How do I even start to describe today (well, yesterday now as I have slipped behind thanks to piss cutting Aussies)? Do I talk about the 5,200m of descending? The plethora of celebrities, the amazingness of the Top of the World trail? The full A-Line experience? The radness of Garbo love? Faaaaaark it was a BIG day! How about I ram ALL of it into another MEGA post. Yes, that’s the alert right there, I have gone feral on photos today again I’m afraid, but with good reason. Its also less words and more pics, so enjoy.

Nothing gets the day started like some good celebrity stalking at brekkie… Whistler is the perfect place for me to embarrass myself, and the Dok spotted a prized scalp for me before he went and hid on the deck so that I could do my thing, Darren Berrecloth is a legend (like I am with HR departments), rides a Demo 8 (like I do), is sponsored by Red Bull (Not like me, but I drink a lot of coffee) and does things on a bike that make you go FUUUUCK (not really like me). He was good enough to tolerate my foaming at the mouth photo request:

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“I’ve heard about you from Kelly McGazza”

Did I stay cool and not gush? Not a fucking chance… It was a combination of “I’ve watched all your videos” and maybe a “You’re fucking rad” etc etc… Go big or Go home is my motto when it comes to MTB celeb stalking. Nice dude and I hope he wins Crankworx.

With a solid start to the day, it was time to get into the day 4 riding…. Just another day shredding laps in the park you think? Not so fast, well, actually quite fast, but I had plans for today and so we needed to get a solid warm up rolling. Cue Herr Doktor getting his berm freak on:

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The ultimate battle of Dok vs Physics

Not to be outdone, we got into some chase cam action on Nails as well, my slightly alternate line down HOD reaping us some good dirty video footage that will be coming to a blog near you shortly… Or in a week once I work out how to morph 80GB of filming from three over-excited Go PRO’s:

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“Are you deaf cunt?”

Soon it was time to spring the trap on todays mission, which required a Gondola ride…. Which in turn requires clean(ish) bikes. Best to outsource that job to science:

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“I have achieved optimal balance on water pressure to ensure cleanliness without bearing issues”

Next up, we were rammed in like sardines wearing super cool DH gear on the Gondie to head up to the main course of day 4…. Along the way the boys gave me their view on Range Rovers:

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“Get a dog up ya rangie”

Yes, today was Top of the World day… What’s that I hear you murmur? Well, basically you go to the very top of Whistler mountain and rad back down it on a mega fabulous 5km long trail. A few dirty tips on this:

  • You can only do it once a day
  • Its restricted to 150 riders per day, so get in early
  • Its a long gondie ride and then chairlift to the top, so plan to go when fresh and when you’re not hungry
  • Its so fucking awesome its mandatory to ride it if you’re here for shredding – But only go up in good weather to avoid your photos being fingered

Speaking of photos, we went maaaad on it and took enough footage to melt an iDevice, allow me to demonstrate:

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“We just love being in Canadia”

The boys confirm their allegiance to the flag of radness:

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“Fucken Canadia Day, right Tony?”

To be fair, the view was impressive… This from the VERY top of the world after the final chair lift up… Wait for the Go PRO footage to come:

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14kms or so and 1500m down to the base from here… Give or take… Golden

Of course, you don’t come all the way up here without making the most of a pretty awesome day weather wise, so it was time to bust out into a modelling shoot, with what has to be one of the best back drops around…

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Finally remembered to take my Go Pro off for a photo

That rock was THE place to have your shot taken, so we obliged, it would have been rude not to, not to mention it takes a fucking long time to get up there:

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The taller you are, the better the view apparently…

When it came time to finally ride this outstanding 5km trail, we decided it was best to let the PRO’s go first. Yes, the young Kiwi shred team from the day before turned out to be our next celebrity alert, when it clicked that it was Louis Hamilton and his homeboys out ripping down from Top of the World. We thought it was be best if we let them show us the line before we started chasing them down the mountain. By chasing I mean seeing them at the bottom:

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Good warm up for racing world cups – We were thinking the same thing

At 5km’s long, this is a decent DH run, but what makes it super golden is the sheer variety that you get as you drop down from the 2,111m high start point. Allow me to demonstrate through multiple Robot cam shots. First up on the menu, rock:

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Rock ON.

It makes you work for it from the start and pretty soon I think we were all panting like a wolf reading the CRC sale e-mail. Doesn’t take long though before the sweet dirt single track kicks in, still with that nice alpine love feeling:

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Forget the Von Trapp family, this is Von RAD

Got used to that action? How about the combo of rock and dirt single track? Coming right up, get busy with it:

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This is so fucking Enduro right now

YES – This trail is for real and it just keeps on giving. I had to stop the boys for a quick photo shoot, just to put the landscape into context:

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A delaying tactic – Its so good up the top you won’t want to leave

Parts aren’t full on DH like the rest of the park, but we didn’t mind that so much, even soaking up some flashbacks to Trans Provence, you need to stay on your toes the whole way:

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Give me gnar, give me sweet sweet gnar…

Mmmmm… Fuck its tasting good! Lovely. Now, for good measure, how about we also throw in a few berms here and there, shake those hips mofo:

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The Berminator – Come with me if you want radness

If that wasn’t sumptuous enough for you, there is a cracking dessert waiting lower down, the dirt gets browner, tackier and the trail has a beautiful sweetness to it that you just want to fucking smash:

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Gaaaaaa…. MORE!

On and on it goes… Just when you think it can’t get better, it DOES. the boys were loving it and even though you’re riding it blind (quite a contrast from the rest of the park), this didn’t stop Dok from being Bermzilla, or Nails from pulling yet another Moto move whip for good measure:

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The Tech & Science Dept vs Moto Man

Eventually after smile inducing gold, the Top of the World trail spat us out into Garbo, where we promptly got back into more bad ass trails, giving the boys an intro into No Joke and Lower Freight Train. The run from top to bottom capped off with some Angry Pirate for good measure to give us a massive run from summit to lunch. I can’t recall ever pulling into lunch with stoke factor so high. Given how pumped we were, there was only one thing to do post refuelling, MORE Garbo:

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Two massive Loco’s about to leave the station

With another celebrity sighting of mega shredder Chris Kovarik in the afternoon, it was a day that just kept on heaping radness all over us in such volume we were almost drowning in it. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more crazy, we found a stand in for the Wolf, he had the right singlet on and everything! As you can see though, I wasn’t signing off on the hair style:

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Solid effort on the singlet… Deep frowning concerns on the hair…

Ultimately we decided that he wouldn’t be able to stand in for Das Wolf, mad singlet or not. The search continues… Just when the Celeb action couldn’t get any better, we had another alert with Remy Metailler deciding to photobomb our lift queue photo. For those not in the know, Remy is paid to ride at Whistler, as a job… Yeah… Fuck, awesome. Kind of similar to the DN set up, except without the salary, free bike and also massive balls for riding stuff that we tend to spectate on:

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Remy wisely keeps his distance while Nails tries to keep a straight face and Dok refuses to acknowledge the stalking

We kept hitting Garbo, the only time I blotted the copybook all day was when I fucked up the end of Original Sin, in the one spot that is my nemesis… a massive slab of steep fuck off Rock. My brain freezes, wanting to scramble to the sides, whereas the ROCK Dok has mind melded with the Whistler Rock and is much more at home with it. Having said that, the Dirty Demo is making trails that used to feel fucking scary completely manageable this year:

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The Chosen one in the prime pic spot on Original Sin.

Final pose time on what by this stage was a MASSIVE day on the mountain… After this shot it was a full A-Line run, stringing it together to cap off a rare and special day of riding:

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“Come on cunt, its time for a beer or 8!”

5,200m of downhill awesomeness… Trails that blow the mind… A shit load of celebrity stalking… I think the best summary was “Best day ever” at one point. There was only one thing for it – Celebratory beers! The boys also took the time to give me their views on having a Welsh BBQ:

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Eehhhhhhh BBQ this!

Phew… Fuck its been big. If you have been patient to read this far, its time at last for the daily essentials:

1. Trail of the day – ‘Top of the World’. Fuck, its super hard to go past and it was absolutely awesome. There is no question that you have to do it if you come here and ride. Its not open all season, so make sure you work out when its open and get amongst it. Special mention also for DUFFMAN, which was an absolute blast and demanded two runs for good measure.

2. Gear of the day – DEMO (default award). Nails voted his Santa Cruz V10 as gear of the day, hard to argue with him either… He has been killing it on this machine and he claims its saved his life on several occasions, which is fucking handy really. As a massive Santa Cruz fan, I fully endorse. The V10 is a legend… We just need to work on the Baboon to sort the bars, rear wheel and brakes… Saint time.

3. “What did the Dok say” (sing it) – “Can you not fucking fart at the breakfast table cunt?”

4. The Wolf void – To make sure no one misses out, in this daily essential we hypothesis what it would have looked like today if Das Wolf had joined his gravity brothers, hanging out with all the other Demo 8 owners that are cruising around town:

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“Wolf, she’s running 40’s like you… Wolf… Wolf?”

A massive day 4 in the bag… Time for a half day to let the body recover… Better not get totally pissed then right. Of course.

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