As a proud and long-time cross-country mountain bike guy, born out of the glory days of the Canadian Adventure Racing scene in the mid 90s, I stood firm to my belief that mountain biking is about riding your bike, which means going up before you go back down. The downhill had to be earned. The idea of simply jumping on a chair lift, or catching a ride in the back of a truck to the top of a mountain wasn’t something I was interested in – to me, DH was largely a sport for those who ’couldn’t’ climb the mountain first.

March 2, 2015