I am now back in good ol’ Stellenbosch, having recovered from the jetlag following my North America trip, but boy was it worth it!

After watching Lene smash it in Quebec, I then travelled right across Canada to Vancouver airport first and then a drive two hours north to the infamous resort town of Whistler. Boy it’s a big country and the flight was longer than going east and Montreal to Dublin!

I’ve always heard great reports about Vancouver and although we were just passing through, the cities beauty and the countryside on the way up blew me away. If you get a chance to visit this area of the world you will not be disappointed. I would love to visit Vancouver and check more of the city out. It was dark by the time we arrived in Whistler, but bright enough to check out our hotel, which was amazing. I knew on touching base that it was going to be a good trip. Waking up the next morning and looking out, I was very impressed.

I was in Whistler to catch-up with our free-ride team of Darren Berrecloth, Matt Hunter and Trond Hansen, plus spend time with our Downhill athletes of Sam Hill and Brendan Fairclough (both Monster Energy Specialized) and Specialized Team America (Kyle Strait, Cody Warren and the two Mulally brothers). Alongside this we were also doing our long travel media launch. Although, seeing many a long travel bike, this week served as the first time I have ridden a long travel bike! I definitely needed it on some of the knarly trails we did!

The trail network in Whistler is unreal. I have heard it’s the best in the world. Well I haven’t visited anything better! There are trails there for all ability levels and many there to challenge even the best. I was most definitely challenged by Hill and company on a few spins! My head over the handlebar stunts attracted the attention, that’s for sure (there are no photos I am aware of thankfully!!!). What’s cool though is that it’s a real family place. You can be out on a spin and meet a whole family or packs of kids getting instruction, while riding along these board-walks and stuff. Anyway, the long and short of it is that I would go again.

The highlight for the engineers and our Scottish mechanic Sandy was at my departure. I was packing my bike away just before my airport departure and noticed, aided by the fools joking around me, that my rear wheel was abnormally heavy! Anyway, I quickly learned that for almost a week I was riding around with my wheel full of water! No wonder everybody was trying to up the tempo on the climbs! My reply to Sandy will come when he least’s expects it!