The Hamlet of B.C.

It doesn’t seem like a twenty-some year stretch to dig up the feelings of sheer excitement and anticipation I held with each day I got to discover a new trail with my Trek Antelope 820 with upgraded STX RC cantilever brakes and Onza bar ends. I can remember the night before the first time I was planning on riding the local state park of Lone Pine with a mutual friend who was also new to mountain biking.   I was nervous, I was anxious, but I also remember dreaming of a hundred foot stretch of soft, decomposed dirt that my fresh Pirahnna Pro’s were going to roll over with daftness. Lying restless in bed I could feel the sensation of flying we all experience through a particularly flowy stretch of singletrack behind my closed eyelids. Oddly enough, I rode the same exact stretch of trail I had dreamed of, though I had never been there before. Must’ve been a premonition, a gateway into a lifelong pursuit of pleasure, experience and life lessons.

My teens to earlier twenties were an exponential growth curve of exploring the potential of two wheels and ribbons of dirt and rock that carve and meander their way through fields, forests, and along ridges to summits. It was something that was in my DNA, or God had just built me to be a lifelong steward of ripping trail… but more likely as we understand genetics and creation, a combination of the two. I would obsess over “component upgrades”, I would plot the next “big” 20 mile ride. I would read Bike Magazine and the articles where Minnigh, Butcher, and Ferrantino would put into words what I only thought was possible to experience through riding. I loved it all, the bike itself, the partners I’d ride with, the solo rides with my MiniDisc, the success of riding sections that once stymied me, the newfound strength in my legs, my lungs, and the creativity being expressed through line choice and trail linking.

Somewhere along the way I spiraled into the competitive nature the sport lends itself too. First it was the occasional collegiate cross country race, but quickly it spiraled into state titles, stage races, 100 mile ultra endurance events, and national championships, and the worst culprit of all, Strava Segments. Don’t get me wrong, I was also born to push myself, to challenge myself and push to new levels. I love racing for a number of reasons I won’t go into detail for the moment, but I’m realizing it has also robbed me from the purest and simplest pleasure of riding bikes. I have nearly forgotten why I fell in love with the sport in the first place.

That was until the last week I spent in Rossland, B.C. In a combination trip between a buddy who worked way to much this summer (Jared), another buddy (Phil) who has been on spring break for the last 7 months (Warren decided he’s rather pay guys to not work), a new friend (Ron) who I’d crossed paths with far too many times to not realize that we’d get along just fine, and myself- the thirty-something year old guy who’s had a pretty damn good run for a while now but has the impending sense of loosing all freedom with his first offspring due to hatch in the next few weeks. Our mixed goals were to hit as much trail and ale as our aging bodies and fresh bikes could carry us through. A few of us preferred gravity assisted, a few of us preferred earning our turns, but we all shared an equal stoke to discover new and mind blowing trails in a hamlet of a town set amongst golden larches and alpine summits.

Each morning we would wake, assess the aftermath of our “late” night debauchery of pallet burning, Newman-O snacking, and whatever Mr. Bear decided to destroy. Then we would fire up some coffee, and dive into making first breakfast. After a healthfully stuffed tortilla of eggs, veggies and pork bi-products we would throw a sore leg over our steeds and ride the 5 minutes into town to the Alpine Grind where we would drool at all the fresh new creations the baker fairies had created with their butter wands and deliberate between sweet or savory scones and muffins, but we would always seal the deal with a “peanut butter ball”. These wonderful little bear scat-shaped creations could hold a guy over for hours of gravel road grinding to reach the top of gripping trails like BS, Luge, and Whiskey on the Rocks. We would also enjoy a few shots of espresso while we each pulled our stupid phones out to ensure we didn’t miss out on too much of what was happening amongst our friends and acquaintances throughout the rest of the world. Each morning I could maybe make it through a couple of photos on the Insta-roll when I would feel the overwhelming sensation of “What the F am I doing teleporting myself to elsewhere? This coffee shop in Rossland with this blueberry white chocolate scone, my 8 oz Americano, these dudes and a full day of trail to look forward to is all that matters. Well, maybe I should call my pregnant wife, that would be worthwhile.”

Our first day in Rossland together we went straight to the main vein of trail in the area. The legendary IMBA epic Seven Summits trail that takes a guy up and around said summits by a means of flowy, rocky, sometimes trenched and eroded trail with so many characteristics that a rider gets to experience the entire rainbow of trail ripping emotions during her journey from point A to point B. It helps that the final descent plummets from over 6000’ on a rocky, barren mountain top through heathy rounded knobs, into soft, needle-carpeted dirt, to loam lying soft amidst roots, rocks and shrouded by a canopy of old growth cedars who’ve been shedding their detritus to create this amazing surface that rubber tires roll over ever so smoothly and silently. The trail crescendo’s into the Dewdney Trail. With a name like Dewdney, you’ll be screaming his name as you bank through loamy berms and straighline across a side-hill riddled with moist downsloping roots.

Day two began with a loose itinerary of connecting some Red Mountain trails with a system of trails further up the road that funnel back towards a final sputtering of trails dropping straight to town and furthermore, Rossland Brewing Co. Sometimes the best rides are those that are painted as you go. This was no exception. From high-speed bermed hero track (Red Head to Paydirt) to double black diamond drops (Ol’ Blue Eyes) to trails that don’t veer one degree from fall line (Luge) we again found deep reserves of energy to keep pedaling from one to the next in the spirit of discovery. After a healthy rehydration effort at the Brewery, we sauntered up to the hole in the wall Pizza joint and moved on to carb-loading for a final day of riding. Even with an endless supply of wood donated to us from various locals who had caught on to our program, we couldn’t muster the energy to stay up much past 9 p.m. before we each wordlessly stumbled to our tents (can we blame it on the time zone change? It was 10 back home…)

Day three we rose with exceptional fatigue. Over second breakfast and second coffee at the Alpine Grind, we each looked like weary trail broken ponies, heads hung low. Our eyes were ringed, our triceps ached, our legs felt wooden. Not even a second pastry seemed to bring us back to life. We resounded with joy that this was the final day before we could head home and take some much needed R&R. Though we had agreed on truck shuttling for the day on Malde Creek, we still found ourselves unwilling to skip a lap to drive and potentially miss a prime piece of singletrack. Sidewalls continued to fail, Phil rode a couple lines the rest of us would balk at and stroke our ego’s by saying, “Next time”, and we found ourselves saying for the third day in a row that Rossland blows every other mountain bike destination away. In a final opus we cranked our way to the top of a must ride trail deemed SMD: “Super Mega Death”. After a couple pedaly sections and getting sidetracked on a jump line part of the way down, we jumped back on SMD proper and began the 2000’ descent that blew my mind so high that it wasn’t until the border crossing the next day that I was able to stop reliving the various sections of trail that had been so perfectly constructed. Jared and I arrived at the bottom of SMD and were speechless due in part to grins that were spread so wide that enunciation of words was no longer an option. I didn’t want to ride another ounce of trail; partly from exhaustion, but mostly because I didn’t want to taint the delicious taste in my mouth that had been left by SMD.   Night three was a repeat of night two, except they had run out of Paydirt Pale Ale at the brewery and we barely made a quarter til.

Saturday we awoke and had the daunting task of trying to figure out if we could fit three big bikes, three dudes and their stuff, and some Tim-Tams into the Element without a rack. Amazingly, we succeeded and even ran smoothly through the border dash. When my wife asked me how the trip was, I was speechless. How does one summarize into words three days of blissful living with nary a responsibility outside of deciding which trail was next and which scone looked better?