With the rare occurrence that Eric and myself had the same days off over a long weekend, we decided to make the best of it and get the heck out of town!!!! With the upcoming CNES race in Rossland it seemed like there was no better reason to go de-virginize Eric to the trails there.

We packed up the Mazda Speed 3 as tight as we could and headed to the Kootneys!!

We started our riding in Rossland with some help from the awesome local shuttle service run by Ian and Tash, The Seven Summits Shuttle service. They had all the trails teed up for an epic time. We started with some BS and Monticola laps followed by the super fast and fun Oasis burn down into Trail.

After that as a sick warm up we sessioned a couple trails on  Red Mtn Resort, Red Head and Pay dirt.

The next day was checking out the race course for some practice laps on Whisky, Cherry poppins and Crown Point despite the 35deg temps outside.

All 3 are epic trails that each have their own flavour.

Cherry poppins had lots of rock on it and had some of the steepest sections including a gnarly waterfall section followed up by chunder with a hint of bull dust.

After a solid session on the local trails we took the monday after the race to check out the epic 7 summits. Maybe a bad idea as we were all fairly gassed from the weekend of racing. But as they say…when in Rossland.

Weirdly we found the climbing quite tiring….views were ok though…blew our shoes clean off!

Views for miles.

Tandem bird flipping.

cant wait to get back…thank you Rossland!

 

This past spring we got screwed on snow!!!!Really screwed!!

But on the BRIGHT side… that meant that we got to ride bikes really early. So with the suggestion by Bill, why not start it off with a rip on Blackrock mountain in Kananaskis, Ab.

Black rock is a great ride/hike to experience any time let alone to start the season off. An out and back epic that showcases some of the best there is in the Rockies.

Andy sampling some scree.

Approaching fundom with some fun riverbed cruising.

Eyes on the prize.

Bill, Aiden and Al making their way into the alpine.

Getting there.

Radbike!!

Aiden throwing some dirt around

The wind can blow you off this one certain days like this day.

Epic views

The push

 

SEDONA, AZ

On my annual trip to visit pops in Phoenix i try and sneak up to the north and get in some early season shred in Sedona,

With the world being as small as it is I just happened to find out my buddy Tara was in the middle of an epic month long bike road trip and headed Sedona way

Tara imported her buddy Geoff to show her the H’s in Sedona and i joined in for most of it.

Geoff slaying the saddle on Hangover.

Epic viewpoint

The beginning of the Hangover.

Tara crushing the crux!!

Late last season we through together a nice little friends and family group ride. The day had all the makings of an epic adventure. A high of 2 degrees, snow down to 1500 metres and a crew of rowdy, beligerant all sorts that happen to be friends and coincidentally  know how to ride bikes.

We don’t often get a group like this together in the season…that may have to change.

 

It was a lot of fun…..

Rain/snow/sleet gear was key…We were all putting our chosen attire to the test.

Our first stop. An old Canmore rental suite.

One sport juice down and we were off!

The jackets didn’t stay on long.

 

Dean Christou crushing it.

 

That Highline climb sometimes rips the shirt right off your back.

Pat is all smiles on the switchback climbs.

A rare photo of Bill Knight not breaking something on his bike.

 

This guy has been on the trail a long long time.

TIG!!

 

Not sure what this was all about. The mouth hole is at the top kids!

 

 

Many bikes and one cat.