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History
N O I T U L O V E E H T WE HIT THE DIRT AND DIG UP THE HISTORY OF MOUNTAIN BIKING TRAILS AND COMMUNITY IN REVELSTOKE. By Bryce Borlick.
Keep your head up and look where you want to go. It’s one of the primary lessons taught to aspiring mountain bikers. But today we’re going to do the opposite and have a look back at the history of mountain biking in Revelstoke. There’s a lot of ground to cover so kick your pedals and lose your multi-tool, we’re dropping in three, two, one… First off, we need to travel back about 100 years, back to a time when the Keystone, Cartier, and Joss trails served industrial purposes. The trail through Keystone Basin and onward to Standard Peak was part of the late-nineteenth century mining boom, while the trails to Mount Cartier and Joss Mountain were built around 1920 to access the fire lookouts at the top of each. Like many other fire lookouts, Cartier and Joss were abandoned by the 1960s and their trails were adopted by avid hikers. It’s only been in the last decade or so that the torch for this alpine trio has been unofficially passed on to mountain bikers. Although the Columbia Valley saw huge infrastructure projects in the mid-twentieth century, it wasn’t until the ‘70s and ‘80s that recreational singletrack started to appear, particularly in the Lower Begbie area. Dog Patch, River Run, Sex on the Beach, and Richard Liqueur were originally cut for equestrian use, which is why the trail routing has a distinct old school flavour. Further up the hillside, the Backside, Bluff, Quarry, and Lookout trails were built by Kip Wiley and Mike Cummings in 1990s, mainly to access the climbing areas. Over on the west side of Highway 23 Macpherson’s forestry roads officially became Nordic ski trails in 1993, and they also served as rudimentary bike trails for the rudimentary bikes of the day. Finally, in the late ‘90s a small group of dedicated mountain bikers, including Bart Larsen of Begbie Brewing Co., cut Revy’s first bike-specific trail. Without much knowledge of how buff a bike trail really needed to be, the crew toiled away until it seemed, yup you guess it, Buff Enough. Root Canal
was also completed that same year. Two years later, Revelstoke held its first mountain bike race — the Mount Mackenzie Challenge. The Big Easy and Faultline trails, which comprised the course, were completed just hours before the start of the race. In the second and third years of the race, the name was changed to the Mount Mac Challenge to give the club the flexibility to host the race on Macpherson if necessary. “Faultline and the Big Easy were completed just before the race,” recalls Keith McNab, who served as president and board member of the Revelstoke Cycling Association for many years. “It was a tough course, soft and fresh. The expert class racers normally did an extra lap. So, they went out for their third (and final) lap and most of them ended up quitting halfway through. They took a DNF instead of finishing the race.” Buoyed by the success of the race and by the general growth of mountain biking, the Macpherson network grew and in 2002 gained what, arguably, is its defining trail: Tantrum. This five kilometre long north-south traverse not only provided a great new riding experience it also served as a backbone for other trails to link into, like Super Happy Fun for example. The following year, another classic trail was born just to the south. In its first few months of use, it was simply referred to as “the new trail” until that informal name was shortened to T.N.T. In 2006, two trails near the Nordic parking lot — Rob’s Latest Creation and The Parking Lot Trail — were linked by a particularly dark and narrow section of new singletrack. On one of the first rides, the new section was described as ‘like being in the Black Forest,’ and that name was pinned to all three sections. And what about the ‘Tantrum’ name, you ask? “Larry Nellis used to own where Terra (Firma) is now. He ran horse tours until his son Doug took over. He had built a paddock on Crown land, and nobody cared until we built a trail through the paddock,” explains Keith. “We started riding the trail and a couple guys left the gate open and his horses got out. Doug went into the forestry office and basically had a tantrum. The forestry guys said, ‘You’re in the wrong, they’re in the right, you gotta take the paddock down.’ And that’s why it was called Tantrum.” Speaking of forestry, it was BCTS forester Rob Mohr who planned and organized the construction of most of the Macpherson network and if you look hard enough you can still find his flagging tape marking out not only the classics but also potential new routes. By 2009, Berm Donor, Toad School, Dusty Beaver, and Stimulus were built and a vision of a long gradual descent tantalized trailbuilders. Once funding became available for such an ambitious project, Rob’s carefully chosen line was built through Macpherson’s complex contours, with some debate over whether or not it should be bidirectional. Called Flowdown, it opened in 2012 and instantly became Revelstoke’s most ridden trail, a title it still holds today. All this talk about Macpherson — but what about downhill? It’s actually apropos for us to have
