and you don’t ride it that often. Maybe once or twice a year. It’s right at the edge of the map, and its easy to forget just how worth it making that climb is. I think every riding town has one. In Mission, BC its “Bigguns” – up the hill behind the DH track. Here in the Comox Valley its the “Grub-Stub-Pity tha foo” line. From “Stub” on down gets ridden a little more often, but I am pretty sure that Grub sees maybe 30 riders a year.
The climb/push up is long, steep, washed out and exposed. Its best to do it on an overcast day. Today looked like it would be perfect, but as can be expected, Murphy struck and the sun came blazing out from behind the clouds on the worst part of the push. I hadn’t ridden it in so long, that about 2/3rds of the way up I was sure I had lead me and my buddy Dave the wrong way. Nothing really looked familiar, but the ache in my legs and the sweat dripping into my eyes felt familiar. Fortunately, my instincts were right and we ended up at the trail head after an hour and a half of riding and pushing.
Then – the pay off. Grub starts out through an exposed alpine/rocky clearing with two smallish gaps right off the start, then a steep roll down – roll up and into the trees. Quick steeps are linked by rolling fast singletrack with a few stunts for good measure. Unfortunately, a lot of the stunts are falling down as similar to the amount of riders, the amount of trail work is also pretty light. Now – don’t start to hack me here – I’ve done work on the whole line. Just not enough.
After Grub dumps you out on a logging road (with an exit I built last year and still can’t quite clear) Stub starts up. The very top of Stub was logged last year, but the cooperative logging contractors very kindly cut both entrance lines back in through the slash. An afternoon of raking is all that is needed to get them both up to speed again.
Stub lives up to its name in that the actual downhill part can be ridden in about two minutes. However, a couple of challenging stunts including a log ride-teeter totter combo more than make up for the “stubby” length. After Stub there is a sidehill transition to the final chapter in this three part series – “Pity tha foo”.
This trail is challenging and totally worth it. Starting out fast a flowy and not too steep, the earth quicly dips to the horizon and your brakes become very important. There are only one or two stunts on the whole line, but the sketchy natural terrain more than makes up for it. All in all, this ride is well worth the effort, and I think I will be back a little more this year than last…
For more info on this ride, and a map, please go to www.cvmtb.com.