After an early morning and some Tim Hortons, a hassle free drive on the back roads to Collingwood, Ontario - the home of Blue Mountain. As you can see here to the left, we are almost at the hill and the clouds are just about burnt away by the morning sun - at this point you start getting butterflies in your stomach... a mix of excitement and fear!!The first thing we did when we arrived was head in and and grab our seasons passes. The little resort town at the bottom of the hill is very Whistler like, but WAY smaller. At this point it was pretty slow, but there was some activity as the place was getting ready for May 2-4 (Victory Day Holiday in Canada, faithfully referred to as May 2-4... no coincidence that there are 24 bottles of beer in a case.....). We hit the bike shop and it was pretty dead so things went fairly smoothly besides some initial bad service at the front desk. We finally had our passes, so we headed back to the van to get suited up for our first runs. Now for those if you not familiar with Down Hill mountain biking, you have to wear various body armor to project yourself from the nasty falls that can occur when hitting the trails (I have been referred to as 'Robocop' by some who have seen me in my armor). After getting suited up and making sure the bikes were good to go, we headed for the lift (those butterflies were now in full effect!) - to our disappointment, not all the trails were open, but that didn't deter us as there was still a tonne of fun to had (to be honest, we checked the bike conditions and trail report on my BlackBerry on our way up - haha!). On our way up we decided to hit one of my favorite trails - Big Sleaze - it was a bit of a pedal from the lift to the trail head, but I didn't mind at all considering the great view and amazing weather. We dropped in and everything was like I remembered, the adrenaline started to kick in right away as there is a nice step rock entrance, so after hitting that smoothly, I was ready to rock (no pun intended!).
You can see Colin just about to enter the little rock chute - we both hit this nice and smooth and continued down to the next section of the trail and I see Colin begin to open up a gap on me. I finally loose him, but heading around a corner I see him pulled to the side - he's saying something to me. As I get closer I realize he's saying 'Do you see it, do you see it', and then I see him point - through the tree's I saw pretty big deer staring right back us. Colin had seen the deer come through the bushes, cross the trail, head into some thicker bush were it stopped to turn and stare us down!! What a start to our ride - reminds you of the other reasons that down hill is so fun, the adrenaline is just a big bonus!! After getting back on the trail, and hitting all the sections we loved last year (nice step, rooty sections that really work your suspension - fun times). After hitting a long log skinny at the bottom section of the hill, we quickly came to notice that the bottom section had been changed. We weren't really too pleased with the changes at the bottom as it required quite a bit of pedaling up hill in order to get back to the gondola - previously you would hit the end of the hill and ride a road back to the gondola, but the road is about to be worked on so they diverted the bottom of the trails in this area. The pedaling was a little more than we had bargained for, but we didn't let that minimize the fun any! After heading up the lift again, we decided to hit another trail on the far section of the hill (these were pretty much the only ones open anyway). This time it was Waterfall (named because you can see parts of a waterfall on throughout the trail, and because of some nice steep sections). This was another fun trail which I rode pretty well on, but Colin again ripped it up - tearing the trail a new one! At this point it was about 1pm and we were getting pretty hungry. All the excitement and the physicality of the sport hit us early and we decided it was time to eat - we used to eat in the village, but you have to take out a small loan to enjoy yourself here (not unlike Whistler as well!!). We grabbed some pita's and headed to a local beach nearby so not to tick off the resort staff (and Colin was adamant that this would be the lunch spot for the year). After we arrived at the spot, I knew why Colin was saying this would be the lunch spot. The place was amazing - it was right on the shores of lake Huron in Georgian bay, what a back drop for lunch!
As you can, not a bad spot to sit down and eat lunch and enjoy a can of liquid courage aka beer. After refueling, we were ready to tackle the hill again until closing at 5. The first trail we wanted to hit was called Squeaker and had a pretty gnarly rock entrance to it with some step pitches. I remember skipping the entrance last year and just riding the rest of the trail as I was pretty intimidated by this section. This year we both rolled up to the entrance and went through it like we've hit it a 100 times - was a great feeling (anytime you hit something for the first time, or conquering it after either falling or skipping it is an unbelievable feeling).So as you can see from these shots, the entrance was not joke:
That's me on the left and Colin on the right.After hitting this section, it's open trail for a bit where you can pick up some nice speed before hitting some rooty steep sections which are a blast. Here's a couple of shots from one of the sections I just mentioned...
We hit Squeaker and Waterfall pretty much the whole afternoon. It wasn't till our last time up the hill that we brought along the camera - glad we did as we got some decent shots for the first out (plus, it's the FIRST day out!!).
So, after being up since 8, driving 1.5 hours, riding for 6 hours, and driving another 1.5 hours back that you'd be tired right - down but not out, we called Fergie and made plans to hot the Grove on our way back - needless to say we had another great session at the grove, I hit something I've never hit before there (low road to skinny out, pretty difficult line), and Colin redeemed himself after a nasty bail the night before after exiting high road. Unfortunately Fergie never hit the drop, but I think he's going to soo - we've been razzing him pretty good about it (all in good fun ofcourse), but we know he can do it!!! You all will be the first to know when Fergie gets his wings at the grove - lol!
Once again, Me on the left, Colin on the right.
Here's a couple of pics of Colin finishing off an amazing day of riding (I'm writing this today and am completely drained, never mind sore!!!).
Until next time folks...
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