LikeMountainbiking Cypress Mountain
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
On the weekend I got the opportunity to go riding with my buddy Tim and a couple of Vancouver locals that I met on a local forum. Tim and I had been planning on riding Mt Fromme, which is sort of the middle mountain on the north shore of Vancouver, sitting below Grouse Mountain when I got in contact with this guy and he suggested we go shuttling on Cypress. Sure!
Early Saturday morning (at least 8.30) we met up at the base of the mountain, leaving two cars at the bottom and taking one to the top, planning on using one of the spare two as our second shuttle vehicle to take us to the top of the hill.
Now, I’ve only ridden Cypress once before, and that was 10 years ago on a cross country mountain bike with a few mates who’d rented their bikes for the day. As I stood in the carpark this time, next to my bike that’s more downhill than cross country oriented, I was trying to remember how tough it was last time and wondering whether I needed my chest and arm armour this time… I looked over at my new biking buddy, Isaac, who heads up to Cypress twice a week, and asked if he bothered with chest armour. “Nah”. He says that he usually just goes with his knee and shin covering ones.
Sure, I think, tossing my chest armour into the back of my truck. “how hard can it be?!”
I was kinda regretting that decision within about 20 minutes as the riding got steeper and steeper. Y’see, Isaac has been riding this stuff for years and is well on top of it. Me? Not quite prepared for just how steep and technical Cypress can be.
The upper section of Whistler Mountain is the yardstick Tim and I were using, and this was way harder than that! Isaac certainly did a good job showing us around though, as there was some awesome parts in there and it is great riding with a local.
Part way down the first run Isaac says something along the lines of “Yeah, people usually start riding Seymour mountain as there’s lots of nice easy but challenging trails, then they progress to Fromme which is more difficult but not as steep and technical as Cypress.” No problems then.
The second run was as good as the first and the shuttles are actually pretty quick so we spent most of the morning riding rather than shuttling, which you can do in some other places. I’m guessing that we were probably on the mountain for maybe three hours, and three hours of steep technical riding was enough for me that day!
Anyhoo, here’s a couple of shots:
This is from half way down the mountain, looking out over Horseshoe Bay area with Bowen Island in the background I think
The top of one of the trails partway down
Tim & Isaac checking out one of the technical parts.
Tim fixing a mechanical partway down. Note the steep drop off behind him.
Isaac stopped just round a tight switchback. Lotsa switchbacks on Cypress!
