A flying visit home

After being in North America for four and a half months it was time to do some work and earn some money. Lucky for me there are jobs out there that don't really feel like work. As well as playing at  work, I wanted to hang out and play as much as possible outside of work. The balancing act is always a hard one but if I wasn't driving up or down the country I managed to work.

Top of Makara Peak in Wellington.

Once I put my bike together, I met up with an old school buddy, Mike. He showed me some really fun trails in Wellington. We also randomly met a couple of dudes from Wellington not long after we started our ride and they showed us some that even Mike didn't know about. 

Top of Exit Trail in the Redwoods, Rotorua.

After exploring trails in California, Utah, Colorado, and British Columbia it was so good to be home in Rotorua riding with good friends on our own world class trails! The forest in Rotorua is actively logged so every few years when they log a new block they rebuild trails so there is always something new.

The view from platform 4 to 5 which is up a 1000yr old Rimu tree.

Fortunately for me I keep getting welcomed back to Rotorua Canopy Tours to guide for them for just a few weeks at a time when I am available. It was awesome to get out there again because there is always something new happening. I'm not talking about the course that we take people ziplining on, I'm talking about all of the great conservation work they do out in the Dainsy Road Scenic Reserve where they operate. Each time I go back more pests have been removed, there are more birds and new plans being executed to remove more pests. It's a cool company.

Spring was pretty good to. Just enjoying some sun on the deck after work.

One of the coolest things about being home is how much you can fit into a day. There is so much close to Okere Falls and so many motivated people who are keen to get out there and make the most of a day. This particular day was a standout. It started with a safety kayak (work) lap on the Kaituna for Rotorua Rafting followed by a raft lap with some friends.

Testing if I could hit the line still with the lightest load ever.

The Kaituna river is a magical place that attracts people from all over the country and the world with its classic, warm, super fun whitewater, and it's a beautiful place. I've been coming back summer after summer since 2009 and still can't wait to get back there every year. Now it's not just the river but the people, the lake, the beach, and the mountain biking.

Next on the agenda for the day was to go rip around Lake Rotoiti with Cam chasing a couple of mates who were sailing their skiff. I even got to go for a ride on the skiff for a just enough time to take some photos and pull on some ropes.

Sam and Tim hanging out making it look pretty easy. I think it's far too stressful.

After going on a bit more of an explore around the lake checking out Hot Water Beach and some cool caves that were used for food storage by the Maori we headed to Rainbow Mountain for some mountain biking.

The views from the top are incredible from the top of this volcano. 

 All smiles at the bottom of the "Te Ranga" trail.

The view from the top of Tokorangi Pa. Sanga rolling into "Corodor" 

After the flying three and a half weeks at home the next adventure through Patagonia down to Antarctica is just around the corner! 

Out for a rip on Vancouver Island

Over the past month I have been kickin it  here in Canada. I have my mountain bike and borrowed an old Chevy van. Just cruising. Attending a few music festivals along the way, meeting a whole lot of rad people, and doing skids in some awesome places, Vancouver Island is great! Out of the dozens of people I meet along the way and at music festivals and trails, I found a couple of key people who hooked me up by either coming out for a ride and being my guide or setting me up with some cool people to go ride with.

We had our teething problems but after an afternoon of being a little hot, the old girl was my best friend!

Starting out riding at a local spot in Victoria called heartland, I already feel in love with the riding here. Cool rock chutes, a good ratio of groomed to un-groomed trails, and sweet jumps! Sofa King being one of the most fun. It was here where I met Ted. He was great for beta and invited me on multiple riding trips and gave me the contacts to people to go ride with.

The view from the top of Tzouhalem

From Victoria I made my way north stopping in at Mt Tzouhalem which is in Duncan. Here lies some super fun riding on trails like Double Dees, Bumblebees, Resurrection, some fast, fun and steep ridge trail, and my favourite trails on the island which was a free ride trail called Loam Line. Vince, my go to guy for this area was a buddy I met at one of the festivals. It took a couple of rides out with him before he really showed my the goods. We set a shuttle and embarked on a 3 hour ride with over 1000m of climbing and even more descending, views of Maple Bay and the Cowachin Valley, jumps, drops, steeps, skids and dust! All of this was finished off with delicious beer and a meal at a pub at the bottom of the hill.

One of the many fun features on the hill

The next stop north was a town called Nanaimo. Ted had given me a guys number so I followed it up and got in touch with Darren. He turned out to be a bit of a cross country fiend and took me (panting like an over-cooked dog) around Westwood Lake. This area was pretty fun and I really didn't know what to expect. Lucky for me my bike is all round awesome so I didn't have too much trouble keeping up. We did eventually climb up to a cool view point before getting a really steep descent straight down a rock face which was great but over way to quick. Before I knew it we were back at the lake and it was time for a quick swim and time to go find a spot to camp for the night.

A view from the top of the big rock over looking Westwood Lake

The next spot I hit was still Nanaimo and the area was the Dumont Rd Trails. This place was confusing as hell so it was my turn to either go and get lost or be that awkward guy sifting at a trail head ready to ride at the drop off a hat if the right person came along to either give me some direction or let me follow them around. Thankfully it was option 2. I was lucky because this was a very confusing and poorly marked network. Jeff, a fire fighter on a fat bike provided a back wheel for me to follow here. It was fun but I've never had to concentrate on not clipping my bars on every trail all the time before. Bar hunters everywhere! The 780's were detrimental for sure! Before I knew it we were on the one requested/recommended trail in the place, Monkeys In The Mist. That was a pretty fun trail and had a bunch of weird jumps and rickety old structures and it was all smiles at the bottom. From here it was time to head to Cumberland.

Fred Flintstone rippin round Cumberland!

Again, for Cumberland all I had was a friend of a friend and so I walked into the bike shop where this fella worked, asked for Steve, said that Vince from Duncan had sent me. I got heaps of shit for being a Kiwi and whether my deck was sealed or not (Deck sealant commercial) and then Chris speaks up and said that he was who I was looking for. Here I bought a map and Chris showed me some good options for trails to ride. This place is just exploding with new trails every year so the bike shop is your only real option for an up to date map. I went for a hoon here by myself and had a blast, then I went back into the shop to see Chris and try make a time to go for a rip.

One of the good views looking down the Comox Valley just before dropping into the goods of Cumberland.

The trail network in Cumberland was incredible. There were great trails to climb on that kept you on your toes and in the shade, the descents were ultra fun and fast and full of steep, rooty, rocky and bermy goodness. The best part of all of this was, it was a block from the main street. This made finding a beer at the end of the ride really easy at the local brewery! 

Everyone was having too much fun and moving too fast to take any riding photos so I didn't even bother.

Cumberland was an incredible area with one side of town full of trial riding, the beautiful Comox Lake at the head of town, then down hill trails from Forbidden Plateau on the other side of town with a sweet swimming spot in the river at the bottom of the hill. Cumberland gets five stars! I ended up spending a week here. The first few days I hung out at a music festival called Atmosphere Gathering which took up the first few days. Once that was over the incredible riding and lake time took up the rest of my time. 

Enjoying the view and some shade for a few moments before dropping into found link.

Spending just two weeks on the road was enough but I could have easily kept going. Other places like Port Alburni or Hornby Island which are more places that are meant to have incredible riding. 

The bike is getting a rest and the next adventure is just around the corner..

The USA summer season begins

On route for a tiny town in the mountains of Colorado we speed in for some good family time in California then made the trip north visiting friends, taking river rescue courses, buying and selling bikes and riding said bikes. All in all is been a busy few weeks but we got to re visit some of our favorite trails from last year and check out some new ones on our way to Idaho Springs which is going to be home for the next few months.

First place we revisited was Moab in Utah and we went back to our favorite loop in the area. Amasa Back to Captain Ahab to Mc Donalds.

Cool storms rolling by in Moab, Utah.

Captain Ahab Trail, Moab, Utah.

The next stop en route was Fruita, CO. There are lots of places to ride here and a variety of styles of riding. The smoothest and flowiest would be at the Book Cliffs on the Road 18 Trails. There is lots of really good camping out there to so we chilled for a couple of days and explored more of the trails

Nicole coming down Joe's Ridge.

 Chilling out at camp in the afternoon heat.

super fun and swoopy descents.

We had heard that the Lunch Loops area was worth checking out as well so we went exploring. From the Tabagouche Trailhead we went up to ride Holy Cross, rode it, then got lost trying to maximize fun for amount of effort and found the trails a lot chunkier than expected with not so much of the flow of some of the other trails around. Super cool place though but we should have asked more questions at the local bike shop to make it a good loop rather than our snake finding undulating waste of time..

A cool view point just before the top of Tabagouche Trail.

From Grand Junction we drove to find a place to camp in Idaho Springs and encountered all sorts of bad weather. We woke up to find that there is no way we were camping for a week while we waited for our house to come available. After one night in the snow we headed straight back out of there to Steamboat Springs to hang at a friends house and maybe get some more riding in.

The morning after with the car packed and snowy.

 Driving over Rabit Pass to Steamboat.