After four years, the organizers of the Samurai of Singletrack mountain bike ride had to rack their brains to come up with a challenging new 2005 course for Whistler’s most hardcore riders. It’s not that Whistler has a shortage of bike trails to choose from, but when your courses range from 42 to 64 kilometres, you tend to cover a lot of the same ground.
Despite the fact that most local trails have been used and abused in past Samurais, race directors Tony Horn and Ru Mehta still managed to add a few new twists to this year’s event.
"It gets harder every year. Next year we already know what we’re going to do, but this year we really had to dig deep to come up with something new that’s Samurai-worthy," said Horn. "We had to use some of the same trails, so we wanted to use them in a different way."
One new aspect to the ride is that it gets underway with a loop in the Whistler Mountain Bike Park. The Samurai has started on Whistler Mountain before, but descended on the Khyber’s Pass/Babylon By Bike trails rather than riding the park.
This year’s route starts in the village and goes up B-Line and Expressway, and down No Joke, Duff Man, Golden Triangle, and Lower A-Line, before climbing back up to Heart of Darkness.
From there the course heads up Blackcomb Mountain, almost to the top of Excalibur Gondola. From there riders will begin an estimated 25-minute descent of a technical new trail called Hey Bud. The route will then go through cross-country trails in Lost Lake Park before heading north on the 24 km Comfortably Numb. Comfortably Numb was included in one past race, but most people ride it north-south and not the other way around.
"I think I actually prefer it that way, there’s a lot of great rock climbing and a long descent after the halfway point," said Horn. "You have to push your bike up a few sections you’d normally come down, but it’s still a really good ride."
After the bridge over Wedge Creek riders will head down Young Lust, then turn around and head back to Lost Lake Park via the Green Lake Loop.
The last section of the course includes Cut Yer Bars, A River Runs Through It, Bob’s ReBob, Whip Me Snip Me, Danimal, 99’er, and Danimal again to Alta Lake Road. The finish is a short ride away in Alpha Lake Park.
The course is almost exactly 60 km in length, with over 1,800 metres of vertical gain along the way.
"This is the year of the technical climb," said Horn, explaining his trail choices. "There’s no big, crazy descent like Gargamel or Khyber/Babylon or Cheap Thrills this year, but the bike park section will be hard and Hey Bud is pretty technical, so people might want to keep their pads on that long at least.
"The main thing about this route is not that I think it’s the best or worst, or hardest so far, just that we definitely wanted to make sure it was different. I really think the climbs are going to push people the way they haven’t been tested before."
This year 110 people will take part in the race, supported by about 20 volunteers. Riders have to be mostly self-sufficient as there will be only one aid station, at the end of Young Lust.
Since the first race in 2001, some 54 people have taken part in every race and are in the running for the Black Headband after the seventh and final year Horn and Mehta will run the Samurai series.
Because past participants always get first crack at a limited number of entries, there were only a handful of spots open to new riders this year. Rather than give up those spots to the first riders in line, Horn and Mehta held a 100-word essay contest for the open spots.
They received 10 applications for four spots, but with some participants pulling out with injuries Horn and Mehta decided to allow all 10 into the ride.
"It was really creative. Greg Grant wrote a poem on how he was going to destroy Matt Ryan, that was pretty cute. And someone else came in and sang us a Samurai song… we were given a scroll by a Japanese baby dressed up as a Samurai; someone gave us a little book with crayon drawings; it was really great," said Horn, who plans to display the work at the after-party at Teppan Village. "We were happy we could fit everyone in."
The rider to beat this year is Andreas Hestler, a former World Cup racer who is looking to win the Whistler triple crown – West Side Wheel Up, Samurai of Singletrack, and Cheakamus Challenge. He already won the West Side Wheel Up on Sept. 10, and has won the Cheakamus Challenge for the past three years. Other competitive riders include Matt Ryan, who won last year’s Samurai, as well as local riders like Greg Grant, Dave Burch, Matt Bodkin and Mike Boehm.
But while the top riders will be racing, Horn stresses that it’s really more of a ride and that finishing is the only goal.
Registration for the Samurai starts at 7:30 a.m. this Saturday, Sept. 17, and the race gets underway at 8 a.m. sharp. All riders have to be members of WORCA or have valid Cycling B.C. racing licenses, and WORCA registration forms will be available at the start line.
The after party at Teppan Village starts at 8 p.m.
Riders are asked to bring plenty of water and food and dress for the weather. Body armour is recommended, at least for the bike park and Hey Bud descents.
