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Whistler's bike park continually pushes the envelope, setting new trends and proving that mountain biking's time in the limelight is here to stay
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Since day one, Whistler's bike scene has been weaving its way into the tapestry of local mainstream culture. In effect, it's turning Whistler into a global destination for mountain biking, credited with pushing the boundaries of the sport and shaping its future direction, while firmly anchoring Whistler's place as a world class, all season resort destination.

 

Credited more than anything, the decision and investment by Whistler Blackcomb to open the Whistler Bike Park in 1999 has made Whistler a household name in the mountain bike world.  Featuring over 200 linear-kilometres of lift-serviced trails descending 4,800 vertical feet of berms, roots, drops, tables, hips, bridges, skinnies, gaps, wall rides and anything else riders can imagine, from the top of the Garbanzo zone.  To this day the Whistler Bike Park continues to be the global benchmark with which all other lift-accessed bike parks measure themselves.

 

According to municipal statistics on visitation numbers, visitations rose exponentially from 18,583 in its opening season to 94,871 in 2006 with a slightly slower but continued growth each season thereafter. Biking in turn now pours millions of dollars into the local economy, creating a viable and vital source of income in what was once considered to be the off-season years ago.

 

Constantly evolving under the skilled and creative hands of the famed trail crew, the bike park continually pushes the envelope, setting new trends and proving that mountain biking's time in the limelight is here to stay. Over the years an increasing number of locals and visitors alike are just as excited, if not more stoked, for the opening of the Whistler Bike Park than they are for the first snowfall of the winter.

 

With part of the hand crew starting May 9 to get the mountain ready for its 13 th bike park season, I headed up to check out the progress that had been made so far with Bike Park Manager Brian Finestone. Sporting a freshly-minted goggle tan straight off of an amazing season of endless snow at his winter job as the Terrain Park manager, Finestone is tasked with opening the park by May 20 despite record valley snowfall. Juggling time and resources this year, Finestone has expanded his skill set by necessity giving himself a crash course in snowcat driving and excavator operation ensuring that machinery is being utilized seven days a week when operators aren't always available.

 

As we headed out from the maintenance hut and began walking around the bike park it quickly became clear that skis or a snowboard would have been a much better option for getting around than boots. The trail crew was still using a snowmobile to shuttle fuel down to one of their excavators deep in snow somewhere along Crank it Up.  The light machine operators, however, had been making tremendous progress in putting a dent in the metre-plus snowpack that was still lining A-line and Crank It Up.  The hand crew of five was also eagerly digging away at the areas machinery can't access.

 

Finestone took some time out at the end of his day to answer a few questions and share his perspective on this year's opening, also explaining that there has been a tremendous interest from media outlets in the mountain biking world about this years opening, given the volume of snow that remains with pinkbike.com, nsmb.com, Anthill Films and Mountain FM already stopping by.

 

Pique: After such a snowy season, this year's opening of the Bike Park clearly must be challenging. How do you and your crew work around that to get the Bike Park open in such a short time frame?

Finestone: "This has been our most challenging opening by an order of magnitude; we haven't had a lot of help from Mother Nature to date.  It's a funny balance that I live in a world where I have a winter job as the Terrain Park manager and I can never have enough snow in the winter. (I) always want snow early in the season and for it to stay through the (TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival) and the day after the festival I want it all gone for my summer job so we can open the bike park. It's a strange dichotomy. I think that this year was unique with Whistler Blackcomb having the second snowiest season on record and that it was a cold winter below 1,000 metres. Often we get lots of snow up high in the alpine where it is measured but this year the snowpack below 1,000 metres was incredibly deep, which was the challenge more than anything, so that meant more time digging out and more water management issues making sure that the water is draining where you want and making sure the runoff is the right type of water you are looking for such as silt runoff."

 

Pique: Run us through your schedule for prepping for the opening of the Bike Park.

Finestone: "When TWSSF finished and Whistler Mountain closed, the first order of business was to get a road ploughed from the valley up to Olympic Station for a couple of reasons. First to do some work on the Whistler Village Gondola so that it was ready to go for sightseeing and for the bike park and second to provide the artery that we use to get up and get to work to figure out what trails we are going to open. The first two weeks was bulldozer time followed by snowcats scouring snow of runs that bike trails cross.  Basically anywhere you can fit a snowcat it is much faster and more efficient over using an excavator. The arrival of our small excavators overlapped the first week having two snowcats and two excavators going simultaneously (from) May 1 to 8 and now we have the hand crew in for the first time following behind the excavators doing cleanup behind them. We always chose the excavator built trails to open first such as A-line and Crank it Up because they are easier to get the snow off, especially with this years unprecedented snow volume. Walking down the other single track trails with shovels is just not realistic and they are left to melt out on their own. Once you have gone through with a snow cat where possible, then the excavator, the hand crew then goes back with the excavator to rework the dirt finally followed by the hand crew again to rework the trails by hand prepping jump lips, racking out gravel and fine tuning everything. Basically trails get passed through around four times before they are opened."

Pique: How many trail crew do you have in total?

Finestrone: "It's a sliding scale starting out the first week with one person driving a snowcat, then we add a second heavy machine operator followed by two light equipment operators followed by another before bringing in five hand-crew. As we go along and once we open our full trail crew size will be 12 to 13 individuals putting in 10 hour days running seven days a week."

 

Pique: What's new for the 2011 season?

Finestone: "For 2011 season the focus on the outset is going to be (Kokanee) Crankworx being three weeks earlier (than usual), which we haven't had in quite some time so it's going to be making sure the various race courses and event sites are prepped and built. We are going to continue with year three of the construction of our Blue Velvet trail in the Garbanzo zone with our hope being to link it all the way to Crank it Up so that there will be a blue run right from the top of Garbanzo all the way to the Valley. We are also working towards the peak this year as well and we are going to start building a new single track trail off the peak so that hopefully in the near future we can offer open mountain biking right from the peak of Whistler Mountain."

 

Pique: Talk a little bit about the evolution you have seen in the Bike Park over the years.

Finestone: "The evolution that I have seen is diversification of the bikes not just being big heavy downhill bikes with lots of guys riding everything from a slopestyle bike to a six and six inch freeride or cross-country style bikes and looking for experiences that match their bikes. I think the popularity of our excavator built trails can never be shied away from and I think that's a big part of the reason why people come here, because there is not a lot of places in the world that have them, at the quality we have here. So every year we give A-line a face lift adding new landings and make it bigger as it's a trail that evolves with mountain biking and as the bikes and riders grow we can throw more at them similar to dirt merchant that is a way of life for some people, having to do a lap on it every single day. People are starting to realize that what you see at the bottom of the bike park is not necessarily what it is all about and that we really do have trails for everyone like Easy Does It that you can take your mom, son or daughter on and we have programs to teach and guide people on all levels of riding. I think that what the  (bike) park offers now that it didn't used to, is those experiences for all levels of riding and I wouldn't be scared to take anybody of any level into the park and show them a great time."

 

Pique: What are your thoughts on how our cycling community and event schedule are shaping the evolution of the mountain bike world?

Finestone: "The bicycling community in this corridor is pretty amazing. Whistler used to be a place where people came to ski bum for the winter and just wanted to ski or snowboard. But now the culture is shifting with people wanting to just come here for the summer and I think that is a tribute to the amazing work WORCA has done on the valley-level cross country trails and the work that has been done in the mountain bike park to attract people. I have ridden my mountain bike all over the world and we truly have something unique here and I want the world to come and check it out." I think that  (Kokanee) Crankworx is a great showcase of what we do here, whether it's the trails that we build or the progression of the sport and what the athletes are capable of and I think that having a big platform for people to see what these athletes can do is just fantastic as part of that process. Whether it be the slopestyle athletes pushing the tricks to new levels or the racers constantly putting in (faster) times. Also, things like the growth and popularity of pump tracks with more and more neighbourhoods getting them and to have a world class invitation only event for pump track and dual slalom. It's just incredible to see the talent that comes from as far away as places like South Africa, England, Australia and South America."

 

New this year, will be the inaugural "Bike Bash" that will be a celebration of mountain biking coinciding with opening weekend. The weekend will feature the grand opening of the Whistler Mountain Bike Park Official Demo Centre, a used (downhill) bike sale, partner booths and demos and an amateur video contest.  The new Whistler Mountain Bike Park's official Demo Centre will be located in the Carleton Lodge and will feature top of the line bikes for riders to demo in the park, offering a unique opportunity for visitors to try 41 top of the line models from Cove, Devinci, Giant, Kona, Lapierre, Scott, Santa Cruz and Trek having the option to try them for an hour or to demo the bikes for multiple days.

 

As usual the summer line up will feature ample events for mountain bike enthusiasts including the legendary WORCA Toonie Races held every Thursday on Whistler's expansive cross-country trail network and the Kokanee Phat and PhaSt Wednesday Race series in the Whistler Bike Park.

 

Be sure to check out the following scheduled biking events throughout the summer:

•Annual WORCA Bike Swap May 21

•Crud to Mud Downhill May 29

•BC Bike Race running July 2-9 ending in Whistler on July 9

•Kokanee Crankworx July 16-24

•Ride of Valkyries and Ken Quon Memorial Ride August 6 th

•XTERRA Canadian Open Championships Off Road Triathlon September 4th

•RBC Granfondo September 10 th

 

 



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