The Fitzsimmons gondola actually opens up around 9:45am, after all the instructors for the kids have already gone up the mountain at 9:30am. I stood in line and Brad showed up and joined me! I first met Brad in 1994 at a club ride to Tahuya State Forest, where he gave 3 of us UW grad students a ride from the ferry to the park. I remember that ride as still being a particularly gonzo ride, with places where I rode through water that came up to my knees --- Pardo broke a spoke on that ride and immediately fixed it as well. Brad bought all of us lunch that day, but I think I was the only person to keep in touch with him over the years. After that ride, I remember taking the bike to the bike shop and asking them to warranty the BB. "We do not warranty bikes that have been treated like submersibles" came the answer. Nowadays, bearings are so well sealed that I doubt that treating any bike (even a road bike) that way would lead to bearing failure.
Brad took me first on B-line and then on Crank it up as a warm up. "You don't have to jump --- you can just roll all the jumps." And so I did, gaining confidence. After he was sure that I could tackle this he said, "Let's take the gondola all the way to the top." I was impressed by how pretty it was, and then he proceeded to take me down Una Moss, a blue-rated trail that was actually fairly easy.
From there, we would tackle Midgard (a harder, more technical trail I had to walk a bit on), then South Park, Barking Duck, and Earth Circus down to Creekside village, where I bought him lunch. If I was disappointed by my first day at Whistler, this second day blew my mind. Midgard was a great trail, running alongside waterfalls, quiet, and dreamy. This was not the gonzo MTB experience, but rather, a graded, perfect ride, comparable to El Corte De Madera back home, but without a gut busting climb. I could have ridden trails like this every day and not have anything to complain about.
After lunch, we took the Creekside gondola up. What a difference this was compared to Fitz-simmons. There was no line, and no awkward lifting your front wheel up in order to pack bikes into the gondola. You just roll your bike in. At the top, however, I discovered that my rear brake was no longer working. At least it was just the rear not the front. From there, we rode more Una Moss to Little Adler and then the Blueberry Bathtub, which was a huge amount of fun. Fortunately my brakes had come back after that short ride. "You'd better have it checked out by the bike shop anyway," said Brad. From there, we took the Garbanzo Express and then descended using Blue Velvet. Blue Velvet started off tamely but after a trail intersection turned into a drop! "Oh, I meant to warn you about that one but I forgot." "You did the right thing --- I might have freaked out with a warning." It occurred to me then that Brad had read my capabilities perfectly, including what I could or could not do, and when to tell me about an obstacle and when not to. The rest of Blue Velvet was a bigger bolder version of Crank It Up, and once again I would roll everything instead of jumping.
By then, Brad was confident in me enough to take me down Blueseum, which was the last blue technical trail before we started hitting black trails. He offered to introduce me to an instructor, but I was having a lot of fun and wanted to do more riding on my own.
We met the kids and introduced him to Brad. Bowen had changed his mind about how much he didn't like mountain biking and was now willing to take me on a ride. I bought Boen an ice cream and we went up on the gondola, where Bowen demonstrated for me how much he enjoyed doing the technical trails. He asked for an extra day on the bike after his last lesson on the next day, so I paid for and organized an extra day on the bikes for him and me.
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