Comox Valley Mountain Biking Forums and Trail News

I pulled into the main parking lot solo at 12:20pm on what was supposed to be a 4-man mission. Thanks a lot fellas. It was cloudy but not rainy or windy which was good. I had no trouble picking up my discounted pass and I was rolling towards the Hawk at 12:33pm. Those nice berms and little jumps are totally gone so it wasn't the smoothest ride down. After 3 chair stoppages I hit the opening section of BB/W and got really muddy. Some of BB was in okay shape but there were many REALLY muddy spots. It was obviously much wetter today than last week when the others poached a ride on it. In an attempt to save my backpack from the onslaught of mud I decided to make my way back to the truck to drop it off. After a chair ride with a couple guys from CR who shared one of that fattest doobies I have ever seen, I had to take the fire road to MM because the MMT is closed. On the way down, I checked out the slopestyle drop in. It is still all good but it is not open. After two slow-speed wipeouts in the steep rooty section of MM, dropping off my pack,  and having a little snack I headed up the Eagle for the top of MM. You have to ride through two full-on snow sections near the top. Riding on snow through a 3 foot wide opening of a 5 foot high snow drift is a pretty strange feeling. Monster Mile was a bit rough as usual and I bailed off so I could get back over to the Hawk. I ended up going down the boardwalk section of MMT which they haven't fixed up yet and then onto the XC racecourse and then over to Evil Eye. I checked out the supports for the corkscrew that they built last year. They held up okay over the winter. The two EE drops are closed off but they look pretty good. The tranny for the bigger one is built like the slopestyle step-down was - a nice dirt tranny with a suicidal wood down-ramp leading right into it the back of it. The next run I did was BB to 4X. 4X was fun and dry and for the first time ever I had good rhythm at the bottom of the course which was cool.  With a huge hole ripped in the back of my pants I am about ready to pack it but I decided on two more Hawk lift rides. On both of them I saw FGT showing some young guys the 4X. She yelled at me the first time I saw her. I did a run down W and it was in fairly good shape. I hit the big drop(blowdown is gone) and then I spent some time checking out the set of 3 tables that gets you back to the chair. Only the middle jump is not taped off but there is mud pit at the base of it so it is virtually unhitable at this point. I didn't really look at the first one but I assume it will be the same as last year - impossible to hit good for all beginners and pretty much all intermediate riders who ride flats. The third one is built up more this year which will be fun until it gets totally pounded down. When I got off the Hawk for the last time I hiked into HS to check out the first rock stunt . It is still totally sketch because it throws you into a big root and then a small left berm. I think they should change the stunt to go into a nice big wood berm on the right and have the ride around on the left. Anyhow my last run was downer because in the very last section I noticed that the bottom of HA was not taped off so I dropped in. Bad move. I was keeping good speed down the steeps which was not good when I got to the sketchy roller coaster wood stunt that I had forgotten about (new last year).  So by the end of the too-long-and-not-built-quite-right stunt I was out of control and I ended up bottoming out my 888, going over the bars, and doing a full-on head plant into the stump that is in the middle of the trail. I blacked out for a second and then felt serious pain in my neck and shoulders. Thankfully I could still move my arms and legs so I took a few deep breaths and got up. So on one hand it could have been a lot worse but on the other it would have been much better if my bike went head on into the stump and I landed on the nice soft mucky trail. Instead it was the other way around. I am pretty sure that I won't be able to turn my head at all when I wake up tomorrow morning. C'est la vie.

Cotty

Summer '07 Goals - Progress today
Hitting the trannies - no progress or slight regression from '06
Wall rides and hip jumps - no progress
Carrying speed through berms (avoid braking) - slight progress

So I take it that I should give the hill a couple weeks to dry out then?

Was one of the guys from CR an older fella named Bob?

The older guy had short hair and rode a Kona Kikapu Deluxe and was wearing Bauer Supreme hockey shin pads. Other guy rode a Specialized with Super Monsters and claimed that it weighed 65 lbs which I didn't believe. He also said that last time on the chair they had to stop the chair to unload his rig. I do believe this because the girl at the top was a newbie.

 Cotty
 

well that wasn't Bob then.  Musta been a rough ride down the hill on a Kikapu.

got up to the mountain today. Always good no matter what the conditions. Monster mile super techy. The river at the top, the wind and the weird parting of the snow just made it eerie. Good times though.

The Hawk chair wet and greasy, woodwork a bit slick. What else needs to be said enjoy the dampness now cause in a month it will probably be a dustbowl 

Also heard a rider went down hard the other day. thoughts go out to him and his family

I guess we all know the risks

 cheers

 On on of my last trips up the Hawk(2:20-3:00 Sat) the Ambulance-Suburban was on the fire road heading towards BB/W. He didn't seem to be in a big rush though. Over the winter I chatted with an older guy who rides Forbidden quite a bit. He said he was riding Washington in '04 and a guy from their group had a freak accident with tragic results when he landed awkwardly on one of the jumps from the lodge to the Hawk. Like you said, we all know the risks.

 I try my best to "enjoy the dampness" but when it gets to the point of sinking 3 inches in the muck when approaching 40% of the decent jumps on BB I say BRING ON THE DUSTBOWL!!!

 Cotty