I've been working with Kevin Eskelin through the Burns Lake Mountain Biking Association for the past 5 years. His abilities and knowlege of resource management and crown land policies has been (and continues to be) a huge asset in making our projects possible. His nomination and winning of this award is well deserved. He also knows how to handle himself on a bike.

There are all nature of cycles, some motorized, some pedal, some with suspension, some without so I'm not surprised to see this kind of thing being made. My only concern is what effect motorized mountain bikes would have on trails. Brake chatter is hard enough to maintain trails with, but ruts in front of every jump because now you would no longer need to maintain speed to hit jumps at the right speed. You could just motor up as you come into a jump, taking away the flow of the sport, and creating a problem for everyone else out on the trails. Ride any moto trail, or even sit on your couch and watch a motocross race and see how fast ruts form on high powered motos, the same rutting would happen on bike trails because the added power assist with even a low power motor promotes the easy way of riding slow in the sketchy parts and powering up as you come into a nice smooth built jump. Reality is, this would be a product that new riders might be attracted to (unless you're specific location could really use it, but thats rare). That means if you're riding something like this as you learn to ride challenging terrain, you're going to develop bad habits and lazy riding style. You'll never push through a rock garden to get to the next jump with speed, which means you will be powering up as you get into the preload of a jump. Clearly from that little donut the guy does at the end of the video, this thing has enough power to dig up the trail when you want to. Wouldn't want to see it on my trails.

Hangin around home this christmas, 2011 Norco DH under the tree, along with a 2011 Technine snowboard. I must have been a really good boy this year, cuz my adrenaline fix is fully covered. Merry xmas everyone!!!

But now that I watch it, its all grainy. Its not like this on the original video. Something must have got messed up on upload. I'll upload it again.

This is shot on the Go Pro Hero HD camera, set to full 1080p at 30fps (setting 5 on the camera). It was edited on Pinnacle Studio 14 in full 1080p, and uploaded to pinkbike from the original source file.

Friend of mine has a northshore rack, and its the bomb. His ford explorer fits SIX bikes on the northshore rack and those 6 people in the vehicle. From a shuttling point of view this means more people in each shuttle and less vehicle retrievals. The Thule and Yakima setups are 2 or 4, the northshore doesn't need adapting or extending it fits 1-6 bikes, plus they shimmed the receiver so it doesn't sway, universally fits any bike, fits any vehicle with a trailer hitch. Worth the investment for sure.

I am thankful to all the hard working trail builders and volunteers that make the local trails so damn sweet.

Burns Lake usually starts riding by mid April with all trails open by early May, and we're still riding tacky but not solid trails now on Oct 15th but snow is coming within weeks. You'd have to ask the locals in Smithers and Terrace on when things dry up but its probably pretty similar. People are surprised to hear how long the season is this far north of Vancouver, but being this far north the solstice holds sway over the season, once the sun is high days are long and dry. We chose to develop on Boer Mtn because of its south facing sunny exposure, early melt and fast shedding of water. It all helps keep the season long, and the trails dry and low maintenence.

LAWRENUK - gotta go with Eric, these guys are all sick, but I know Lawrenuk kills it every time.

Its way off your route this time around, but give some thought to a northern BC tour sometime. McKenzie, Prince George, Fort St James, Vanderhoof, Burns Lake, Smithers, Terrace, all have killer trails, all within a couple hours drive from one to the next. Each place has its own flavor of terrain and building style, totally worth spending some time on highway 16 for sure.