Well what an epic trip. 1200 miles driving in a few days so that we can ride bikes down hills without the requirement of having to pedal them up first…
What can I say? I have got the DH bug back. Man what a great time. Some had told me not to get my hopes up about the Riding at Northstar. After riding at Whistler, Mammoth and Silverstar last year I can say that Northstar is second only to Whistler and is better than the other 2 mountains I have ridden at. Sunpeaks in BC is another that is a must and from what I have seen may be better than Northstar. However the variance at Northstar was good with a large percentage of it being natural terrain and lots of technical riding (rock gardens galore). Overall the tracks were technical and not flat-out. A big focus on cornering and like I said rock gardens were the main themes. There was nothing insane there either, or maybe it’s because I am getting a little better. There were only a few drops and one insane rock garden called ‘The Waterfall’ which I didn’t hit. Had I had a bigger bike I would have tried a few of these obstacles. We spent all of our time on Black and Double Black Diamond runs.
The weekend started with packing up the car at 10.30pm at night then driving throughout the night with Andy and Jason. It’s the first time I had been away with these guys and the trip went well. We were all of a pretty close ability and pushed each other in all the right places. Not one of us came away with any major injuries, a big deal because we were super pumped up to hit the dirt and super tired on that first day also.
So yeah we drove from 11pm for 8hrs through the night taking shifts until when we arrived in Truckee at 7am. After hitting the local diner for breakfast and much needed caffeine we walked round the main street a little before driving the 15mins to Northstar. A ski field in winter which like many of the ‘best’ ski fields provides a place for mountain bikers to hurl themselves down rocks during summer without needing to get up the hills under their own steam.
The first day was intense. We concentrated mainly on the right-hand side trails in the morning, doing many laps of Live Wires. Northstars equivalent to Whistler’s Aline. Jump Jump Jump corner, launch, jump, corner, jump, corner, berm, berm, berm, jump…. It was great to get back into jumping and I was starting to clear most of them by the end of the second day. It was rougher than Aline though. The last run of the day was again down Live Wires and I needed to peel my right hand from the handlebar as as it was locked in a deathgrip. Geez… but we didn’t want to stop riding.
Boondocks was another great track we hit many times on the first day. Technical, loose, fast, drops, trees. We had a wicked time on this track. In the afternoon I met up with Matt from San Jose for a few hours and we rode with his buddies on the more technical left-hand face of the mountain. What can I say. Super technical, rock gardens everywhere, a few drops, not many jumps and some serious loose out of control steep sections. It was a great time and really beat-up the hands and forearms. Even though the place was open till 7pm on the Friday we were so beat by 4.30 we had to stop. After driving the whole night we could hardly keep our eyes open at dinner. A little burger joint by the name ‘Burger Me’.
The next morning we sleep in and were at the mountain for 10am opening. Today we chilled a little more than the first day. Less rushed and had a great day, helped by the fact my eyes wanted to stay open. We still got in many runs, maybe not the 15+ of the first day but we concentrated on hitting a few drops we were too chicken to hit the first day and also spent more time on the rock gardens chasing each other through the dust. It was so quiet both days but especially on July 4th which was weird. We never needed to wait in queues on either day. The weather was also perfect each day. We all had pinch flats on Saturday. Jason got the first in a rock garden. I got mine after landing on a rock sticking out of the transition from one of Live Wires jumps and Andy had another on Boondocks. It turned out to be his last run (we only had time for one more anyhow) as we could not get his 12mm rear axle off with a little multi-tool. This evening after pizza in Truckee we checked out the fireworks for July 4th over Lake Donair. A spectacular location for fireworks with the explosions echoing around the mountain sides.
On Sunday we had the epic drive around the NE side of Lake Tahoe, down to Carson City and all the way down the 395 past Mammoth and home. The Lake Tahoe area is awesome. Not spectacular like Yosemite but just lovely, an outdoors paradise. Out of places to live in CA this would have to have been one of the best places I have seen so far. The drive right down to Bishop is lovely. After that it becomes desert and then sprawl. The drive was interrupted however with some riding. We shuttled Rock Creek with Andy’s cousin who lives in Bishop and his mate. Nothing insane but a great trail. It followed Rock Creek down through a gorge and had some great wee launches, awesome corners and in the lower sections some rock gardens. It was a great way to break up the 550 mile return journey.
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