty and there were options for everyone, like this house-made veggie burger.

The burger is in there somewhere.


The next day, Beth stayed back to relax at the resort so I rode solo on day two. Like I mentioned before, the quality and depth of the trails at Coast Gravity is immense, so it was cool to hit some of the same trails at higher speeds now that I was warmed up from yesterday. I also rode a few others that I had my eye on the day before.

Handjob. That's the name of this trail.

Chef John Montgomery was serving up stellar food all day.


#MOSSCAP

Beth was doing okay back at Rockwater.

After two glorious days of riding and relaxing on the Sunshine Coast, it was time to enjoy the last night, pack up and head home. We got word from some friends that while we were on the coast, it had snowed another half a foot where we live...

So we made this video and article to show riders how accessible and amazing it is to ride and stay on the Sunshine Coast. Going in we truly didn't know what to expect from the area, but we were blown away by the hospitality, the options for post-biking food/drinks/accommodations and of course the riding. It's a no-brainer that mountain biking the Sunshine Coast is a must, but I don't think many people know that you can come here literally any time of the year for snow-free riding (most of the time, anyways). We're planning our next trip out for January 2018. Considering we're talking about a Canadian destination, a mid-winter bike trip with no snow and no exchange rate to worry about (or an awesome exchange rate if you're from south of the border) sounds like the stuff of dreams. And it is.


Heading back to YVR

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