When I was a kid I loved anything with two wheels: BMX, motocross, crotch rockets, Harley's…the list goes on and I didn’t discriminate. At 42 I still love all things 2-wheels and whether I am road cycling or mountain biking it is all-good. Jesus, I feel 22 saying “all-good” but hey it just works. So it comes as no surprise that when I was invited to the Yukon for a week long mountain biking adventure culminating with a 24-hour endurance race, I jumped at the opportunity. The initial inspiration for the trip came from one of my trainers, Mark Coates, who is an avid adventure racer, mountain biker and runner. Mark is a bit of a nut case and he likes his activities in extended durations. He is kinda like Forrest Gump…when you agree to go for a ride with Mark you need to take enough food to last you at least 3-squares.  Lucky for me Mark invited a few other mere mortals along for the trip making daily "ride survival" possible.  

What initially inspired me to agree to this trip was the opportunity to fly my own airplane to the Yukon. After years of backcountry flying I had yet to fly to Northern BC, Yukon or Alaska. This was a dream trip and now that I am home I just want to get in my plane and go back. So if you are interested in the aviation part jump over to my earlier post, Flying the Backcountry Yukon Style, and check out some of the pictures. But let's get back to mountain biking....

Yukon mountain biking is incredible and thanks to Marsha and Sylvain at Boreale Mountain Biking for exposing us to it. Hundreds of kilometers of flowing single track around Whitehorse & wicked technical descents in Carcross combined with 24 hours of daylight makes this area a true mountain biking mecca. I jokingly said to Marsha and Sylvain that if I applied my “surfer attitude” I would quietly return home telling everyone that Whitehorse was a dump, the bugs were relentless, it was freezing cold and I was mountain biking on boring fire roads the entire time. You see surfers like to keep their secrets…well….. secret! But that isn’t how I roll and I am here to tell you that if you like to mountain bike, or do anything in the outdoors, you must go to the Yukon. Whitehorse is a fun little town, the bug stories are totally over blown, it was warmer in Whitehorse than Vancouver, and it has nothing but single track trails in the most amazing forests. Just go!

Whitehorse nightlife happens in the daylight during the summer months, which is a bit strange really. We checked out some of the local "culture" with a stop or two at a few local hot spots (read that with extreme sarcasm). The 98 Motel is the place to go. Think of one of those movies where you see two guys walk into a bar only to have the music stop and everyone turns to stare. We entered with anything but confidence and we slowly strolled in pretending that we fit in and we were being welcomed with open arms. My eyes darted from the animal pelts on the walls, to the shot guns hanging over the bar, to the 450 pound dude with a t-shirt that said "I am going to fuck you up" on it. One of our marry crew, Andrew King (aka Kinger), instigated this little expedition and he was convinced I was going to get into a fight because I was wearing a pair of flip flops and long mountain biking shorts that he insisted on calling capri pants. The fight never happened but I was ready! We survived to tell the tale and all of the locals we knew were a bit shocked we actually went in there. In fact I don't think I met one local that had ever been in the 98 Motel bar! Leave it to a bunch of loser tourists from Vancouver to find Whitehorse's finest.

After riding for 6 days in and around Whitehorse we wrapped our week with a 24-hour mountain biking endurance race – 24 Hours of Light. I have never done anything for 24 hours straight (other than sleep) and I was glad that I didn’t have to start here because I had two other teammates, Mark Coates and James Greenwood, to help me kill the time. The team that completed the most laps in 24 hours won the race and there was only one rule...no lights allowed. No problem, it stays light in Whitehorse all day and all night I was told! Yeah right! I rode the 1 – 3 am shift in the race I was pulling some Jedi master moves in the black forest trying to navigate my way around trees, rocks and roots at high speed. I think Darth Vader was really my father. Our team completed 29 laps in the 24-hour period, which works out to approximately 350 kilometers of riding and 8800 meters (29000 feet) of climbing. We ended up getting second place in the race...not too bad for a bunch of old guys (ok I was the only old guy)! We didn’t start the event with the intention of “racing it” but I think we all rode a bit harder than we “said” we were going to. Let’s put it this way…it was a good day of training and it’s always nice to get 2^nd place in the local training ride. :-)

To check out all of our pictures from the Yukon see the Flickr gallery below or you can jump into Flickr directly and view the slideshow 

We are already planning for next year with the addition of the Haines to Haines Road Bike race that happens the weekend before the 24 Hours of Light. If you made it this far in the blog you might want to consider come along!