2011 Rocky Mountain Slayer from Rocky Mountain Bicycles on Vimeo.

Mr. Daniel Barham and I have been working together on a couple of projects this year and images are starting to make it into print. This month’s issue of Singletrack UK has a nine page article loaded with Dan’s photos and my words from a 10-day trip to Peru. If you can get you hands on the mag consider checking it out. While you’re at it you may as well scope out Dan’s recently updated website and join his facebook page.

Double in Sept ’10 Bike Mag


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So 2010 has been a busy year with organizing a race, coaching and now into the race season.


April saw the second year of me organizing the West Coast Super D, sponsored by John Henry Bikes. The weather was great and just over 100 participants came out to enjoy the loamy singletrack of Belcarra BC. I changed up the course a bit this year to remove the nasty climb from last year’s course and add more singletrack. It seemed to work with everyone coming away with smiles and a tails for the bench racing that followed. This years men’s winning time was 9:08 put down by Chris Johnston and Katherine Short was the fastest woman with a time of 11:10.


April also saw me help coach the 12th year of Power Training with fellow coaches Ray Lachance and Rod Dagneau. Our club West Coast Racing holds fitness training programs year round and Power Training is the outdoor mountain bike component of our club programs. For 10 weeks we helped participants prepare for the coming season with a series of hill climbs and interval repeats. Some participants want to prepare for the big event of the season others just come to help there fitness to enjoy the upcoming summer rides. AS usual we ended the last week with a gathering at the local restaurant for some food and bevies.


April also saw the first BC Cup downhill of the year for me. The Kamloops bike park has always had a nice track to start the season and this year there were quite a few changes in store for us. More jumps, berms and technical sections than ever before. First BC Cup saw me take a second place and a good start to the season.


My next race on the BC Cup downhill circuit was the North Shore Smackdown. Well this course was in my backyard so I was eager to give it a go again in 2010. Last year saw a bit of less than desirable result so I was looking to improve on my 2009 placing. The weather held out and the course was in great shape with just a little water in one section. Neds is always a fun trail to ride but racing it on even better, just you the clock and your buddies. Well mission accomplished the Smackdown ended with me at the top of the podium.


Two weeks later and BC Cup action was Arduum. Well this course is like nothing else in Canada and not really my favourite on the circuit but hey it’s racing and everyone rides the same course. The course is relentlessly tough from top to bottom with technical roots, rocks jumps and drops. After going over the bars countless times on Saturday practise I decided to change my tactics a bit for Sunday and tone down the urge to go for it and turn up the smooth. Sunday saw me riding sections with more flow and confidence and when the results were posted I placed first for my category.


Now with 3 events down I am tied for second place in the BC Cup. I guess this means the pressure is on for the next event, Bear Mountain. Stay tuned.

Wade’s Excellent Adventure
Wade Simmons…one of the Rocky Mountain Froriders, and one of the original bad ass freeriders from the North Shore was having an event. While many know his exploits from the Kranked and NWD movies, most don’t know that Wade really loves to go out for actual pedalling rides…all the time.
Sunny and bright, with the rain disappearing outa sight over night, Wade’s Excellent Adventure began at the top of Mountain Highway at the gate…where the pedalling and the Mt. Fromme trails begin. Wade had organized a 4 lap all mtn race with clues collected on the first 3 laps of 7th secret, Upper/Lower Oilcan, and Pipeline…to reveal the final secret lap of Digger’s redone masterpiece of a trail…Ladies Only. Wade asked me to mc so I bought my own megaphone and showed up with a start list and a napkin full of jokes that’d probably just make ya laugh!
Some in the sold-out field of 150 adventurer’s were hardcore, scabbed up, young gun freeriders while some were ‘ol school North Shore veteran all mtn pedallers and retired DH’ers keen on kicking some ass while many local bike nerds, freaks and enthusiasts came out for a relaxing day of riding dressed up totally in team costumes! Avril Lavigne, Wayne Gretzky, Anne of Green Gables, the men in kilts, the Balls and Dolls gang (barbies and testicles taped to their bikes), and the guys with the blow up sheep taped to their bars that were called the “Men who stare at sheep cause they’re sexier than goats” team and many others were all on the starting line! The climb is up the road and is a medium pitched, fairly easy climb but the singletrack down is traditional North Shore roots and rocks! Awesome!!!
Even though there was bluebird skies and brilliant sunshine all day small clouds would roll through the woods now and then and the trails were still medium slick and wet from the previous days rains. Everyone came in from their up and down laps smiling with dirt in their teeth and eager to see what trail they would draw next. Wade was out riding the trails all day and leading people to stashed beers at key spots…in cold streams etc. Digger had the video camera out and was immortalizing some singletrack moments.
The winners of the citizen class were the ski touring fanatic and mtb’ing brothers , Andy and Mike Traslin. They had jalopy beaters for bikes so Wade lent them 2010 Rocky Mountain Altitudes and they were gone! Fast on the trails and faster on the climbs. Totally fit, the younger bro ’1/2 wheeled’ his older bro all day pushing the pace to a healthy win. 2nd place was the Cool Kids…Kevin Landry, Katrina Strand, Todd Hellinga, Paul Stevens, Tobias Pantling and Matt Juhasz. 3rd place was the Ripper Dads…Terry Walker, Alec Black, and Vince Beasse.
The winners of the corporate class and the Fromme Cup was team BFJCC-Cove Bikes…Tom Oja, Stuart Kerr, Chris Fisher, Adam Trotter, Mitch Forbes, Fred Zurkirchen, Kristian Short, and Mark Woudwijk. I was especially impressed with one of the Cove boys Mitch Forbes HAMMERING all 4 laps, and also Stuart Kerr pushing the pace climbing AND descending. What am I saying? The whole team was ripping, and that’s why they won by so much. 2nd place was Team MEC Tim McDermott, Neal Fitzgerald, Shawn Campbell, Jens Klett, David Bishop, and Brent Palmer. 3rd place was Team Norco Paul Burnett, Eric Lalonde, Aaron Bennest, Brett Armstrong, Jimmy Tsaoussis, Fred Feuermann, and Logan Johns.
Teams made out of carpenters like Finished Guaranteed finished their laps…eventually…and team captain Neil Sinclair came in smiling and telling jokes non-the-less!
Wade had free burgers and vegi-burgers waiting on the BBQ for everyone and did not run out of food all day even til after the awards.
The Fromme Cup itself was a piece of custom painted art welded by longtime Rocky Mountain welder Keith Paynter out of off cut pieces of RMB frame and is an image of Mt. Fromme complete with the 7 switchbacks. JoJo Buscombe and Keith Stark, both Cove legends, supplied and milled the fir plank, while ex-Brodie painter, Bryan Woo, painted the Cup. It will stay with the winners for one year and the teams riders names will be engraved on the cup. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place citizen awards were all individually and artistically created by Steve Mitchell.
Wade’s sponsors threw down and there were wicked giveaway prizes like a Rocky Mountain SS427 frame and tons of RMB soft goods, Marzocchi Bomber 55 forks, complete Shimano XTR and XT wheelsets, Raceface armour, gloves, and hardgoods, Bell fullface and DJ helmets, Dakine soft goods like jerseys and packs, and of course Oakley googles and glasses. Wade must have a lotta pull cause there was a lotta loot! Much thanks to the sponsors for the swag and to the volunteers that make things happen behind the scenes, especially Mark Wood and Rhonna. The revelry continued at the bar, the Bridge Between, into the night.
Wade’s Excellent Adventure was a success with everyone having fun, riding some tasty singletrack, surviving my jokes on the megaphone and mingling with other like minded mtb freaks on a gorgeous sunny day! This is an annual challenge and the Fromme Cup is up for grabs to the next team contenders…next year…at Wade’s Excellent Adventure…dude!! C’mon out and see ya there!

Ahhhh my first blog….and a little tidbit that was forwarded to me by Dan Barham, uber MTB photographer extrordinaire! My first cover, from a picture a few years back on CBC for IMBA Magazine.  

I don’t really have too much to post at this point, but I have been steadily (ok sporadically) riding throughout the winter due to the outrageously mild weather the West Coast received this year.  I don’t think I encountered frost even once!  Tippie and I will be basically parking lot gypsies with our truck, camper, bikes and our baby girl once the bike parks open, (check out this picture – she’s a future ripper for sure – 18 months old and she put my helmet and RF gloves on by herself!  

I am gearing up for what I hope to be the best season yet (it was a year ago this weekend I tore my UCL (surgery) and smashed my hand on an innocent enough looking piece of singletrack.  We have a pretty action-packed schedule already, so the race is on between Brett and I who gets to blog about it first – and Tippie loves a good race…..stay tuned!

I had this idea a few years ago to put on an early season low key fun grass roots event. This idea has blossomed into the John Henry west Coast Super D. Which leads me to the reason why I have been lost in the woods for the last few months and not posting on my blog? I have been hiking the woods mapping out my new race course. My goal was to incorporate the best of last year’s course while adding a few new sections of singletrack.
If you have never heard of a super D event the course consists of the start at a higher elevation than the finish with one or two climbs thrown in. My take on this is was to develop a course utilizing some of the best unknown singletrack in the lower mainland. Combine flowing technical trails challenging descents with one climb while still making everything rideable and bike neutral. In other words the fastest rider will have a combination of fitness and technique yet the course would be competitive on any style mountain bike. This worked out well last year as Dan Skogland a national DH racer on his 6×6 bike beat out Sebastian Sleep a top junior XC rider on his hardtail buy 1 second

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As a loaded up my gear that morning, mind and body still blurry from the night before, the last thing I read was the forecast: Periods of rain with a chance of fog patches. Could it be? Aaron LaRocque and I refer to fog, the dense kind that rolls in from the coast, penetrates the forest canopy, floods onto singletrack, and fills your lens with a bright diffused sky, as the Unicorn. This apparition of the wilderness lures you to seek it out, checking web cams, plotting scenarios where you might capture it, but it seemingly appears when you least expect it. I hastily jammed a camera body, fisheye, and tripod into my bag – just in case. (continue reading…)

Episode 3! USA. After crossing the border we headed south to the Seattle Area where Romo had been filming before with world cup shredder Luke Strobel “Barred for Life”. Its amazing how many mosquitoes get caked to your bike after driving for 10 hours. But we made it down in one piece… Well, almost. We lost a brand new Transition off the roof rack at night on the highway. The bike took it well though and everything was good.. It was the car behind us that got the best of it. Tuff bikes the Transition boys make but not made to take the impact of an SUV.

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Neds Practice

So the dust settles on another year of the BC Cup downhill. This year was the best of seven and what a variety of courses we saw. Every downhill course on the circuit was different from the previous and led to a well rounded series.
We started the season with the Neds Smackdown. Unusual as it sounds, this was the first time a BC Cup downhill race was held on Vancouver’s North Shore mountains. Most Vancouver riders have ridden Neds Atomic Dustbin a lot, but it became a whole different trail to ride once a race was being held. I had never seen so many people checking out lines on a trail in the weeks coming up to the event. Everyone was expecting the worse with wet roots and rock but the weather was sunny and the course as tacky as Neds could get. Neds was about staying smooth and not flatting on the rough chunder at the top, making the jumps and going hard to the finish.
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OK, so sorry I haven’t been contributing to the blog. No I didn’t forget my job. Just been scoping, building, filming, and playing in the mountains. Just now up in Williams Lake,  I like to call it the puddle. STUND season 2 is starting up and we’re having a great time up here in the North country of BC.  Lots of content to come. Other than that, Tam Forde and I have been gearing up and shooting some of my trail in Nelson. Brad Walton gave me an idea of a name for it and I think it will fit well. Calling it “Eh Line”. So sick!

While Sam and Brad were in Nelson, we rode some epicness! Baldface one day was sick, beautiful singletrack and almost perfect conditions. I would say it was a 40cm day. Thanks for the Lift Jeff! That evening was time to get some big hip action in off a quarter pipe style jump I built except with a rock transition. Went down once and hurt my wing but the shot looks cool. Sorry Metzger but I didn’t get my knees in on the table. It’s hard to do that off this jump. Brad will have the photos up to show everyone soon. Cheers!

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