Exciting places with generic names

Hello Everyone,

Many top destinations, for whatever the sport or activity, have unique names. If you are into surfing and say you are going to Hawaii, there's not a lot of confusion about where you are going. There's no other Hawaii. It's different, and in my opinion more impressive, when a place has reached a level of renown where even with a generic name, people know exactly what you mean.

When I was in Texas, I was chatting with a guy about various trails in the area and he described one spot as 'being our North Shore.' I didn't have to ask which shore he was talking about. Lots of places have banks on the north ride of the river, but there's only one North Shore.

It's north of Vancouver, just fyi.

Read any mountain bike magazine and you'll find it mentioned. It's been famous since almost the beginning of the sport. There are a couple of mountains there where locals have built some nice trails with crazy features. Bridges, ladders, steep rock faces, huge drops, it's got it all. Whatever you think your bike and skills can handle, this is the place to test them.

This morning, Jason and I got a chance to test our skills at it, as much as two aging bikers are willing to push it, and walked away with a couple of flat tires. I wish I could say it was from doing something gnarly, but in reality, it was from letting too much air out of the tires for a couple of climbs and then getting a pinch flat in a rocky section. The cost of living on the edge.

But the place really lived up to it's reputation. We didn't get a chance to do many trails, but the infrastructure there is peerless. The only place where you'll find more built up features are in an actual bike park on a ski hill, where you use a chair lift to get to the top. This is a place without a professional crew, but nonetheless has dozens and dozens of features where someone had to haul in wood and tools to build with. It's very impressive.

Even though we were going on a Thursday, mid morning, the big parking lot at the base of one of the mountains was almost full. On the way back through the city, we saw city buses with badass bikes on their racks, heading up the hill towards the trailhead. The bus won't take you all the way, but it's a good way to get close and save some climbing.

There's been a couple of times on this trip and on past ones where I've visited an area with a big reputation. It's pretty cool when the place lives up to the renown. Sometimes, hype is just hype, and sometimes it's people talking excitedly about a place that is genuinely exciting.

wes