Pretty Ugly

British Columbia can be a real bitch. Sure, it's got all the epic riding you could ever want: bike parks, alpine singletrack, the North Shore, the list goes on. But people sometimes forget its northerly latitudes as they douse Canada's western most province with off-road praise. This is Canada, eh, and all the rumors about igloos and snow and toques are here for a reason. The weather can suck large pipe up here. And even if you throw the woolies on and giver, torrential rain bordering on snow can bring you down. Bring you way, way down.

This fall Trek, Bontrager and Gary Fisher invited 37 journalists to Whistler to introduce some of their new products. It was a big deal. Trek showed a new Session 77 freeride bike, and Fisher unveiled the Kingfisher, the brand's first long-travel bike. Bontrager released its Big Earl component package, designed in concert with Trek and Fisher's new freeride models. There also was a new Cake and redesigned Liquid all-mountain bikes from Trek. The plan was to ride Whistler's bike park the first day, load up four float planes and fly into the Chilcotin mountains for epic all-mountain action on day two, then, as if that weren't a full barrel, get a partial shuttle to the Tenquile Lake descent, one of the finest down hills in all of British Columbia.

So, as I boarded a small plane in Castlegar, B.C., en route to Vancouver then Whistler, the rain fell and the wind bellowed and the temperature hovered in the chilly zone, I fought the excitement of an all-time trip with the foreboding of an experienced British Columbian who's seen the forecast. We were going to get hammered, and I knew it.

Whistler. The Westin Hotel. High-grade digs right on the hill. Pouring rain. Grit made its way into every orifice, it seemed. I rode a Kingfisher through the mud and the mayhem and loved it. The six-inch-travel bike pedals well. At the park, where the hits are big and the ruts are even bigger, I had no problem hucking and hauling even though the geometry put me in the front seat a bit. But I could tell the bike was designed for more than just downhill. We headed up Garbonzo lift, into the snow, and slopped it up Coastal style. The bike dealt extremely well. A shower never felt so good.

The next day we saw the snowline down super low. It felt like mid-winter outside and we had to bail on our Chilcotin floatplane. Mega bummer, but the bitch that is British Columbia was in charge, and our guides at Big Mountain Bike Adventures would have no part of further pissing her off. So we hit the vans with editors from as far away as Israel and headed into the wilds of the Chilcotin Wilderness, playing on sweet singletrack in sheltered valley bottoms. I took out a Liquid, which has a new rear pivot in place of the old carbon stays, and tried to hang with the likes of A.J. from VeloNews and a host of other Euro ripper "journos" who know how to throw the hammer down. The Liquid definitely ramped up the plush factor compared to its predecessor, and made techy downhills smooth and fun, without bobbing like an open ocean buoy on the way up. Apparently, the Chilcotins are the only place in B.C. where it was not pouring biblically. While the sun poked its head intermittently, Vancouver was setting an all-time rain record. Go figure.

Beers and Ping-Pong in the Tyaughton Lake Lodge that night, van it back to Whistler the next day. More rain. But there was light in this equation. I got my hands on a Session 77 and hit the park with Trek rider Andrew Shandro, who had a fair hand in developing the Session. After numerous laps on Dirt Merchant and A-Line (quiver, quiver), it was fairly evident that the Session is a deep bike, soaking up the washed out burl of the Whistler bike park like it had just been groomed. The geometry is perfectly oriented for going downhill, while the 1.5-inch headset and 7-inch travel Manitou Breakout Plus fork saved my dumbass more than once. When all is said and done, I was wearing a new coating of dirt and grime and I retreated from the park thoroughly stoked, having launched my meat into new horizons of riding pleasure.

That night we dove into more wine and dine before heading back home on the bus early the following morning. As luck would have it, the sun would shine for the next two weeks. Not a cloud in the sky. Aahhh, British Columbia. Ya gotta love her. Even when she's ugly as sin, she's still pretty cute.