Tonasket-Loomis-Oroville Loop

After enjoying a wonderful ride in the little town of Pemberton, we spent our last day in Canada driving the scenic roads of British Columbia, which included climbing super steep, curvy mountain passes, meandering along the beautiful Lake Okanogan, and enjoying the quiet roads lined with endless orchards of apples, pears, peaches and cherries.

We crossed the border over Hwy 97 and stopped in the second town in the good ol' USA, Tonasket, Washington.

The map on the wall of the "visitor center" showed two perfect loop routes, and we picked the one most likely to be paved. One of many really great things about our travels is that we just look at maps, pick a route, and go for it. Sometimes its a bust - but lots of times we find wonderful rides; and this one was a true gem. 62 miles, 2300' of climbing with just two stop signs. We saw only a handful of cars along the way, as we rolled past five lakes and a river, and endless farmland and fruit orchards. Awesome.

One last comment about our travels in Canada: Clif Bars were $3!!! We'll NEVER again complain about the price of groceries in the USA! Eh?

CRANKWORX Live From Whistler BC

YOWZA!!! Whistler was ROCKIN' with tons of partying people, live bands, and the most INSANE mountain biking imaginable! Sheer good luck put us in Whistler just in time for Crankworx - a festival of all things down-hill, including the awesome Slopestyle freeriding. Check it out:

Dual Slalom: We saw Brian Lopes race the prelims - but he choked the finals!

This is Ryan Leach - the KING of Trials doing some incredible balancing tricks.

The Slopestyle was far and away the biggest crowd pleaser: Here's a "little" jump - only 15-20 feet maybe...

Everyone in the final round had to come off the jumbo-tron... a mere 25-30 feet...

and this is what happens when you biff the landing...

We did a lot of riding ourselves on the incredible trails around Whistler. Brian spent a day taking the lift/gondola up and enjoying the downhill bike park (and even saw a bear - yeah, a real one, just off the trail); and we also did some more epic cross-country trails. Here are some local shots:

We're on the road again, pointed towards home - but planning lots of stops along the way - including several days in the Bend/Sisters, Oregon area where the road and mountain biking just can't be beat. Stay tuned for more!

Oh! Canada!

Finally the sun came out -- and we've had two incredible days of mountain biking in beautiful Squamish, British Columbia. We're just South of Whistler (where we're headed tomorrow) in what the locals call the best mountain biking in BC.

EPIC (and endless) single track trails wind in and out of the woods, alongside rivers, around lakes, and meander across hillsides with incredible views of the surrounding mountains and amazing, colorful wildflowers! NOT for the feint-hearted, however... The local riders are in a whole other league! While the trails are listed as green for easy, blue for intermediate, black diamond for expert, and double black diamond for insanity - we found the blues really challenging and did quite a bit of hike a bike. The greens were a ton of fun though! Check it out:

Hello From Canada

It has been raining for six days straight and we're going a little stir crazy here... Especially since we're surrounded by world class mountain biking (which is why we came here, of course). The sun is supposed to come out tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for us! We're really ready to ride!

San Juan Island

In search of orcas, we took the ferry from Anacortes to San Juan Island. If you're lucky, you can stand on the shoreline and see the awesome animals just yards offshore. But (heavy sigh), they eluded us; as we managed to arrive exactly at the spot where they just WERE a few short minutes before we arrived ... and we never did see a single orca. Oh well. The ride around San Juan Island was a blast. Another great day on the road!