Canada Trip 2005

Well today was the day to finally get some riding in. I've been trying to hook up with some local people via some websites but I didn't manage it today.

So I borrowed Jens car, piled the bike into the back and headed out to Burnaby Mountain. I've ridden here before but I can't really remember where. Being my own tour guide this time really helped and I recognised some of the trails that I did. I asked some locals some directions and headed down (or up!) the first trail I could find. Later on I discovered the name was Dead Moped (apparently). I quickly abandoned it though in favour of riding up the gravel road. I eventually made it to a road that woudl take me to the top of the hill (Simon Fraser Uni) but I opted to follow the advice I'd been given and push up (backwards) a trail called Mels. It was a pretty hard push and I actually ended out going down the wrong trail! Of course I only found that out once I looked at the map again.. It was quite short and pretty unsatisfying so I went to the top again in search of the trail I intended to go down, Upper & Lower Snake. The push up seemed much shorter this time and at the start of Snake I met up with a guy called Matt who was riding a Stinky. He suggested that I miss upper snake and offered to show me nicoles. It was good to be riding with someone so I accepted. As it turned out I was a much stronger rider than he was (he was a bit older) but i didn't mind. We rode nicoles and lower snake twice. Matt had to go but I decided to hit it again at more speed. Lots of fun.

I headed home to refuel and decided to try for a run up Seymour. It's so sweet being able to ride to the mountain from here! So I pedaled up to the Trailhead of old buck and asked some directions from a local who had actually spent some time in Papakura!! We also had a little conversation with Thomas Vanderham; we lent him an allen key.

Anyway up old buck. A definite push. I might have been able to ride up but I'm not really in the mood for that sort of stuff and I'm not that fit at the moment anyway. Once at the top there is a trail called Baden Powell from which you can take any number of trails. I was aiming for a trail called Severed Dick but I settled on the first one I came too! It was called Team Pangor. My second real taste of the shore! It was a nice trail. Lots of low structures and most of them reasonably wide with different options. The flow wasn't all that bad either. I took some photos of the trail...



I was still being pretty careful since it was my first day and I was basically riding alone (even though there were others on the trail) but I still rode alot of the structures. I'm not sure how long it took me but I didn't really consider another push to the top. Time to head home.

One last thing. There are giant slugs here. They are everywhere.