2023 Whistler - Day 1

 To be honest, I'd never even heard of Whistler, but Brad Silverberg, who owned a house in the area, was a great advocate of it, and I was inclined to believe him, since his recommendations for doing a bike trip in Spain in 2019 was spot on, from where to stay to how long to stay and what to do. To be honest, I'd never really thought of myself as a downhill mountain biker who could catch big air and do stunts, but cycling is cycling and any time you get to spend on two wheels is always good.

Our flight was delayed by about an hour, so we arrived in Vancouver at 1:00pm. Fortunately, our Turo host was very accommodating, and we had lunch in Vancouver before heading over to Whistler. We would stay at the Aspens, which Brad assured me was a good location. Arriving late in the afternoon after what was a stunning drive along the coast (which I didn't remember at all because the last time I'd driven it was in miserable weather in 2015. I was also very happy with the Volkswagen Jetta I'd rented on Turo, which was much bigger in cargo capacity than the so-called midsized SUV I'd gotten in Calgary --- all the luggage fit in the trunk with no futzing needed.

The checkin process was weird --- they had sent me the code for entering the apartment the day before but it was shunted into a different e-mail address so I didn't see it. A quick phone call corrected my misconception and we were off. The apartment had a nice kitchen and 2 rooms, so Bowen got very excited about making a salad, so we made it.

The next morning, we got up and walked to the bike park, where we had to run through some of the park bureaucracy --- it was a challenge to figure out where to go to get your lift tickets, where to go to get your kids registered for classes, and where to pick up your rental bikes. Definitely budget an extra half hour for this on your first day.

The process for getting your mountain bike comes with full body army that looks like it came out of mad max, and a full face helmet. This whole endeavor is pretty intimidating considering how little equipment we usually ride with, but the shop was serious about getting the suspension dialed in.

After the kids got checked in, it was time for the adults to get their gear. I was surprised to find that we got our bikes from a different shop even though I'd booked everything through Whistler. I'd also booked an instructor, but unlike the kids, the adults get their instructors at 10:00am instead. The instructor gave us some basics about stance, braking, and steering, which were definitely very different from what I normally do. For instance, I'd been used to bending my knees and elbows on a mountain bike, but on a full suspension bike you're supposed to fully load the suspension and just keep your knees straight unless performing a technical maneuver. Similarly, there was a tip to widen your knees as you go around the corner and look where you're planning to go. This was counter-intuitive stuff but if I remembered to do it I got better results.

We saw a bear on our very first run, and then Xiaoqin decided that she'd had enough and returned her bike. I got the instructor to myself, which meant that he quickly progressed me through several intermediate trails (Long Horn, Hornet, Ho Chi Minh, Del Bocca Vista, World Cup Single Track, Wednesday Night Delight, Naughty Hands, Ninja Cougar), ending the day by putting me on a black trail (Monkey Hands). He was very surprised that I would actually ride the bike up hills by pedaling --- apparently DH MTB culture is that it's perfectly acceptable to walk your bike up a grade, whereas of course the roadie culture I came from considered it a failure if you had to walk up hill.

I worked the instructor hard, giving him only a 20 minute break for lunch, and when it was all over he told me that I was progressing well for someone who'd never been to the bike park before. I met the kids at 3:00pm and asked if they wanted to show me what they'd learn but neither of them were enthusiastic --- Bowen had crashed twice, and Boen was simply not into it. At least there was no more talk about deliberately crashing so they wouldn't have to do any more classes. I promised the kids that we wouldn't come back --- to be honest the park was disappointing --- I could understand if you wanted to get good at the gonzo jumps and air gaps you would love the park, but there was no scenery, just lots of crowds and plenty of time spent waiting in line to get onto a lift. I never understood the appeal of downhill skiing either.

We spent some time at the swimming pool and then went over to the Olympic plaza for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra's live performance. It was a great event but the kids got bored once they stopped playing John Williams soundtrack songs that they could recognize and went into doing Spanish Opera.