What I learned from crashing on big jumps at Whistler Bike Park

Last time, in an overview of the Whistler Bike Park, we delved into an A-line, arguably the most famous jump track in the world. For its endless boards, iconic features and sheer length, A Line's fame is well deserved, but the talk on the Whistler lift line is about a different path and is guarded by a large wooden sculpture. This is the dirt merchant. He sells soil and soil accessories. While A Line is rated as a single black diamond, Dirt Merchant is double black, and that's just the top. The lower section is brand new and is classified as a scary red triangle, but that won't stop non-professionals from hiking this trail, as teenagers, children, toddlers, babies, and probably embryos have already made it through.

Like everything else in Whistler, kids growing up here won't remember this being anything more than normal. But for Alexander and me this trail is unlike anything we normally have access to. But we did it and in the process I

learned

some things about myself that I should have realized a long time ago. So today I'm going to share those findings in the hopes that they might help someone else. But this story begins last week before we touched on the dirty trader. I had already posted my video and basically had a free day to ride in the

park

and have fun.

Since Alexander had never been to Whistler before, I was able to show him all of this for the first time. Showing a friend new trails can be almost as exciting as hitting them yourself for the first time. Alex and I fed off each other's enthusiasm. At some point we ended up in one of those scary red triangles, Dwanye Johnson. He had hiked this trail last year, but obviously Alex had not. So we walked through it, evaluated everything and checked each feature individually. Then we went back up to link it all together. Alex had ridden his first line jumping trail and our weekend plans to make a Dirt Merchant video were looking very good.

But the next morning the road was closed. Temporary closures are normal at any

bike

park

, so we met up with some friends and ran warm-up laps to wait it out. But as the day progressed, Dirt Merchant remained closed and I began to feel anxious. Anxiety led to distraction, which led to poor driving. That's me, plummeting flat on a jump I've done countless times. Luckily I got out of there and continued, but it was a sign of things to come. Dirt Merchant never reopened that day and we lost an entire day of filming. The next morning we headed out feeling a little pressed for time.

But warm-ups are essential when riding a new trail, so we did a few laps, warmed up thoroughly, and then headed over to Dirt Merchant so Alex could check it out. Although I had ridden the old Dirt Merchant last year, I by no means felt confident in it nor did I have it memorized. So we approached with a degree of caution, veering off the trail to take in each feature. This is called pre-ride and in fact there are signs in the park recommending doing this, then riding again and finally freeriding. As we looked at each feature, it was clear that it would take some time to perfect our freeride.

There were quite a few features in Dirt Merchant that were... concerning. We watched as very competent cyclists hit rock bottom, failing at this step in every way possible; we even saw a guy go OTB. This was not encouraging and I really started to feel like time was running out again. So we decided to go back up and hike the trail again from the beginning, and that's when I made a careless mistake. I'm not sure

what

my plan was in diving from the top of this hip, but it didn't end well. Even though I threw my

bike

and got away from it at the last second, I still hit the ground pretty hard.

But priority number one was getting me and my bike off that road. With several parts of my body throbbing and some mechanical issues to take care of, this wasn't the time to move on to the next show, and I'm doing this new thing where I quit before I get hurt. But that day I left the mountain with less confidence in my riding abilities and a growing fear that this week's video was doomed to failure. I also felt like I was holding Alex back, since he was feeling perfectly fine. But we wanted to do this tour together, so we left it together.

The next morning I woke up, but I was still asleep. I replaced the derailleur hanger and tried to fix myself with ibuprofen and espresso, but on the mountain I felt like a passenger on my own bike, a terrified passenger. And after a few laps, things didn't get better. I was nose-diving, tail-diving, and even forgetting how to navigate the park, while feeling pressured to get my images. It seemed eerily similar to when I made a video about how I broke my collarbone. So I left it for today, again. And that was all the time we had. So this week I made a video on when to quit.

For my own safety, to set a good example. I know this isn't the most exciting ending, but this week I

learned

perhaps the most important lesson about myself: that I'm actually the worst... Oh, oh yeah, we actually went out again after lunch and broke that damn straw . I climbed the step on my first try and Alexander did it with his nose. But we both went back up and hit him again. And again. And then the rest of this amazing trail. We had finally connected all of Dirt Merchant and morale was pretty high. We even met these guys who rode it on hardtail bikes, so party rides were guaranteed.

This was shaping up to be the best day ever, but the elevator was about to close and we only had time for one more lap. Well, I've made mistakes on much smaller

jumps

than that. At least I limped away with cuts and bruises. Flynn, one of the hardtail guys, broke his ankle a few bikes in front of me. He heard the commotion, got distracted, and dove off a roller toward the edge of the next jump. Flynn was in good spirits and in good hands, but it will be a few months before he rides his hardtail again.

You can follow him and Zev to see

what

happens next. So what can we learn from all this? Well, despite taking precautions, warming up, and even quitting a couple of times, I managed to make another avoidable mistake on a big jump. The reason this keeps happening is due to lack of practice. It probably didn't belong on that trail and could have used a few more days doing easier

jumps

before trying it. Every summer I try to cram all of my jumping progression into a few short visits to the bike park, forgetting that the skill can only be rented.

You can't just pick up where you left off the following June. In any case, I have another week to work on my jumping skills. Maybe it's a video. Thanks for traveling with me today and we'll see you next time.