New Legal Trails on Vancouver Island

[mudpuppy]

Riley McIntosh and the Cowichan Trail Stewardship Society have been working hard for the past year to build some new legal trails on the island, and they are amazing! My buddy Mike D'antoni wrote up a post about it...check it out:

The Mountain Bike Life: Maple Syrup Grand Opening

This is a major event on the island as we only have one area with legal trails the rest are pretty much unsanctioned. A huge thank you goes out to everyone involved.

[Trail Ninja]

Actually there are more than one but I don't want to take away from the fantastic job CTSS has done in Duncan. I haven't had a chance to ride Maple Syrup yet but I've been watching the build progress and the mad panic at the end to meet the opening day deadline. Props to Riley and CTSS!

Hey mudpuppy! I'm back on the Island.

[mudpuppy]

Hey Ninja! Where ya livin now?

Only one legal area on the south Island though....should see if Mike will change that. What other totally legal areas are there? I know one trail at Doumont that is legal and the Cumby trails...anywhere else?

[Trail Ninja]

Top Bridge, Parksville. I know it's small but still... it's been around for 20 years.
Hornby Island
Check with Tom P. I'm not sure how much of Campbell River/Snowden is legit.
Also, everything in the RDN (Nanaimo to Deep Bay) is MUT, bikes encouraged but not bike specific. I've built trails in RDN parks that were proposed as bike trails.
I'm not counting anything on Island Timberlands or Timberwest property. I.T. is cool but they won't officially sanction bike trails.

I thought the Dump was a legal MTB trail. Not so?

[Trail Ninja]

I'm living in Qualicum Bay. This is my view. That's Chrome Island Light in the foreground and Hornby right behind it. It's frustrating. $80 for the ferry. I am so getting a boat.

[Trail Ninja]

OK enough about that.

Maple Bay, Maple Mountain, Maple Syrup!

Woo Hoo!!!

[mudpuppy]

Haha....awesome. I had no idea there was so much legal trail on the island! It's a great place to be man! Great view....that ferry over is so damn expensive eh, god I love Hornby...some of the flowiest trails I Have ever ridden.

As you said...it's all about Maple now...so much different trail in one go....it goes from steep techy stuff, to new school flow with techy XC stuff thrown in for good fun.

[Trail Ninja]

The woodwork is great! Love the arched bridge.

[mudpuppy]

Yeah, Riley's wordwork is amazing...all of the bridges are works of art!

[LeeL]

The original top was built by Trevor Prest. We rode that 10 years ago in a Vomit Launch with 100m stems and 80mm forks because we didn't know better. The original line was so good CTSS basically didn;'t touch it. The bottom part is signature Rilor.

Snowden Forest is basically all sanctioned fwiw. So is the Port Alice DH. So are parts of the Hornby trails.

[Trail Ninja]

Thanks Lee. I didn't know about Port Alice.
It would have been nice to make it to the grand opening of Maple Syrup. I could have met a bunch of people I know very well but have never met.

[LeeL]

No prob. We've been asked by Tourism VI to come up and ride Snowden/CR. It's been almost 12 years since I was there last so looking forward to checking those out too. I think a lot of the old Hammerfest course is all legitimate too.

[Trail Ninja]

Hammerfest is all on I.T. land (A tiny bit is in the provincial park). Unofficially they have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding hikers, cyclists and horses, but officially, no trails on their land are legitimate.

[mudpuppy]

I have updated the post to better represent the lay of the land on the island.

[Trail Ninja]

Nice.
You're right that Riley should be included in the "Characters" series. I think it would be really cool if he interviewed himself.