Who said girls can't jump?!

Can't believe we've been here almost a week already, although I guess time flies when you're having fun!
After writing off our first full day as Gareth was recovering from the lurgy picked up on the plane, and we had to return the rental car to Vancouver, we were both raring to go on Friday morning. All of the bikes had survived the plane journey without damage (phew!) and after assembling them we headed out on some local trails in the Lost Lake area of Whistler to stretch the legs and find our bearings. The trails around Lost Lake are a lot of fun; mildly technical with a few rooty sections, some rock slab rolls, and a couple of raised wooden platforms, but nothing scary.

So we were whizzing around enjoying being out in the sun, when my bike started to make some loud clunking noises.....Gareth quickly diagnosed a problem with the free-hub and we had to head back to the lodge :( Oh well, at least it's not like we're limited on time to enjoy those runs again!
Thankfully the problem was fixed (ish) with a couple of spare parts, a file, and Gareth swearing a bit.

That afternoon was spent cruising down some nice easy runs in the bike park. The park is basically one bit of Whistler's ski area. You get the chair lift up (every other chair has been replaced with a bike rack so you put your bike on, and then get on the chair behind) and then get to choose from loads of different routes back down. These are graded green (easy), blue (intermediate), black (difficult), and double black (expert). They are all different with some being technical, twisty, rocky, and rooty, or some smooth, fast trails with jumps and berms to whoop and holler over! Each run has it's own name and some of these are famous in the biking world. My personal favourite names are "Samurai Pizza Cat", "Karate Monkey" and "Ninja Cougar", although the best run in the park has to be "Crank it Up" which I think I could just ride all day with a huge smile on my face as i fly over the jumps!
The other great thing about the park is the bears......it's rare to go a day without seeing one from the lift or even walking across the trail! I think that at the end of the year I will still get excited when I see a bear....even if it's the hundredth one I've seen! One even walked right past me in the garden of the lodge 2 days ago as I was reading on the deck! They are black bears (much friendlier than grizzlys!) and pretty much act like a cross between cows and sheep....constantly eating grass/plants, and slowly ambling from one berry bush to the next.

So the last few days have found us getting out on the cross-country trails in the morning, heading back for a bit of lunch and a rest, and then out in the bike park in the afternoon/evening (it's a hard life!).

Last night I went to Women's night in the bike park after hearing about it from one of the girls in the lodge. Basically every Monday and Wednesday the bike park hold this evening to encourage women riders to improve their skills in a group of similar ability, meet people, find riding buddies, and have a lot of fun. For not much more than £10 you get 2 hours coaching in a group of about 4, a beer in the bar afterwards, and entry to a raffle for loads of expensive prizes donated by bike sponsors. It was brilliant and I don't think I've ever learnt so much and improved so quickly in such a short space of time! Our group decided to work on jumping, something which we'd all done a bit before but felt a bit scared doing and were holding ourselves back for fear of going too fast/high and then hurting ourselves on landing. Breaking down the technique bit-by-bit and practising different elements, we all quickly progressed, and by the end of the session were all getting some rad air! It had been a long, hot day yesterday so the cold beer at the end tasted fantastic, and even better was when my name was drawn out in the raffle and I won a set of tyres! I will definitely be back there next week.
Time to hit the trails again and put my new skills into practice....See ya!