Where's Waldo Lumberyard?

Now in it's third year, the Deep Summer slideshow is becoming a highlight of Crankworx. This year, Tim Zimmeran (a good friend and occasional high-performance-mountain-cyclist) was one of the invited participants. While the judges didn't select Tim & Team Dirt Wizard (!#%@$&%#^ Judges!!!) much of the viewing public (including the editors at Pinkbike) thought their reaper theme noteworthy. Recap video here & top three FOUR slide shows here. 

Earlier in the day the Reaper had made an appearance on Heckler's Rock at the Canadian Open DH race. 

A fun break from the punishment of top-to-bottom runs at Whistler is a quick session at the pump track. We hit the Ultimate Pump Track Challenge Thurs night to check out the smooth stylings of some of our favorite riders (including Manny from Morpheus in NYC). At one point a young bear decided to come watch. After being shooed away, a couple of drunks decided to chase it (check 2:35 here). The crowd started rooting for the bear. On Friday afternoon, we watched our buddy Johnny (scrubs) Widen race the GS. A large crowd gathered for the race and energy was building leading up to the RedBull Joyride Slopestyle contest. The mangi.rollin team handed out Lumberyard shirts to dozens of spectators during both the Pumptrack Challenge and the GS Race. 

Word on the mountain was that Saturday was the single busiest day at Whistler besides the opening ceremony of the 2010 Olympics. After a week of rain, fog, and muddy rides, the sun came out in full force for the Slopestyle contest, and along with it came hordes of riders and spectators. The atmosphere was like Spring Break and the riding was the kind that lingers in your head for weeks... demanding you to come back for more.

After another full day of riding, and another round of emerging bruises from the relentless Mother Whistler, the mangi.rollin team hit the crowds again with more Lumberyard schwag. After watching some of our favorite aerial artists huck their meat in the Slopestyle - including one Anthony Mesere, the 15 year old phenom that took 3rd and is supported by our boys at Morpheus - we gave away two free season passes to the Lumberyard by picking out two people from the crowd that were wearing Lumberyard tshirts. Our give-away efforts paid off; as we watched the Slopestyle from the base of the mountain, dozens and dozens of riders wore their Lumberyard shirts that we had been giving away all week. Buzz was building for the Lumberyard and it's obvious that we made a splash in the monstrous ocean that is Crankworx.

We also got in a pedal stroke or two from time to time. mangai.rollin brought up a few Loki's from the Morpheus Cycles West Coast demo fleet. This allowed us to go back and forth from riding huge DH sleds to more responsive FR rigs. I never want to go to Whis without both options again! Over the course of 3 days we explored most of the mountain, broke in the new Lumberyard jerseys with the wonderful Whistler mud, and found Crank It Up, A-Line, and Dirt Merchant to be some of our favorites laps of the week.  ...and Freight Train. ...and Afternoon Delight.  ...and Detroit Rock City!

 

And last but not least are the obligatory roadtrippin shots of a bunch of sweaty dudes acting like children in public. We ended up getting 4 days of riding in on a 5 day road trip... between the 5 of us that drove up together from Portland, we ended up with a handful of story-worthy crashes, including a bruised rib, a nose-tap to rag-doll (now dubbed the mangai.rollin), and an impressive 'case-man' blow-up on a gap jump. Despite still licking our wounds a week later, it's safe to say that each of us are dreaming of the next Whistler trip. 

Photo Credits: All photos used with permission by their respective owners.

Photos copyright Blake Jorgenson, Casey Nolan, Felix Burke, Ian Hylands, Justa Jeskova, Michael Overbeck,  Mickey Ross, Paul Clarke