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We are looking at riding xc in whistler next year. Has anyone been with bear back biking? Any recommendations?
Do you mean XC or riding the blue / black trails in the bike park*? Are you just going to Whistler or will you branch out a bit?
In any event, I can't recommend bush pilot biking highly enough ( http://bushpilotbiking.com/). Best biking holiday ever, and i've been on a fair few...
Anyway, obligatory whistler photos...
[url= http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4084/5036862682_9b226b4b20_b.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/ewanpanter/5036862682/ ]IMG_2678_lowres[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/ewanpanter/ ]Ewan Panter[/url], on Flickr
Get a heli drop, they're cool!
[url= http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4154/5037102482_1e994a3fb9_z.jp g" target="_blank">
*If you're just doing the bike trails in the park, don't worry about guiding, you don't need it. Just book some accommodation.
Wife and I have been twice with Bear Back. Highly recommend them. No negative feedback from either of us. Very well organised/reliable. If the sole purpose of your trip may be the "the park" as Ewan stated above the need for a "guiding company" may be negliable.
If you go all the way there, don't just do the park. As ace as it is, there is SO much more to the area than just there. Defo go to Squamish. Had one of my best days riding down there.
Pics here if interested:
2008 http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevemilne/sets/72157607259453729/
2006 http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevemilne/sets/72157594289705692/
The park is not really on our radar as neither of us do big air or woodwork. We are looking to do more trail riding than anything else.
Go with Bearback then, the xc stuff they do is a real challenge (skill/fitness, but is fun. They always cater to your skill level.
Thanks, looks like bearback is best for us then.
Hi, stayed with Bear Back for 2 weeks in August last year.
I cannot recommend them highly enough, first class chalet in a lovely setting, a two minute walk from Alta Lake, good food.
As above, in the bike park, guides are not needed, although it is a good idea to ride with them for a couple of days in the park to build up your confidence more than anything. They also run skills courses a couple of mornings a week which are worth taking advantage of.
Out of the bike park, there are that many trails to choose from, all waymarked, & all of varying difficulty, & the Bear Back guides were only too keen to guide us round. There is an excellent 'pocket sized' guide book to all the trails in the area.....can't think of the bloody name of it though!
What Gary_C said +1
I'd take a week in Squamish and maybe Pemberton
Certainly wouldn't go to Whistler again
Hi Stevie,
Drop us a line with any questions.
Plumber, why no return to Whistler? I live in Squamish and ride here if I'm not in Whistler so have an affinity to both places. Just interested as to your take on things from your point of view.
Guiding wise
The main added value of our holiday package is the guiding aspect.
Its not simply a guy on a bike who will show you around. Its a talented guy on a bike who understands the needs of our guests, can recognise the challenges of the guests riding and help develop the weakness in their riding whilst boosting confidence and ultimately sending you home a far better rider than you were before you arrived.
The beauty of good guiding is that your ability, confidence and aspirations are matched to the days trail selections. Meaning that you will get pushed to the edges of your comfort zone on occasion, but not put in a situation where you are overwhelmed or where your confidence gets knocked. If guests do look a little out of their depths with some trails or if the guides can see that the guest needs to throttle back on the technical difficulty to regain their confidence, they can make a quick change to the guiding route and get you back on track.
This applies to DH and the valley's XC riding. I've not come across a guidebook that comes close to this 😉
As a good example. Visitors that visit Whistler and self guide by guidebook invariably want to ride comfortably numb. Its billed as the Whistler EPIC must do trail.. but the guide book doesn't tell you its the most ongoing and technically demanding 24km of single track there is and nor does the guide book send you into Kill Me Thrill Me first as a qualifier.
Don't get me wrong though. Self guided holidays are perfect for some but I don't think we've ever had a guest who in hindsight would have preferred to miss out on the superb guiding service we offer.
If we didn't believe in our guiding and how much it adds to our guests holiday experience, we wouldn't offer the service - those boys cost a lot to feed 😉
Hope to see you next season 🙂
I did a days biking on the Zappa trails with a company called Whistler Bike Guide, thoroughly enjoyed it and the guide did a great job of tailoring the ride.
Only used that guide though, so I can't really compare to the service offered by the others.
Great backcountry xc in the Chilcotins too - epic, with amazing singletrack descents. And Whistler's got plenty of good trails without mandatory air and woodwork - from Garbanzo down, technical and steep, but optional air and wood.
We stayed with bearbackbiking a couple of years ago for our Honeymoon, first class everything. Can't recommend them highly enough. The riding is fantastic and you will head off home with a buzz and a few more skills than you arrived with.
We also did the floatplane trip with WCFG which has to be the best days biking I've ever had without a shadow of a doubt. Also the Helidrop is good 😉
Buy a map, go explore. Thats part of the fun. Whistler is well marked and well mapped.
And do a couple of days in the park on big bikes - you will love it. 😛
Thanks everyone, Bearback my wife has already been in contact with you, By the way her stumpjumper is full suspension, I am merely doing a little bit of homework on here. Its really good to use a company that comes with such good feedback.
See you next year.
Went with Bear Back for two weeks DH in whistler.
Best. Holiday. Ever.
Accomodation, food, transfer, organisation all suberb. Even lent one of the guys a set of 40's went he snapped his 888's.
Simply excellent.
As others have said, the bike park isn't just drops and air. I'd never ridden a DH bike (or much real DH stuff, after ~15 years of XC) until 2 weeks ago when I hired one on holiday. Awesome! Almost everything "big" is optional/rollable on the black trails.
And you get to ride past black bears, which is a novelty 🙂
Got back from Whistler on Sunday.
2nd trip with Ticket2RideBC.
Not tried Bear Back but have met a few riders with them - seem OK
The bike park is great - but make sure you hire a DH bike, a full face and some body armour to do it justice.
The XC trails are stunning even in the rain which we had in the first week I was out there this year.
Whistler valley trails, Squamish XC stuff and Pemberton valley trails are all excellent XC stuff.
You might also want to consider staying a bit on Vancouver Island - great trails again and the opportunity to see Orca whales, Dolphins etc on the trip over there from Vancouver.
I've done the float Plane trip in the chilcotin mountians - amazing riding, but you will need a guide (Grizzlies, Cougars etc).
Also done the heli-drop with Ticket2RideBC onto Rainbow mountain - again a guide needed as its a bit exposed. You really should use a downhill or big travel hardcore freeride bike on that one as even a fairly good trails bike will struggle.
I'd suggest two weeks at least as the jet-lagg will kill you off otherwise.
Canadian Affair (google it) is the cheapest place I've found for flights as well.
Hope that helps
Badger
yeah, I went with bearback last year and am going again this year. There's a 10% off code at canadian affair at the moment ('canada sale') - got the flights for £480 return (+£60 for bikes). Get in.
to add a little more to the guiding, I found it very good. Went out with a couple of different guides, did some skills training as well as a local xc day, and tips over the more techy trails. I've been riding dh for nearly 10 years (as well as xc) and still picked up a lot from the skills coaches. You can find everything in the park without them, but they're still worth it
OP - even if you're not into 'going massive' - I'd still plan for a full day in the park - its great fun and there are a lot of less gnar trails to cut your teeth on. I'd also recommend the heli drop trail (Bear Back helped organise this for us last year) - its a techy xc decent that goes on for ages, and you get to the top in a helicopter! awesome 🙂
H
5lab...
going this year? The bike park closes for the winter on October 12th!
Extended play (the bike park being open til 8pm) finnished at the begining of September and as of a week ago monday only the lower lift (Fitsimmons express) is open during the week as the Gondola and the Garbanzo lift are all closed being prepared for the start of the winter ski season so you can't get into the upper half of the bike park only the lower trails.
Badger
Despite some jibbing when I worked for T2R for a short while, Bearback do sound like the most sorted of the two operations in terms of guide experience and such. Hopefully T2R have got their act together but guiding trails while having to hide behind a tree to check the map because you've not even ridden the trail yourself before was a bit of a joke.
I've stayed with T2R three times in the past 2 years, and can't fault them.
I've heard the stories from the previous owners reign, but the current guys have got everything dialled. Having spoken to their head guide a fair bit, he spends a lot of time at the start of the season making sure the guides have ridden everything he expects them to guide, and won't let any lead on trails they're not confident on.
However, I've not been on any of their xc guiding, so can't really comment. I can say their North Shore guiding was good (despite the lead guide exploding his bike!), and that their Bike Park tour was good fun 🙂
They also put a lot back into the trails, compared with other companies. The guides are reguarly away trailbuilding at all the places where they do guiding/shuttling.
i meant next year - this year's already over 🙂
Like BearBack's post above, I have an interest in telling you about T2R as they sponsor me in their DH team to try and sell holidays. However I did go there on my own accord for 2 years before they offered me the deal, so I can speak from the 'punters' perspective too.
I've done a lot of the xc trails with T2R and certainly in the past 2 years, the guides knew the trails like the back of their hands mainly due to the fact that they are out with WORCA, PORCA and SQORCA [u]EVERY week maintaning them. They even took notes during this years rides on anything that needed maintaining to report back for the next maintenance day.
You get a shuttle run to the trails in Chilcotin, Pemberton and Squamish and then a lift home. All the Whistler trails are an Av of 15 mins from the lodge, it's MTB heaven.
As mentioned above T2R did go 'downhill' (sorry) under the previous owner, but the new owners, brothers Pete and Phil, have put and lot of time, effort and money into building up the reputation of the company again and it's now 2nd to none in Whistler.
Fot the ultimate xc riding you need to check out the Chilcotins trips - float plane 'shuttle' to an alpine lake and then 5 hours of cruisey xc through some of the most stunning scenery in the world.
In addition to the canadian affair discount, if you quote the code T2R01 you'll get a 5% discount on your T2R holiday too.
www.ticket2ridebc.com