Riding Whistler is a bucket list thing for many a mountain biker. And so it was for me. A family road trip in Canada was a great occasion to plan a visit to this Mecca of downhill mountain biking. Arguably where the roots of modern day downhilling lie, Whistler boasts an enormous network of graded trails, from grey, through blue lines of varying difficulty, up to black diamond, double black diamond and red lines for the real pro riders.
I decided to sign-up for a group lesson, and also rented a bike including protective gear and a lift pass for half a day. Signing up for a lesson turned out to be a great and easy way to learn the ropes of how a bike park works, what you can expect, find some fitting and cool lines to ride and to meet some new bike buddies. Our instructor was a young local, a bit too shy to really teach us a lot, but just following his line down trails with names like Ninja Cougar, Karate Monkey, The Heart of Darkness and Samurai Pizzacat, trying to match his speed already taught me a lot. My favourite lines, the most flowy, jumpy fast ones were Blue Velvet and Crank it Up. I did need jumping skills, which I was there to train as well, but there were no gap jumps so it was fun and safe to try to get ever more height and dial my landings ever better.
In short, the most fun on a bike I have ever had.
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