After watching 100’s of videos online and reading numerous articles about it I am considering going for 2 weeks in the coming year. The only doubt I have is everything looks really difficult even the blue runs in the bike park. I ride a Trek Remedy 8 and would like advice on how suitable it would be for the trails across there. I have never had any real problems on red and black routes in this country but the videos make it look more difficult. Any advice appreciated

I found nothing too difficult there to be honest and i’m more gay than a gay thing. clearly if you like your tyre to leave the ground then things would be go up a few factors

That said I only did a few black runs – mostly blues and reds

I found one route in squamish off the top of a small mountain that really focused my attention though

Not been but a mate has, he was riding a meta 5. He did fine but said it would have been much better with a longer travel bike. Think quite a few people buy a s/h freeride/dh bike to take out there then sell it afterwards.

there’s much more straightforward stuff that on the videos.

unless you will be riding stuff you can’t ride over here your bike will be fine.

you and the bike will be fine, although a bigger bike may give you more confidence, go early as braking bumps get bad by the end of the season on many of the runs. Most of the blue runs are smooth, yes they all have jumps but its up to you how fast you hit them.

I lived out there for a year.
Plenty of trails for a remedy, especially out of the park. If you are doing multiple laps of the park then a big bike is way better (easy to hire) and you dont rag your own bike. Some of the steep stuff like

goats gully

and Detroit rock city

would be better on a big bike 😯

Its amazing how quick you will progress in a couple of weeks, and by the end of your trip you will be riding down stuff you not thought possible

Thanks for the advice better start looking round for some holiday deals then

Freeride Nick has hit the nail on the head there, though I must admit when I go again I’ll still probably take the 5 (but with some beafier DH wheels). Did a couple of days this summer, uplift and xc and it was great having a bike to do both on without too much comprimise. Remedy would be pretty good unless you really want to pin it on the steep very rocky trails (goat gully being one… folded the rim on a pair of Mavic X819s of mine after the tyre was pulled off the bead, oops!).
Take the Remedy, it’ll probably do for most things, then hire a big bike if you feel the urge.

Air Transat/Thomas Cook offer some pretty reasonable priced flights.

Yeah it’s fine. My Nomad was fine in the bike park, but I would have used a DH bike had I had one.

We started off on a green thinking it was going to be hardcore, and quickly realised it wasn’t. Ended up riding mainly the blues tho, as crank it up is just too much fun! I’d say a blue in whistler is a black in the UK.

That being said, the double blacks are pretty hard – we only rode a couple and minced round some of the bigger stunts. The blacks strike a good balance between tricky and ace.

If you can’t jump on the first day you’ll be pinning it by the 3rd.

Having just said all of that, I’d not recommend going to canada and just doing whistler, it’d be a massive waste. We were in the park for three days and that was more than enough (as in we rode everything with the exception of some of the double black bits many times).

Our itinary for canada was as follows:

3 days in whistler
1 day doing a helidrop to the top rainbow
Picked up by johnny smoke of bush pilot biking and driven to tyax for float plane trip (one of the most amazing thing I’ve ever done)
9 days touring the interior of BC (revelstoke etc) with Johnny staying in various random places and riding with various locals

Best holiday ever and can’t recommend bush pilot biking highly enough. Looking back on it, if I’d gone out there and just ridden whistler and did the helidrop i’d have felt dissapointed. The road trip transformed it from a holiday into an experience, Johnny hooked us up with various local riders and coached us so we really progressed – if whistler had been at the end rather than the begining of the trip I don’t think there would have been much I wouldn’t have hit (ok not the very big drop at the bottom of the boneyard to the left of the three GLC drops!).

Check johnny out here: http://bushpilotbiking.com/category/triplog/
Some photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ewanpanter/sets/72157625060842024/
Johnny’s trip log of our road trip here: http://bushpilotbiking.com/2010/09/04/salad-doggers-1/ (goes from 1 thru 9)

bushpilotbiking.com for the win! 🙂 johnny sells dreams

bushpilotbiking.com for the win! johnny sells dreams

He certainly does!

In the park most people are on DH bikes. I was fine on my ‘small’ SX trail, but some of the double black stuff would have been easier on a proper DH bike. In groomed jump trails (A-Line, Dirt Merchant, Blue Velvet etc) you could almost ride anything. The biggest problem with a smaller bike on the ‘gnar’ is that you get tired quicker – you’d be amazed how much riding you can do in a day when you have chairlifts. I’d also second getting out of Whistler, especially if you have a bike you can ride up as well as down. At the very least you have Squamish and the North Shore less than 1.5 hours away. It’s more difficult to find the trails but if you don’t have guides, Tantalus bikes in Squamish will point you in the right direction. On the Shore, the trails on Fromme are signposted and accessible by bike rather than shuttling. Don’t be afraid, the riding will test you, but you’ll have a ball.

goats gully, Detroit rock city mmmm that looks good!

Bushpiloting looks awesome if you don’t mind me asking how much did your trip cost minus the heli drop because that looks a very serious option now

If you need an apartment out there, I can put you in touch with someone who has one to rent. It’s a family member of some of the inlaws and their place is across the road from the village so only a few mins from the lifts.

I rode there some years ago when I was most definitely not really at that level and honestly, even the black runs at the bottom (I didn’t go up to Garbanzo) have ways around the genuinely scary stuff. Given my ability when I went, I’d say that the park flatters your ability and pushes you a little bit beyond your usual riding but not so much you want to get off and walk. Course, going faster and avoiding the chicken runs might change that 🙂

Cabbage – i’ll send you a mail.

Thanks

Lots of bike park references above, but if you’re not one to go to uplift specific places in the UK then don’t rule out the XC/AM riding in the Valley.

Sure you can’t ride the bike park in the UK so you may not want to consider the XC, but to be honest, you cant ride Whistler XC in the UK and it really shouldn’t be missed.

Whistler (both XC and DH) has easy stuff all the way through to silly hard stuff. Our guides work to expand your comfort zone and ability so that by the end of the week you’ll be riding up down and over stuff you never thought you’d ever be able to ride. 2 weeks will see a huge leap in your riding ability and you’ll go home a different rider!

So, for XC orientated riders, we’d recommend coming with the intention to pedal and having a couple of coached play days in the park to experience it and work on descending technique to apply to your XC.

If you want any info on what we offer, feel free to drop me an email or check out our site. linked in profile.

Cheers

Jonny