Whistler is thick with bears, and I mean covered. It is ordinary to see three or four a day. No worries though, these bears are happy eating berries and not humans. One day while cruising down a fairly well traveled run, Rock City, with my friend Tanner riding behind me, we came into a meadow, and out of nowhere I saw a black shape the size of a big raccoon. It literally came out of nowhere, and before I could act, it was under my bottom bracket. This thing which turned out to be a bear cub, gave off a half screech half growl. I could feel its fur on my leg, and as fast as it appeared it disappeared behind me. Later when I discussed this incident with Tanner, he mentioned that he almost hit the cubs sibling. I think that a lot of people have misconceptions about bears, and they think that bears are ferocious animals. This is not the case at Whistler. The only time bears can be a big trouble is when you have food in your pocket, or if you pull a messing with sasquatch on the bear. Whistler bears have easier ways of getting food than chasing around a padded up mountain biker traveling at high speed.
I entered 3 races while at Crankworx. The dual slalom, the Garbanzo downhill, and the Air downhill, in that order. The dual slalom was the hardest course that I have ever ridden. The top was like a super tight steep pump track, with a mandatory air. You had to be super on top of it to even get through the top section. The first practice day, I was struggling. After the first section there was a strait with more mandatory air, which if you didn't get the upper part right, you were hosed on. To add to the pressure, there goes Gee Atherton, or Mick Hannah just shredding the berms to pieces, and making the course look extremely easy. On my second try at it, I got into the second section, and cased a roller double. The case ended up burping all of the air out of my tubeless tire. I don't know about this tubeless hype. My day of practice was over. Luckily, I still had another day to dial up the course. The next day I was prepared mentally and physically. and started to make progress on the course. The top part you just had to focus on being smooth, and after you come out into the strait, speed was the name of the game. The track swept right on 2 big berms, then left, and then into one of the most fun jumps I have ever hit. The jump was a 12' floater, with a really smooth landing. After the jump you had to get on the brakes for a tight turn, then a small triple followed by a mogul field. Two more berms put you at the finish. Super fun course.
One of the coolest people that I met at Whistler was Mikey Silvestri. He was raging on the dual slalom but ended up needing help with a flat. We helped him out, and let him borrow a pump. Naturally we started to chat with him and he turned out to be really cool. Later that day I rode up Fitz with Mikey and Logan Bingelli. Logan had never ridden Dirt Merchant, one of the most famous and fun trails at Whistler. Mikey saw this as something he needed to change. Mikey also invited me to ride with them, which was something I was not going to pass up. Getting off the chair, Mikey saw Kevin Aiello, and quickly convinced him to join our rapidly growing party. By the time we got to Dirt Merchant, we probably had 5 or 6 people. I was following Kevin, as we dropped in and over the first small drop. Boom, on the first jump Kevin threw one of the gnarliest whips that I have seen. I tried to do the same, but fell kinda short. We had quite the train rolling down Dirt Merchant, I almost killed myself a couple of times, trying to match Kevin's steezed out whips. We rolled on down, and into lower A line, but now we had changed our order, and I followed Logan, he was throwing some crazy scrubs, and I had a little trouble keeping up. Once we got to the bottom, we all dispersed to different places. Meeting fellow riders and shredding fun terrain is what makes Whistler so special. I am already getting really stoked for 2011 Crankworx.
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