On New Year’s Eve, I got out for an over-50 km ride on the Stooge Scrambler, complete with 700m climb to the snow line. This completes my challenge, right? Well, it should have, but on Dec 30 I impulse bought a Bike Friday that cropped up for a bargain on Marketplace in exactly the spec I was daydreaming about.
So with this ride I completed what I set out to do, but I now had seven bikes. Since the seventh showed up so late in the game, I gave myself the grace that if I rode it for 50km on New Years Day, I’d have still completed my “ride every bike over the holidays” plan. More on that later though – this is about the Stooge ride!
I worked my way over to the north shore and rode some low-traffic trails near the golf course before winding my way up towards Mt Fromme by way of lower Seymour. Easy trail riding, but nice to string together longer stretches of dirt.
Then I met with my friend Taylor and we climbed up a punchy stretch of trail to get to the main service road (Mountain Highway), which switchbacks up Mt Fromme all the way to Grouse Mtn ski area (now gated). My goal for the day was to ride to the snowline, which was quite high at this time, and we reached it around the 700m mark at the 6th switchback.
From there we took the unofficial “Pile of Loam” trail which snakes through the woods just past this switchback. Kind of a boring trail on a big modern mountain bike perhaps, it’s a hoot on a rigid MTB.
We descended some fun easier black trails back down to civilization, and parted ways as I headed west for a bridge loop. The bridge loop ridden in a more direct fashion is about 32km for me, door to door. The detour up the mountain more or less got me those extra 18km, but I did some additional toodling in North Van to seal the deal.
A short stop at the Murdo Frazer cabins along the way, a popular spot for me to stop for a beer, but I hadn’t picked any up yet. However once down the hill I did stop at Beva Brewing for the very last (!) four pack of the chocolate stout I was eager to try. I enjoyed one along the water on the way home.
In the end it was nearly 60km and 1200m of climbing, a good solid ride for the Stooge!
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