Some big photos

Here are a few sweet photos from the summer in Switzerland that you might enjoy.

DH THE ALPS

It's been awhile...we've been having so much fun here in Swissland going downhill on big bikes on our Alpenrock DH trips. After years of mind-blowing research on oil-tanker-sized downhills we've dialed in this trip to the point where participants are pumped, satisfied, wowed, stoked by day 1 and by day 2 they understand why we call it the Alpenrock and why we are Big Mountain. We're having a blast.

Here's a photo of returning participant Lee from Sydney Australia having fun amongst the grapes on the tail end of Rolling Orgy, a trail that Lee compared to skiing waist deep powder.



Another of Vancouverites Brian and Karaleen dropping in on the La Vallee Express, a secret nug off the backside of Verbier that drops us pretty much on the patio at our 3-star hotel.

big recon

We rode a spectacular hawg yesterday, 8 hours or so on the bike. It all started with a monorail, then a gondola then a tram to a cool 2750 meters. From there we traversed, descended and climbed in a super arid high alpine zone like nothing i've ever seen - the glacial lakes were teal-blue, rocks ochre and the mountains dark grey with little fiesty flowers popping everywhere. The top of our ride lay at nearly 3000 meters with a 2300 meter descent ahead - over 7000 feet.


Here's a photo of local madman Francois, licking his lips at the descent ahead.




A sweet cabin with a sweeter view. Perhaps we'll stay here at the 2009 Cloudraker Swiss mountain biking trip?

As good as it gets

Joe Schwartz and i just wrapped up a 9-day Cloudraker trip that will go down in the books. The group consisted of crazy Californians, tough Canucks and a stylin' Swiss German and all were on fire - we all ate up as many big days as we could swallow on this trip, big big days!! We ripped up some amazing terrain and unreal rides together. The group gelled like old friends and solid bonds were forged right from day one. Thanks to all for a great trip...

Here's a photo of some of our group after a wet descent in Zermatt. We logged 14,000+ vertical feet of descending on this day.


A sweet photo of Joe. If you look really closely you'll see a Swiss flag flappin' on his back. It was Aug 1, Swiss Day!

Zermatt rocks

Zermatt's got the horn there's no doubt. One night after a fine fine day of blue skies and great wall of China sized descents we ended up on a street in downtown Zermatt with a bunch of beers in front of us and the pole position on this mad performer who played four keyboards and sang in this strange bone chilling teenage female voice with a hint of Janice Joplin in there for good measure. People gathered around, some clapped, babies cried, dogs paced nervously and others just didn't know what to think. We drank beer and watched while the Matterhorn just did it's thing. More riding tomorrow....

Bike Magazine Photo Annual

We're pumped...Big Mountain's Swiss trips featured in the most sought after mountain bike issue of the year. Check it out!

Epic into Italy

On the Cloudraker trip we do this big ride (6-7+ hours!!!) from near our hotel, up and over a pass at 2800 meters to the Italian border than way way down to the city of Aosta for pasta and gelato. It's a beauty. Here's a photo of client Dave Bouck from Whistler BC as he makes the last bid to the border. In the background are peaks that are part of the famous winter ski traverse, the Haute Route.



This photo is on the other side. John Ruth from San Fransisco sunning himself while Ian Buxton chills out and guide Al Pittar gets serious in the fetal position! As John said, "lying in the dirt's never felt so good..."

Cloudraker

I'm sitting at our hotel in the small town of Lourtier in the Val de Bagnes region of French-speaking Switzerland. We're taking a morning off from riding to relax, stretch and work on some bikes. This afternoon we're heading out for a few local shuttles. Tomorrow is a big day as we pedal up and over a pass out of our backyard to Aosta Italy for dinner and a gelato. The fun continues!





More about the Cloudraker mountain biking trip in Switzerland.

New trail

This afternoon i went for a ride with local XC lung Laurent for a super fun alpine ride. First we drove up a mountain in the backyard to 1700 m and traversed and climbed to 2350 m. There were a few hike-a-bike sections in there that nearly killed me. Must have been a combo of jetlag, altitude and fitness, i think. I did feel better about an hour in to the ride. The views were staggering with big-ass peaks all around and the clouds came in a out providing peek-a-boo views. After crossing the base of a glacier we started down for 1000 m (3000 or so feet). It was a nice descent and very technical at times. I will do this trail again, I'd love to ride it in blue skies and views.

In Switzerland: snow and yodelling

Rolled in this week for another summer of Alpenrippppping to fresh pow on the hills. I left BC's 30c blue bird days for snow...what's up? I guess it happens in the big mountains. The good news is that it's sunny now and 25c, the mountains look killer with a fresh blanket of white.



Have i told you how much i LOVE my new Trek Remedy 9? Talk about the perfect all-mountain bike! And my new Crank Bros Joplin seat post is a dream come true and my Rock Shox Lyrics eat up the track like a hungry teenager lapping up a Slurpee on a sticky summer day. I'm not saying this because im biased. It's true!



Check the upcoming Switzerland mountain biking holidays.

Mr. Tinker

Wondering what Tinker Juarez is up to these days? Me too. Check out his website for some interesting tid bits on one of mountain biking's most enduring competitors and colourful characters.

Here's a photo of Tinker with Big Mountain friends Michael Costigan and Andrea Kraft while on the BC Bike Race. Nice goat Costigan, love it!

BC Bike Race - a success!

Big Mountain guide Ryan Sullivan and myself were kindly invited by Dean Payne of the BC Bike Race to participate in the final day of his 7-day stage race from Victoria BC to Whistler. I lived in Whistler for 12 years so i was pretty pumped to come up from Vancouver for a day of punishment. And that's what i got...punished. 47 km later with lots of climbing and technical singletrack later i rolled through the finish line pretty wiped. I was in good shape going in, but just good shape. Hats off to all the 400 competitors who where on their 6th day when we rolled in for our first. You are animals. Read more about the race here.



Big Mountain guide Ryan Sullivan: big smiles before the pain began!



The start of Day 7 in Whistler's Creekside. Ready, Set, Go!

Fueling the engine with Andreas Hestler from BCBR

BIKE MAGAZINE: check us out the July issue!

So you think you're tough...

This week-end on my way back from a great ride on Lumpy's Epic in Pemberton i spotted two mountain bikes loaded to the brim. Low and behold, it's the French-Canadian couple Janick and Pierre whom i've read about. Are you ready? They've been cycling around the world since the early 90's on a 110,000+ kilometer adventure! How crazy is that? They were on their way to Alaska at the time, on a world volcano-tour. I was so pumped to meet them. Just as you'd imagine two people to be who travel on their bikes...they were super friendly and brimming with energy. Pierre's bike weighs in at a cool 100 lbs! You can read about them on Canada's Pedal Mag, click here.

Looking for trail with Simmons

It was a random week-day ride on Fromme on Vancouver's North Shore but for some reason we ended up hike-a-biking straight up the mountain with our bikes on our shoulders. Not that i have anything against that, i love a good hammering even a push, hike, grind while chomping at the bars. Wade and his neighbour Dave are trying to link a series of old singletrack and create a new singletrack climb up Fromme. The first 80% was pedallable, albeit with some heavy technical sections and ball busting cardio action, then it was bike on shoulder wandering through the dank forest. In the end we popped out on the road and hit a tasty old-school descent. Can't wait for more action.

Yukon

posted by Nathalie

I've spent the past week exploring Canada's rugged and remote Yukon Territory as a possible new destination for Big Mountain Bike Adventures.

Before this trip, my knowledge of the Yukon was admittedly quite limited. I've eaten a lot of Yukon Gold potatoes (which turns out are not actually grown in the Yukon), I knew that it's located somewhere between / around British Columbia, Alaska and the North Pole, that Jack London's "Call of the Wild" was set in this region, that the Klondike Gold Rush took place here in the nineteenth century, and that its capital is Whitehorse (well... ok... fine...I didn't really KNOW that for sure. But I had it narrowed down to probably either Whitehorse or Yellowknife. And even 10 time returning Jeopardy champions get stumped by Canadian geograpy).
But I had read a trip account by Big Mountain guide Andreas Hestler in Mountain Bike UK wherein he described the riding on Whitehorse's Grey Mountain as one of the "top 10 rides of his life". And I had spoken to Ray Warner, who lives in Whitehorse and joined Big Mountain on the Swiss Cloudraker trip last summer. Ray told me that the variety and amount of riding in the Yukon rivals the Alps. And I'm always up for an adventure and a chance to explore a new region so here I am.

Below is a brief summary of some of the new things about the Yukon that I've discovered so far:

31,608. Population of people in the entire Territory which, parenthetically, is larger than the state of California.

185,000. Population of caribou in the Territory (including the one in the "caribou casserole" that we ate for dinner last night).

26. degrees celcius (79 fahrenheit). Average daytime high this past week.

7. Number of fleece jackets and / or sweaters that remained in unpacked in my suitcase. Would have been helpful to have known the previous fact before packing for the trip

18 hours. 12 mins. 36 seconds - average amount of daily daylight during the month of May. Which is still not enough to explore the approximate 750 kilometres of singletrack accessible from the doorstep of our hotel. The second photo was taken at 11:45pm.

Yukon may have more abundant, diverse and unspoiled riding options than anywhere else in North America. Northern explorers, aboriginal fur traders, and Klondike Gold Rush prospectors created thousands of kilometres of trails and doubletrack. In addition to endless fast flowy singletrack and challenging technical trails, Yukon offers stunning panoramic views, pristine wilderness, unique terrain and landscapes, majestic peaks and glaciers, and some of the warmest most welcoming people imaginable (special thanks to our hosts and guides Elaine Maisonneuve and Ray Warner).

Big Mountain Bike Adventures will be offering a 10 day trip to this mountain bike vacation paradise next July 2009. Check back at www.ridebig.com later this summer for details. My advice for now - plan on packing some eyeshades/sleepmask. And tank tops.

Andrew Shandro's garage

I met up with Shandro yesterday at his pad tucked in the upper reaches of North Vancouver. We climbed from the door for about an hour and a half on technical singletrack, dirt road and some urban stuff too - then descended for about an hour. He was hard to keep up to on his all-mountain stallion, the new Trek Remedy 9. I am still buzzing from the ride. If you're into technical riding - rocks, roots, bridges and the like, the Shore is the place to ride. He's training for the Test of Metal event, a 67 km point to point race in Squamish on June 14. I think that i'll do this event next year, if i can get in that is - it sells out in hours. Check out Shandro's Summer Gravity Camp mountain bike camps. If you're looking to improve your riding, this this place! The quote of the day from Shandro, "Now that was a mountain bike ride" as he somewhat sarcastically referred to the technical climbs and descents of our ride.

Chihuahua

The troops are back from a successful spring adventure in Mexico with guides Ryan Sullivan, Arturo Gutierrez and Andreas Hestler at the helm. At the end of it all the guests went home with some great stories to tell, solid miles under their belts, a few words of Spanish and one hell of a fancy belt buckle. We'll be posting dates for the 2009 Spring Training jaunt with Andreas soon!

How to hit a booter

Chris Duncan at Bikeskills.com shows you some tips on hitting dirt jumps and table tops.