First Day of Biking

Leah

Here we are at Sun Peaks, finally enjoying the mountain. We had breakfast in the room, then headed down to the village to grab Ranak’s rental gear. We grabbed our lift tickets, a coffee and then made our way up the mountain. This was Ranak’s first time downhill mountain biking so we took a green run. It might have been the anticipation of going down the mountain, but Ranak got a touch nervous and didn’t seem to enjoy himself too much. We made it down the first run unscathed and then Ranak took a break.

Keith, Prash and I went up the lift to scope out a run that was recommended for beginners: Level Up. Turns out that Level Up stayed true to it’s name and we actually had to pedal uphill at the beginning of the run. There was lots of rock and bumps, which was one of the things that Ranak did not enjoy. We quickly determined that Ranak would not enjoy the run then came across a trail crossing with Sugar; a black diamond. Of course we opted for the more exciting option and dropped into the black diamond trail. We all made it down alive and relatively unscathed.

With hearts pumping, we decided that is was time for a break so we met up with Julie and a considerably happier Ranak for lunch. We explored the options of a lesson for Ranak or to take some time in the skill park. We ended up taking a few runs down the progression park trails and then Ranak said he wanted to go all the way up the mountain again. We all happily agreed to oblige.

Ranak hit the trail with ENTHUSIASM and did so much better! There was one pretty impressive wipeout that resulted in no major injuries and ended with a smiling child, so that was a success. Part way down the chain fell off his bike, it took me a while to get it back on. Turns out that Keith and Prash were helping out a fellow biker further down the trail with a flat tire. Prash had a spare tube in his backpack, the biker had a pump but no levers to swap out the tire. Prash changed the tire with the donation tube and the guy was very thankful for the help. While stopping to swap the tire Keith noticed that his rear shock was leaking. Keith booted down to the pro shop to see if they could repair it before the next day. They had quite a backlog and it would have taken five days to get to his shock repaired. We are not here for that much longer so Keith took the easier option of booking a rental bike for the next two days instead.

We had dinner at Mantles, then chilled out in the room for the evening.