By Thora Brooks

‘Just do it!’ my friend said, ‘just try it.’

I’ve never really considered myself to be all that outgoing and definitely not the sporty type.

But for whatever reason, I was intrigued by this group I came across called The Dirty Girlz Bike Club.

Maybe it was the name that made me think they were hard core, but I think it was mainly the group photo that grabbed me. I wanted to be a part of something like this; a group of independent women as tough, if not tougher, than the guys, having fun and being active outdoors. What’s not to love? I was looking for an excuse to be more active but I don’t think I had any clue what I had stumbled upon.

I showed up at the Hartland dump parking lot, 6 pm sharp.

I had borrowed my sister’s bike and helmet. I had seen a list of recommended items to bring so I gathered up what I could find, including my camel pack, a granola bar, spare tire tube, and some tools…just in case. I grabbed the waiver form and I threw the bike on my car rack for the first time. I was all ready to go, or at least as ready as I could be for my first ride.

Now I am not a biker of any kind really. I grew up on an island riding my bike 3 minutes each day down a dirt road to the small school ferry. I don’t ride a road bike, never have. I know the basics of basics, but I wanted to learn more, especially living in such a bike friendly city as Victoria.

I remember the first minute of my first ride, from the parking lot down to the notice board. I remember how the bike rolled over what seemed at the time to be huge rocks that I thought were going to catapult me forward off the bike. I remember the fear at the beginning, but also the pure joy and exhilaration as I reached the notice board with the rest of the group. I remember the smile I felt on my face, with eyes wide open. I had made it past my first hurdle. But that was just the beginning. I had no idea what I was in for.

When I heard the term ‘mountain biking’ I pictured the terrain to be dirt with some loose gravel, some steep slopes, a lot of up and down, around narrow corners, etc. I thought ‘groomed’ runs. Never did I think up and over tree roots, small rock cliffs, through cracks and over bridges, even in the dark! But man am I glad I was wrong.

My first ride however was not as successful as I had hoped. I made it up and over a few roots before being thrown off, or simply jolted me to halt. I kept pushing though. I did a lot of stop and go. I watched the other ladies confidently try it out and waited for my turn. Excited about the challenge, knowing I most likely would not make it all, but anxiously waiting my turn, I enjoyed every minute of it.

I had to tighten my seat a lot, so I was glad I brought my tool kit. The ride was only just beginning, so after 3 or 4 times of tightening my seat in a span of 5 minutes I was a little concerned. It just would not stay tight. I thought,” I’ll tough it out. I will try not to sit down”. But after a few more roots and rocks bumping me around, I heard a loud snap. I felt my weight drop. I had no seat! I had broken my seat!

I got off my bike to find that the screw had snapped in half! Now I am only a little 5 ft nothing girl, but man did I feel like going on a diet in that moment. As I soon discovered, the threads on the screws holding the seat had been worn down therefore they could not  stop the seat from moving, no matter how tight I made the screws.

So needless to say I could not continue on the ride. But I had had just enough of a taste to want to come back and even more so wanted to conquer my defeat on that first ride. I had to come back. I could not let Hartland win!

Since that first ride I have been back many times with the Dirty Girlz. I have even attempted several night rides, which have all been amazing and I plan to do much more of them.

I was so thrilled to find this sport but I did not expect to find such support and truly inspirational woman. I was welcomed and encouraged to try but the main focus was and is to always have fun! And I did.

What has really surprised me is my own personal growth. I’ve gained skills and confidence in myself that I never expected to find. I’ve conquered more at Hartland already then I ever thought I would. But with the great support of other riders I will continue to push myself.

I don’t consider myself a risk taker, but out on those trails I get in the zone and just go for it. Of course I take somewhat calculated risks. I use my head but I am fueled by adrenaline! Most of what I have learned so far is that 90% of what is holding you back is in your head, it is all mental. Once you do it you realize that you CAN do it. You feel a little silly just thinking about the fear and the hesitation holding you back from something you could have done all along. But you learn that your bike is able to roll over most obstacles.

With the amazing support of the Dirty Girlz I have learned to try things I would have never done on my own. I have learned new skills, found a way to stay active, challenge myself both physically and mentally and I have a new found confidence on and off the trails.

I am so happy I just went for it that day. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a new adventure. You’ll never imagine what you can conquer out on those trails!

Carmel Ecker shares her story about riding the Seven Summits!

Epic is the word most often used to describe the Seven Summits Trail in Rossland, BC, and truly, there’s no better word to describe it.

There are folks out there who ride this 30+ km trail over – you guessed it – seven summits in three or 4 hours. I’m not sure what they are eating but I’m pretty sure there are magic beans involved.

My riding partner, Deb, and I managed to mountain goat our way up and across and down in about six and a half hours including lunch, a few snack breaks and some photo ops.
At first, I was a little worried that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Having barely been on my bike since having a baby 10 months earlier, my cardio was not exactly “top notch.” But I had an understanding friend to ride with, a babysitter booked and a perfect weather day to ride a world class trail, so I loaded up the bikes, wished my baby a good day and headed for the hills.

First we headed downhill to the trail end where we dropped vehicle number one. Then it was back up Hwy 3B to the trailhead 20 km west of town on Nancy Green Summit.

After a quick gear check to make sure our spare tubes, pumps and food made it into our backpacks, we pedalled off the pavement and into wonderland.

The first few hundred metres of this trail are a delight. It’s a meandering singletrack through a lovely wooded area. If I could have ridden that for 30 kilometres, I would have been in heaven.

Alas, the trail quickly turns into a steep, slow grind to the top. There are a few brief plateaus here and there to catch your breath and ease the burning in your legs, but it’s pretty much straight up to the top of the first peak, Mt Lepsoe.

Because I’m not a speed demon, the initial climb seemed to go on forever. In reality, it took us about two hours. The total elevation gain for the overall trail is 1000 metres and the initial climb is about 600 of that.

It was a sweet reprieve I felt upon reaching the peak – delicious sandwich in hand – as I cast my eyes across the mountain range atop which I would soon pedal.

This is the point at which the ride started to be fun.

Yes, there was still plenty of climbing left, but it would be interspersed with beautiful, swoopy downhill sections and gorgeous vistas of the Monashee mountains.

I was pretty proud of myself for feeling good in spite of my lack of fitness when, about half-way along the trail, we were passed by two lads from Danville and New Denver who had ridden to the trailhead from town (20 kms) and would be riding back to town from the trail end (another 10 kms).

So they would be riding 60 kilometres in less time than we would be riding 30. If I had an ego, that fact pretty much crushed it.

Thankfully, their presence meant a totally valid and mandatory social break from the climb up Grey Mountain. And with their departure, I was free to resume complaining about the steepness.

Fortunate for my riding partner, there were beautiful features to distract me from the pain including crossing several rock slides. Yes, rock slides. It is a cool feeling to roll over a patchwork of flat rocks that have been put in place as a bridge over massive jagged boulders on a mountain ridge.

And certainly, the swoopy winding downhill sections had us both grinning ear to ear. Mostly intermediate level and without any drops or jumps, these sections offer the perfect opportunity to let go of the brakes and rip it.

The real prize, though, comes once all the climbing is done. When the last mountain was behind us, we had 9 kilometres of downhill to look forward to. Let me repeat that. Nine kilometres of downhill singletrack featuring a variety of terrain from rocky ridges and high alpine to heavily treed forest bottom.

It winds through massive wildflower meadows that were so tall in places, it felt like going through a tunnel.

And it just keeps going down.

Of course, we had parked at the bottom of the Dewdney Trail, which gave us an extra 30 minutes of downhill and even bigger grins as we reached into the cooler for the post-ride bevies we’d stowed.

Cheers to a truly epic ride.

This summer, the Muddbunnies gave a Whistler Sampler Ticket – good for three runs in the bike park – to Amber. Amber gave the pass to Emily, and Emily gave the pass to Piper. We asked Piper to tell us about her experience at Whistler, and here’s what she has to say!

Piper waiting for the chair lift

At the end the summer Emily from the Dirty Girlz gave me a pass for three runs in the Whistler Bike Park. Me and my dad took the chairlift up and rode my favourite trail – Crank it Up. I love step ups!

Then we rode Karate Monkey and Ninja Cougar, but Heart of Darkness was closed. For our last run we did Easy Does It because we wanted the longest run. I can’t wait until next spring so we can go back. Thank you Dirty Girlz!

Piper (Age 8)

Ready to ride!

I don’t know about you, but I’d practically forgotten what rain feels like. Wet roots? What are those? Mud? I’m used to sliding around on powdery dust! So it’s fitting that after living through such a rainy weekend we bring you part two of the Test of Metal story. You’ve heard from Sabrina – here’s the event through Sandra’s eyes!

Cardio, cardio, cardio is all I can say for this 67km mountain bike race. While there are technical trails, it’s primarily a cardio challenge. Not an overly exciting course to ride, loved Cliff’s Corner, Rob’s Corner, descending down Mashiter’s trail at high speed and Roller Coaster’s twists and turns. After that, I just want to blank it out, boring uphill hell. Wouldn’t be so bad if I trained harder but there lay the challenge for me. I confused my own training, first of all by not having a training plan and second by training for a half marathon in between which was two weeks before the Test of Metal.

I put little thought behind signing up for this race. I heard it was a difficult race but didn’t think too much about it. I had the Sabrina MacLeod bad devil whispering notions in my ear to do it. I had never raced on a bike before and having run a couple of half marathons previously, I said to myself ‘how hard can it be to race on a bike?’. Like I said, little thought behind it.

So, race day came by fast. I had everything ready I needed the night before. I arranged to meet Sabrina at her hotel at 7.30am approx. I wanted to get out of Vancouver early having convinced myself that the roads would be busy. In my head, all 850 riders were coming from Vancouver! With all the time we had before the 11am race start, we sat back, took it all in and laughed hard about everything and anything. Once we got to race line up, I was relaxed and eager to go. The rain started to pour down heavily. We were drenched before the race had started. I didn’t care. We were all in the same boat. 6km into the race, I had to take my glasses off. I couldn’t keep the rain off them. As we hit the trails soon after, I had to squint to stop the mud from getting into my eyes, which left it difficult at times to see. The crowds and volunteers were amazing, so encouraging, which turned it into a very sociable and fun ride. I got up the dreaded bonk hill with no issues. All hell broke loose after the 9 mile bridge. My legs were starting to get tired. I was off and on my bike like a yo-yo. The trails were so muddy at this point. All sorts of noises were coming from my bike chain. I pleaded with the Gods for it not to break. The dreaded Powerhouse Plunge trail had yet to come. When I got to the trail, there was no chance of me even attempting this one. I had never seen a trail in such a muddy mess and a bike with so much mud on it. This was hike-a-bike from start to finish. I was super happy to get that over with. At this stage, all that was left was a series of blue single track trails, which on a normal day would be fun but when really low on energy, it was more uphill hell! This is where I started to kick myself for not training more.

The sight of the finish line was a thing of beauty and so was that beer that was handed to me straight after. Sabrina came a long and we just laughed at the sight of each other. Pigs in mud had nothing on us. Will I do it again next year? Possibly … might be good training for the TransRockies Challenge that the Sabrina MacLeod bad devil has convinced me to do next July. Why do I listen to that girl?! I guess she’s fun to ride with but we won’t tell her that

We have asked some of our members to share stories with us about rides, races, or fun biking things they’ve done recently. Have a story or photos you’d like to share? Email us for more information! Our first story comes from Alex Wade. Thanks Alex!

Thank you to The Dirty Girlz and Island Mountain Rides for an awesome Cumberland Weekend!

I was the lucky winner of a night at Riding Fool Hostel and a 3 hour guided ride with Martin from Island Mountain Rides.  My husband and I took our nephew for a weekend of riding and adventure.  Having never stayed at a hostel before, we had no idea what to expect – if all hostels are like Riding Fool, I don’t need to stay in hotels anymore!  The atmosphere was relaxed, everything was clean, the kitchen was stocked with every utensil you could possibly need, there was information on anything you might want to do, crazy inexpensive, and it was easy to be there.

The ride. Two 40 somethings, one on a hardtail, one on her first ride of the season after a back injury, and a 14 year old with a new bike – I was wondering how he was going to put together a ride that would work for all three of us.   As soon as I got on my bike, the familiar feeling of ‘oh, I love my bike’ returned, and my fears and trepidation slid away.  Meeting Martin at 9:00 Sunday morning, I was a little nervous – what if I can’t keep up, will I remember to ease off on my brakes and let my bike flow on the downs?  His relaxed manner quickly put my fears at ease.    What a fabulous three hours of riding we had – after about 45 minutes of fireroad, we pretty much rode single track for the next two hours and fifteen minutes.

I’d only ridden Cumberland twice before during MOMAR, so I had only a vague notion of the trail network, although I did recognize some of the classic trails like Teapot and Crafty Butcher.  Martin was able to hookup trails that matched our riding styles, and kept us all moving at a pace that was perfect. I had no idea that having a guide would make such a difference to the ride – we got the low down on the trails before we rode them, a little history of the area and the trails, several viewscapes, and it was great not to have to stop and look at a map, or wonder if a trail suited our riding – all we did was ride and enjoy.  My nephew’s favourite part was when Martin said to him ‘follow me, jump when I jump and pull up when I pull up.’  Off they went bombing down the trail way faster than he usually rides when he’s with us – it was perfect!

I highly recommend Martin and Island Mountain Rides next time you’re thinking of riding Cumberland, Campbell River, Hornby Island or Forbidden Plateau.  Not only does he have land use permits for all the areas, he clearly knows the trails and terrain, and is able to match the ride to the rider.    Considering his past experience with helicopter mountain biking, I have no doubt that he would be able to create an amazing ride experience a group of hardcore riders.  For our next riding weekend away, we’re going to stay at the Riding Fool Hostel again, and hire Martin to show us the Campbell River trails.

Happy Riding!

We are well into our riding year and it looks like summer has finally arrived.  We would like to extend an invitation to all club members and their families to join us for our summer BBQ.    It’s always a nice way to meet new people and to share biking stories…and maybe win a door prize!

When:  August 14, 2012

Where: Glentana Village Recreation Center located at 1507 Glentana Road in View Royal.

Time:  6:30 to 8:30pm

The club will provide hotdogs and non-alcoholic drinks.  This is not a licenced venue, so we ask that you honour that. Please come with a potluck dish to share.  To help keep the event green please also bring your own cup, plate and cutlery.

RSVP by clicking here, as we will need to know how much food to buy.