This past week I had the pleasure of escaping on a little family vaca’ to the interior of British Columbia. Having experienced the sweetness of Nelson BC biking during my Selkirk College days I had yearned to return for quite some time.
Nelson is one of my favorite places on earth. It’s a beautiful lakeside community tucked in the Kootenay Mountains and surrounded by epic bike trails. Picture Montpelier in the Rockies. So similar are the towns that I swear you could take a hippy off Sate St. in Montpelier, blind fold him, drop him on Baker St. in Nelson, and it will be weeks before he realizes he’s left home.
Anyway, over my vacation blitz I manages to sneak in three rides (thanks Amber!) and definitely got my fix of my home away form home. Here’s a little photo essay from my time on the ground. BC or bust!
Long ago Mike Hodsall and I met on these very trails. You may know Mikey from his band BC/DC’s appearances in the New World Disorder movies? On stage he’s the acrobatic guy dressed in a cow suit. Here he reminds our buddies via social media that their jobs suck because they should be riding bikes with us.
No ride begins without a dose of the Kootenay’s finest… and a cup of Oso coffee. Most end the same way.
Nelson’s Mountain Station is an epic trail network right at the top of the hill the city is perched on.
Mike demonstrates how to ride some snail-snot-slick north shore slats.
Here lies Flow Job. This is the rotting carcass of one of the most epic lines ridden by Wade Simmons in the New World Disorder movies. If I am not mistaken it is also one of the early trail’s built by famed stunt engineer Riley McIntosh. The exit form this line was across and off the ramped end the downed tree you see in the bottom of the pic, only it was about 18 feet up in the trees above our heads.
On my third ride out we decided to go big and shuttled up Giveout Creek and out a ten mile logging road that afforded us a few thousand feet of descending. Man I love trucks, bikes and BC.
Nick introduced me to Nelson. Having achieved his life long dream of moving there, settling down with a nice Canadian girl, and starting a family, I had to promise his wife I wouldn’t kill him on his first ride ever in Nelson.
I procured a schweet TR450 rental from my favorite shop in town, The Sacred Ride. They’re super hospitable dudes and directed us to the somewhat misty Powerslave trailhead.
Pristine old growth stood here. Now it feels more like a war zone but timber is big business and the BC lumber industry turns a blind eye to rogue trails built on Crown land. You’ll recognize Poweslave form the Lifecycles movie.
Ahhh, quintessential pine forest replete with Old Man’s Beard.
For a reference to scale, that tiny little dude is me. This section of of trail felt like we were in a natural cathedral. Look at the size of those trees!
Bridges abound on Powerslave.
…still abounding.
As do rock roll-downs. Just above Kootenay Lake the environment shifts to tons of exposed granite on a trail called Pulmonary.
Ahh, the perfect end to a ride. Cheers Mikey and Nick!
And for good measure here are a few more epic B.C. tree shots as demonstrated by my little buddy Benny.
As one departs from nelson a sign reads “Your visit, our pleasure.” See you next year and thanks to everyone for all the hospitality. Much love from VT to BC.
