I did do a search but I can’t really find what I want.

Looking at a trip to whistler, so if you’ve been and have had a great stay let us know the hotel the transfer company, the guides, the restaurants. which airline.

Please can have your words of wisdom!

You can get on the gondola in creekside with your bike now so could be worth a look for cheaper accommodation.

Purebread (village or function junction)- best cakes and sweet treats and good coffee too
Creekbread (creekside) – Amazing stonebaked pizza go here for dinner not to be compared to pizza slices eaten in the village
21 steps restaurant(village) – good value for money, $35 for decent rib-eye (ask for fries instead of mash)

Good place to hang out by the lake, quiet dock minimal 20 somethings. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Whistler,+BC,+Canada/50.1065559,-122.9866985/@50.1074291,-122.9875704,619m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m8!4m7!1m5!1m1!1s0x54873cb203957b87:0x4ab741e875f5cff6!2m2!1d-122.9573563!2d50.1163196!1m0

Bearback. Nice chalet close to town (just a short ride past park, river etc)
Good food and hosts. Free guiding if you want it, we hadn’t planned on having guided but it was great to have Johnny show us the best lines down things like Schleyer.
Get your lunch at Ingrid’s sandwich shop, great food and reasonable.
Bike parts etc quite expensive there so take some spares if you have room.

nickc.
Nicky, Jonas and Graham went out with Bearback and had a whale of a time by all accounts.
We’re also thinking about it for next year.

+1 for Bearback.
Great days riding.

For burger at the end of the day, try splitzgrill. Very good burgers and a build your own kind of thing going on.

Just as a side activity, have a go on the zipline, sasquatch. Amazing.

When are you planning?
Just got back from Whistler so here’s a bit of info.

Flew Air Canada from Heathrow – £700
Bike box on plane – £30 each way (as only checked luggage but you can take 2 carry on bags @ 10kg each)
Shuttle from Vancouver – $94 each way with Ridebooker (including bike box on a Sprinter minibus)
Accommodation was sorted with a group of mates so no real help on price.
5 day lift pass – $295

Food and beer is quite expensive in the village. $7-9/pint, lunch was about $16 for a chicken/pulled pork burger.

The Creekside gondola is now shut, as is Top of the World and Blackcomb gondola.

Ridebooker.com for transfers.
Sushi village for Japanese food (not just sushi) and the strawberry saki margaritas are ace!
Zogs for poutine
Moguls for breakfast bagels
I’ve stayed in the Adara hotel 3 times now, great location in the centre of town. Stayed with bearback and while it was ok, guides were good and the workshop is handy, I prefer to go out for tea when I’m on holiday and be a bit more central

I didn’t think bike stuff was hugely more expensive, even post referendum, when the CAD is $1.85+ to the £ it’s actually pretty reasonable.

I fly with BA, they’ve been perfect every time, but above all, fly direct.

Non bike stuff, white water rafting is good, as are the ATV tours, ziptrek terrified my but I’m a wuss for heights…

Whole town is buzzing during crankworx but you do more queuing.

Anything specific you want to know?

I went with bareback. They arranged the transfers, fed me and guided/ coached me.

The guideing aspect isn’t really needed in the bike park- it’s all signposted. It did make it much more fun trying ( and failing miserably) to keep up with them.

The coaching aspect had me going down stuff I would never have tried on my own. It also saw my basic bike Park skills come on massively. I could ride a berm and jump I can do it much better now.

If you are after more pedaling stuff that’s when the guiding would come into its own.

Well worth it. The food was top notch as well.

stu; ha, crazy co-incidence! Lets keep in touch about it.

Bear Back looks like the only place in town for euro style package/guided tours, is that right? I could build a trip, but if these guys are good, make sense to use them.

The food was top notch as well.

See, while it was 2 years since i stayed there, so may have changed, I thought it was very average, not bad, and better than having to cook yourself but I often missed the evening meal as I wanted to stay out in the park til 8, meal time was 6, and wanted to choose my meal, rather than ‘it’s Tuesday night, so it’s spag bol night, same as last Tuesday…

Bear Back looks like the only place in town for euro style package/guided tours, is that right? I could build a trip, but if these guys are good, make sense to use them.

Pretty much – bear in mind you don’t really need guiding if all you plan on doing is riding park.

We went with BB the first year and the guiding was good for out of the park, but with the uprising of Trailforks & the WORCA app, there is a question over whether they are needed or not?

You can go full cheapskate and lunch at Fat Tony’s Pizza or the other place over the village stroll for a couple of dollars for a big slice of pizza. Ingrid’s is good for more healthy options.

Furniture Warehouse is good for cheap meals out – every dish is $5 and you get a decent amount of good food. Be warned though, it’s always rammed, as it’s one of few cheap places to eat.

Cheap flights with Air Transat – bit of a pain from Gatwick though & the seats are tiny on the plane if you are 6ft.

Pacfic Coaches go from outside the terminal to Whistler – can book on with your bike easily.

Personally if you’re there for a short time I would want to stay near the village. We’ve done a season out there and I wouldn’t even stay out at Creekside for that. There are some nice places on Blackcomb which are only a 5 minute roll into the village on a bike.

Experiences of food vary. This summer I was in the alps. My mate was racing about how good the food was and I thought it was fuel and tasted fine.

It was a bloke called Hugo cooking at bear back. He did the best eggs benedict I’ve ever had.

I couldn’t ride the park till it closed, my hands just couldn’t take it 🙂

He did the best eggs benedict I’ve ever had.

Wildwood Cafe @ Function to test that theory!

Me neither, we tended to ride from 10-1, have a siesta as it was super hot till 3/4 then ride till we got tired!

Got back last week from 3 weeks in Whistler.

Flew with BA from Heathrow, it was OK but they only came round twice with drinks on a 9 hour flight, arrived severely dehydrated. Got our transfers from Whistler Transfers at $100 each including bike.

We got a chalet for 3 weeks in the Upper Village, Painted Cliffs, it worked out about £500/£600 per person based on 4. Secure bike storage, nice big apartment with 3 bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms, balcony. Free bus rides until 1am every half hour, or a 15 minute walk uphill from the main village. We booked through Whistler Platinum.

As we went in September the bike pass was $250 for the rest of the season, they discount the season passes in September. The Creekside gondola was only open weekends, but you could put your bike on the bus to get back to Whistler. 29er’s do not fit very well, or pedal back.

I don’t think you need guiding if you buy n download the trailmapps apps. They are like trailforks, but have more trails and detailed descriptions. They do the apps for Whistler, Northshore, Pemberton & Squamish. Honestly these apps were a godsend for organising rides! Without these apps we wouldn’t have done half of the trails we did, we wouldn’t have found them, despite people telling us where they are. If you were unsure on lines, if you hang around long enough someone will come along and show you a line. I’m not a very good climber, but some of the best days involved pedalling/pushing 3,000ft, more if I wanted to, but I didn’t.

We used BearBack for the Heli drop, I think you can also hire them for days in Squamish/etc if there is enough of you. Real nice, they know everything about the area, trails, etc and can show you the lines, so you can then go “**** that” and walk it. 😉

We hired a truck, 5 seater with a bed for the bikes for a week from Avis in Whistler so we were able to get to Squamish/Northshore/Pemberton. Squamish & Northshore are worth a visit!

The best breakfast we could find was Wild Wood, hard to find, but they serve a good breakfast until 3pm and reasonably priced, unlike the Dublin bar.

Ate at Fat Tony’s Pizza ($2 for a massive slice of pizza), Beavertails (awesome hotdogs) or Garbo’s (Burgers) during the day in the park. Evening meals were walk into the main village and follow your nose! The Keg for great steak, the Indian Cuisine for awesome Indian, the rest is very good too and there is a lot of choice.

The bike shops weren’t stupidly expensive and quite reasonably priced if you needed some work done on your bike. Bikes do take a hammering, a lot of braking bumps, especially on the blue flowy jumpy trails. Tyre choice out there is limited and Schwalbe are like $150. 😯

Flew with BA from Heathrow, it was OK but they only came round twice with drinks on a 9 hour flight, arrived severely dehydrated

There’s a self service area for soft drinks isn’t there? Severely dehydrated after 2 drinks in 9 hours? Do you wake up dehydrated every morning?

Beavertails are deep fried pastry with sweet toppings, youre thinking of Zogs that sells them (the little hut)

We went with Bear Back too, takes all the guess work out of it – pick you up from the Airport, feed you, guide you, beers in the fridge.

Guides were great, we had Paul Aston (Pinkbike Staff now and EWS racer) for the most part, Casey Brown was there too.

Mogals for lunch for the most part, Chilli Buritos were lovely, but made me feel bloated for hours afterwards.

GLC and Longhorn is the obvious place to go, lots of atmosphere, a few ‘Pros’ hanging around.

Flew with Canadian Affair as it was about half the price of BA etc, but it’s long-haul budget flying,not my idea of fun. Kind of like Driving to the Alps in a ‘classic’ mini, but one you can’t stop whenever you like to stretch your legs.

Next time I’ll be fitter, which won’t be hard as I was a right mess when I went last time, and I’ll make the effort to get out of the park, it’s great, but I feel like I missed out not riding the trails.

There’s a self service area for soft drinks isn’t there? Severely dehydrated after 2 drinks in 9 hours? Do you wake up dehydrated every morning?

If that is the case, it wasn’t mentioned. Yes believe it or not when travelling for 14+ hours I do need more than 2 half cups of water.

Beavertails are deep fried pastry with sweet toppings, youre thinking of Zogs that sells them (the little hut)

Ah yes, it is Zogs, I didn’t see the massive sign, only saw the small Beavertails sign they have, the smell of those onions is just captivating!

GLC and Longhorn is the obvious place to go, lots of atmosphere, a few ‘Pros’ hanging around

Bumped into Danny Hart last week in Longhorn. He seemed to be enjoying himself*

*getting smashed and singing ‘Ring of fire’ badly 😆