132 - Whistler on a Budget: Flights, Shuttles, Lift Tickets, Food, and more...

"Mythical" is the word Josh uses for Whistler before Dane even opens his mouth — and by the end of this episode, you'll understand why every mountain biker treats this place like a pilgrimage.  

Dane, fresh off his latest Whistler trip, breaks down exactly what it takes to get there and what it costs once you do. Direct flights, the shuttle from Vancouver, lift tickets, lodging, food — the guys go category by category so you know what to actually budget for your own trip.

But the real value here is everything past the spreadsheet: how Whistler's 100 trails split between flow and technical terrain, why the double blacks are a different animal than what most U.S. riders are used to.  Add in trail ratings, lift line strategy, and the amenities/adventures available for non-riding family members, and this is the closest thing to a full Whistler Bike Park guide you'll find anywhere.

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Transcript

Host - Josh Anderson 0:17

How

Trips, Trails, And A Bad Joke

Host - Josh Anderson 0:18

you doing, buddy?

Host - Dane Higgins 0:19

Good, man. How are you?

Host - Josh Anderson 0:20

I am uh I'm okay, man. It's uh middle of the week.

Host - Dane Higgins 0:24

Yeah, we both did trips.

Host - Josh Anderson 0:26

We both did trips, yeah. Well, I've done three trips actually. Oh geez, I only have one. I think yours, but yours is better. Um yeah, we uh we've taken the van up to Sunrise bike park. We took it out to uh the San Bernardino National Forest and rode at Big Bear at Snow Summit, and then also at Sky Park. And then uh this past weekend we took it up to Presca and rode Beam Peaks, which is uh a fantastic kind of yeah, you know.

Host - Dane Higgins 0:55

I know we're gonna talk about one subject we've already planned on, but honestly, those we should touch on those too. We could. So yeah, yeah, we'll see.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:03

We'll see if uh something tells me we'll probably spend the whole time talking on the one subject that we're not telling our listeners what it is. Yeah, not yet, not yet.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:09

You gotta wait.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:10

All right. Uh but I got a joke to start with. Or I got a story to start with.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:13

Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:13

So there's a new movie out. Oh. Uh the Odyssey. Oh, yeah, yeah. I want to see it. You wanna see it, Matt Daniel? Yeah. Uh you think it looks good? Yeah, yeah. You know what I think? What? You oughta see this wiener. Wait. Oughsee this wiener. I don't know. The name of the movie is Odyssey. Yeah. You ought to see this wiener.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:38

Oh. That was horrible. I I feel like you could have done that. Okay, so I was doing it. Well, I would do something like, hey, did you see the Odyssey? Yeah. Right? And you'd say, No. No. And I'm saying, well, you ought to see this. This wiener.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:55

That would have been better. That would have been a better delivery with it. Typically my delivery's good. Today I screwed it up, I guess.

Host - Dane Higgins 2:02

See, when I say it like that, I totally like it. You well, you ought to see this wiener. Okay. Now it's a good joke.

Host - Josh Anderson 2:09

We'll see. So we'll have to ask our listeners. Did you joke? Did you laugh? Well, maybe you didn't laugh at all. But if you did laugh, did you laugh at my delivery? Nope. Or no. Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 2:18

Nobody did.

Host - Josh Anderson 2:19

I gotta go back and I gotta go back.

Host - Dane Higgins 2:22

I don't do a very good job with jokes. No, but that one was bad.

Host - Josh Anderson 2:25

Just because you didn't get it didn't mean it wasn't bad. Or that wasn't good. Yeah, no, it was pretty bad. Okay. All right, all right. So

Why The Last Episode Stalled

Host - Josh Anderson 2:32

um on the heels of an episode that is not performing awesome, which is our MGU episode, which we were, you know, now we're stuck. Like, is it because it was about e-bikes? Is it because we went too technical? I think our prevailing theory here is that it's too technical.

Host - Dane Higgins 2:47

Too technical. I I enjoyed it because I deep dove on those things and I thought they were cool. Um, but man, you you have to sit there and like take a class on that stuff in order to understand it. Right. Otherwise, you just glaze over. So even even if you're into e-bikes, you glaze over.

Host - Josh Anderson 3:03

Yeah, and like uh we had our Tuesday night ride um the day we published that last week or whatever, and one of our babyfoot, one of our uh listeners uh who we ride with, or who I ride with every Tuesday, who makes amazing cookies. Oh my god, we made this Biscotti cookie this week. Oh shit, I missed that. It was so good. But uh we ended up riding at Sorrow East last night doing pave laps because we got so much uh rain on the east side. Yeah that we you know you don't ride on wet trails. But uh he comes up and he's like, Man, I listened to your new episode. Pretty technical. He's like, No, I liked it. I I liked it, I really did. I'm like, Yeah, Mike, okay. As soon as that as soon as he said that, I was like, oh shit.

Host - Dane Higgins 3:43

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 3:44

Um, so maybe we went too deep. But we'd love uh any feedback that you guys have on that episode. Um, just like you know, is it the e-bike content? Was it too techie, or you know, is it just a slow burner and it's gonna take a while to perform better?

Host - Dane Higgins 3:56

I think in a year that episode's gonna be popular.

Host - Josh Anderson 3:59

We're gonna come back and they're gonna be like these guys predicted it all.

Host - Dane Higgins 4:02

Yeah, because that's when the stuff will hit.

Host - Josh Anderson 4:04

We're just ahead of our time.

Host - Dane Higgins 4:05

Um, so you reminded me I uh I rode last night with Jilly uh on the west side of town. Yeah, because uh and it was hero, like amazing weather. Like uh we weren't we weren't getting rained on, the trails were dry, um, but it was man, it was nice out. And then I mentioned to you that um I haven't been on my e-bike in over a month. Like yeah, you've been riding pedal bikes. Yeah, and and I gotta say, it's it's been nice. Like I kind of How are the knees feeling? Uh they're not too bad. I gotta be careful. Um but like I started riding bikes to test for Whistler, going to Whistler. Yep. And then that ballooned into doing more testing because I I had two bikes that I was gonna take or possibly take. And then um now then I rode Whistler, so that's what we're gonna talk about, yeah, breaking that news. And then um since then I've I've got back on my regular pedal bikes and just riding around and just had a blast, you know. Yeah. The what I noticed is the e-bike trains me to pedal fast, like high cadence, which is good for your knees, yeah, and good for you on the pedal bike. Yep, yeah. And then so, but then when I get on the pedal bike, since there's no power assist, it's like I lost all my power, you know. Uh but just a short time of staying on the non-e-bike, I was back and I dropped uh Jilly like a bad habit, you know. So she doesn't listen to this, does she? She's not even if she does, she knows she sucks. So that's not true. That's not true. She's rad, by the way, for the record. She is, yeah. Uh the guys said uh we were doing a downhill trail while I was testing some bikes, and she went and took the um it's called Aspen Draw. We do shuttles, and the guys are like, Your your daughter was dropping us. So yeah, so she's getting better and better.

Host - Josh Anderson 5:51

So it's cool seeing them. My son, my youngest now. We we've talked before about my oldest, who actually has been on the podcast, who is just a fantastic athlete. Uh, but my youngest, who's thirteen now, he I can't keep up with him.

Host - Dane Higgins 6:03

That's cool.

Host - Josh Anderson 6:04

Like we rode, I mean, uh i you can argue whether or not it's really a double black, but at Sky Park uh in the San Bernardino Mountains, we rode the du they have one double black trail there. Maybe they have two, but we rode one of them. Yeah. Uh it's the longest trail there. Anyways, there's some gnarly stuff on it, and he did it all. There was one uh there's one feature that I didn't ride, Lacey didn't ride, Matt didn't ride. We all just skipped it. I think we could have rode it, we just it kind of just spooked us out.

Host - Dane Higgins 6:28

Was it the whale tail or it kind of looks like that?

Host - Josh Anderson 6:30

It's I don't know, it's not really a whale tail. You you're kind of like you drop down, you come back up, there's a giant wood feature that then you kind of then there's a drop off of it, and then it goes straight down.

Host - Dane Higgins 6:40

Oh, okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 6:41

For for a good way. So it's like a left-hand turn on a wood feature that goes straight down, and it's just a weird, awkward thing. And you're coming into a drop like at a 90-degree turn. Yeah. So like you're coming right into a 90-degree turn drop. Yeah, like I think it's called a hip turn. It could be, yeah. It could be. It just wasn't it just caught us off guard. Anyways, the cool thing was that Maddie wrote that whole thing, other than that one feature.

Host - Dane Higgins 7:04

Nice. That's awesome. So Sky Park, um, some people call it Santa's Village.

Host - Josh Anderson 7:09

Yeah, it's actually Sky Park at Santa's Village.

Host - Dane Higgins 7:12

Yeah, so yeah, and that's up near Big Bear. So it's a really cool place.

Why Whistler Becomes The Topic

Host - Dane Higgins 7:16

So talking about that, we today's episode is mainly about About Whistler, and and I'll tell you, like, the like the idea here was uh I have not been to Whistler yet.

Host - Josh Anderson 7:27

Okay. And to me it's like this mythical thing. Mystical thing. Yeah. Mythical or mystical, whatever. And uh and so I have like a thousand questions for you. Okay, cool, cool. And what I thought was if I've got a thousand questions for you, I bet you that it's a mystical thing or like a bucket list thing or something folks like every mountain biker on the planet wants to go to Whistler.

Host - Dane Higgins 7:51

Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 7:51

So we should talk about it in detail. And I figured folks are gonna kick out of that. And since you just went, it's fresh in your mind. Yeah, uh, we can go through it.

Host - Dane Higgins 7:57

After this podcast, Whistler is gonna see the biggest boom in this because I'm gonna go to the house. Three additional people will go. Well, no, I'm telling you, like uh this this was a big test. So we went last year on our family trip. Yeah, uh and we drove up the coast, and you know, you get lost into all of the driving there, um, the time it took, everything. I I I couldn't tell you what I spent last year to get to Whistler. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 8:24

This year you know down to the depth penny what's pretty much, yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 8:28

And and it was surprisingly affordable. Yep. Uh really surprisingly affordable. And uh yeah, so let's dive into it.

Flights, Passports, And Getting There

Host - Josh Anderson 8:36

So okay, so I got a bunch of different categories here again. We're gonna we're gonna talk about Whistler. Okay. Like, what does it cost to get to Whistler? What are the things that um you do to get there? Uh where do you stay? What's the what are the amenities that are there? What's the bike park like? All that kind of stuff. So we're just gonna kind of deep dive on Whistler, and I got it kind of organized in a bunch of different categories here. But let's start with like how'd you get there?

Host - Dane Higgins 8:57

Oh, we flew. Okay. So you flew from where to where? Uh so last year we drove. Uh because from from Tucson, Arizona up to there, it's quite a drive. And but we were doing it as a camping trip. Yeah. There's there's so much time on the road, it wasn't worth it. So my idea was one day of travel would be more efficient.

Host - Josh Anderson 9:17

Each way.

Host - Dane Higgins 9:18

Yeah. I take less time off work, things like that.

Host - Josh Anderson 9:20

So you guys flew direct from Phoenix to Vancouver.

Host - Dane Higgins 9:22

Yeah, so we had to drive to Phoenix, just because Phoenix is a big airport. So and then uh there was a direct to Vancouver, and that's key because uh when I first went to Whistler, we went to Seattle, and then we rented a car and drove. Again, not efficient. Not efficient.

Host - Josh Anderson 9:37

So I did a little search and just said like what um major U.S. cities or what U.S. cities have direct flights to Vancouver. Okay. And there's about 25 U.S. cities that have direct flights to Vancouver. You don't have a layover or anything like that. Um I'll just go through a few of them, like you know, uh Seattle for sure has hundreds a week. Um Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Portland, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake, Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington, Atlanta. All those are major, I just just to pick a handful of them, have direct flights to Vancouver. So chances are you whoever's if you're in the United States, yeah, so you know, you you have that option or or are uh you have the ability to book a direct flight to Vancouver.

Host - Dane Higgins 10:19

Yeah. So um our flight was around 550 uh round trip.

Host - Josh Anderson 10:25

Round trip, that's great. And we it's probably worth making sure everyone knows. Yeah. Whistler's in Canada.

Host - Dane Higgins 10:30

Yes, yes. So you have to have your passport. You have to have a passport. Yeah. Um and they were they asked for that regularly, like on the plane. Yeah. Like uh uh, you know, getting on to the plane in Phoenix, you know, because it's gonna land in Canada. And then in Canada we had to show our passports, so it was a big deal going there on the way back too.

Host - Josh Anderson 10:48

So and even when you drove, you had to show your passports.

Host - Dane Higgins 10:51

Yes, yeah. So that is required. I don't know if there's other ways, uh, the travel IDs or whatever. I'm not sure about that, but a passport was easy.

Host - Josh Anderson 11:01

Okay. So if you don't have a passport, you should probably have one.

Host - Dane Higgins 11:03

Yeah, yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 11:04

You know, just uh all right. So you flew up there, direct flight from Phoenix, 550 bucks. Yeah. And then you got there, so now you're in Vancouver, and it's it's a few hours from Whistler. Yeah, it's it is the closest, closest major airport and a few hours from Whistler.

Host - Dane Higgins 11:18

I'm trying to think what it actually is. I think it's a hundred kilometers uh from Vancouver. I could be wrong on that.

Host - Josh Anderson 11:25

Okay. Um that'd be like 60 miles, right?

Host - Dane Higgins 11:28

Yeah, it's not long, right? It took us like close to three hours. So Okay. Of driving. Yeah, and so we um I since I was there, and here's some nuggets info for people going. Since I was there, I had a good idea of whether or not we needed to have a car if we were there. Because we've gone to other places where a car is like for instance when you went to Big Bear, yeah, and then Skypark, there's a 30 mile distance between those if you don't have a car. You're screwed. Yeah. And um, and so Whistler has this huge village, um, which has got hotels and restaurants and shops and all kinds of stuff. It's like a little city at the base of the mountain at the lifts. Right. You there's nothing you need. There's two grocery stores that I noticed, uh a smaller one and then a big, a big one, like a big major uh grocery store.

Host - Josh Anderson 12:15

Like in the village over the street.

Host - Dane Higgins 12:16

In the village, yeah, like right there, walking distance from the lifts. Okay, cool. So super close. And uh there's a drug store, there's um all kinds of you name it, that you there's bike shops up the wall up the wazoo. Yeah, um, there's an emergency room, like at the base, like which I'm sure is very busy. Yes. And then hotels.

Host - Josh Anderson 12:34

Probably lots of orthopedic surgeons that are stationed in that emergency room.

Host - Dane Higgins 12:37

Yeah, like you you you don't need to leave there. Like it's got everything.

Host - Josh Anderson 12:41

So and we got that was one of my questions uh later on, but um cool. So self-contained. So so you decided you didn't need a car.

Host - Dane Higgins 12:47

Yeah, so I'm like, we don't need a car. So um there's an organization called Whistler Shuttle that will pick you up. They so you give them your flight info, they track you, and then they pick you up at the curb at the airport. Uh so you don't have to go find them or get to their anything, they just pick you right up. Literally, we we got our bikes off the conveyor belts and then walked out to the curb and waited, and then they were there. And they shuttle you from Whistler Airport to Whistler Village, but not only that, but they shuttled us straight to the door of our hotel, which was in Whistler Village. And that hotel was um oh god, it was Whistler Peak Lodge. Okay. So now Whistler Peak Lodge was fine, nothing wrong with it. Um, there's a a ton. You can't really go wrong with just an endless number of lodging opportunities. This one happened to be, we did it as a VRBO. Yep. So we kind of thought we were getting like a house or a condo and didn't really, because I don't read very much, didn't really realize it was kind of it was just a hotel that someone owned the room and it was VRBO in it. I don't even know if it was owned. I'm I'm not sure. It didn't really matter too much, but it had a two-bedroom uh kitchen, uh, had a big closet where we could put our boxes for our bikes, and then it had a bike storage down in the garage where we could put our bikes.

Host - Josh Anderson 14:07

So let's back up a second, because we missed we missed something.

Host - Dane Higgins 14:09

Okay.

Boxing Bikes And Airport Hacks

Host - Josh Anderson 14:10

Uh obviously, if you're traveling to Whistler, you can either bring your own bike or you can rent one there. You can rent one. But you guys brought your own bikes. Yeah. So how did you do that? Like how did you actually bring the bike?

Host - Dane Higgins 14:20

So we researched the the uh airline that we used was United. They were great, by the way. And um United will allow you to use one of your checked bags as a bicycle, and you just pay a fee. Uh and I think it was like fifty bucks roughly. Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 14:38

So what did you bring the bike in?

Host - Dane Higgins 14:39

Uh I boxed it. So I boxed it in a cardboard box. You can do them in um in bike bags or transportation stuff. Um United has like a total size limit, so you have to be within that, and then a weight limit, so you have to be within that. Um as long as you stay within those, it was like fifty bucks extra. And then that counted as our check baggage. And so then we could have one carry-on and one personal item.

Host - Josh Anderson 15:04

So so uh our listeners could probably just go to their local bike shop and be like, hey man, I need a bike box. Yep. And chances are the bike shop that week is going to be throwing out some bike boxes. Yep. And they'd probably be able to get one from their LBS.

Host - Dane Higgins 15:18

Yeah, so I I do this for a living, so I had mine boxed and I got it into a tiny box. And um, you know, this could be in our bike shop secrets episodes, but this is a little secret um that the guys were super jealous, and about every other cyclist in the airport was really, really jealous of my setup. And so you you guys are gonna hear this for the first time. This is a global uh like unveiling of how to how to how to how to box it. So a long time ago I saw where somebody had like taken like a like a furniture dolly and stuck it on their bike and strapped it with a ratchet strap so they could go through the airport um easy.

Host - Josh Anderson 15:57

Just pulling it.

Host - Dane Higgins 15:58

Yeah, because they're kind of bulky. If you do it in a cardboard box, if you buy a nice like Evoch bag cover, it's got it's got wheels and a handle and stuff, so you don't have to worry about that. Um, but if you just do a cardboard box, because if you don't do it very often, spending four or five hundred bucks on a bag is hard to do. Yeah, it's not you can rent them in a lot of places, but just for me, I have boxes for free. I can do that. So I saw this thing, it was in uh I think single tracks a while ago, and I I went and Googled it. I could not find it. I tried Amazon. I'm like, there's gotta be some wheel system for boxes that you can just strap on to do this. No, it doesn't exist. Somebody made it, people have made things, but it doesn't exist as a product. So hint hint for anyone who wants a good product. Yeah. So I'm lamenting this while as I'm back boxing.

Host - Josh Anderson 16:45

I just gotta ask you, were you searching for strap-ons?

Host - Dane Higgins 16:47

Yes. Okay. Yeah. And trust me, if you put strap on in your in your Google window, probably get weird results. Uh some disturbing ones. But um, so I'm sitting in the shop with the guys, and I've got the bike boxed, and we had a trick where we would take packing tape and you loop it up over the box and kind of tape it down, and then you crinkle it together and you make a like a holder. Like a handle, like a handle, and this is how we can use um hanging scales to weigh the bike boxes so we don't need a like a bathroom scale. Yep. And so I did that to weigh my bike to make sure it was at the right weight. And then I'm like, oh man, it I could put one of these on the front, and then I can kind of grab it that way. And then I'm picturing I gotta go through this airport from the parking lot probably to the airport, dragging this bike or holding it with two hands. If anyone's lifted a bike box, you you've got to grab it with two hands. You can't just do it with one.

Host - Josh Anderson 17:44

It's too big.

Host - Dane Higgins 17:44

Yeah, and then I've got my carry-on and uh a backpack. Uh huh. So how am I gonna do this? And I'm like, I gotta figure out a way to do this, you know. And I'm not thinking, oh, the airport has these little carts, which truthfully you can get these little carts at most airports to do that. I'm thinking, how do I even get it from the front of the shop to my van? Yeah, you know, or from my van in the parking lot to the airport. And so I'm like, I'll make these loops and I can carry it. And then I'm like, man, this would be so much better. I saw these wheels, I wish I could put wheels on this, but if I go get like dolly wheels, they're huge, you know, and that'll I'm sure they'll get ripped off. It's cardboard, yeah. You know, my buddy at the shop, Daniel, was like, just go get a cheap carry-on and take steal the wheels off those. They're they're low profile. And I'm like, Holy crap, there's a goodwill down the store down the street. So I went down to the Goodwill, got a cheap carry-on bag for seven dollars, and then brought it back here. It's got the uh the retractable, you know, handle, yeah, and it goes into a frame that's on the outside that is just riveted on with four rivets to the bag, drilled the rivets out, and it's got a perfect little L-shaped edge, and I just duct taped that to the bike. To the box. To the box, sorry, to the box, box bike. And then I had my little strap on the bottom, and I lifted it up and it pulled just like a little uh piece of furniture. That's crazy, dude. And so I was trucking through the airport with that, and all the cyclists are like, Whoa, that's so cool. So it is awesome. I cut that thing off and kept it.

Host - Josh Anderson 19:16

So for the Do you have a picture of that?

Host - Dane Higgins 19:18

Um it's funny. I sent the guys a picture.

Host - Josh Anderson 19:22

So then you probably still have it somewhere.

Host - Dane Higgins 19:23

Yeah, I gotta find it. We maybe post it.

Host - Josh Anderson 19:25

Yeah, we'll post it if we can find it. I was thinking you were gonna say a skateboard truck. No, because that's what I would have used.

Host - Dane Higgins 19:30

Yeah, but but they're real tall. These these um the little things are tiny, man, and they worked perfect. So and I just taped them to the box. It just taped it and taped the box up. Yeah. And so it was like a superstar. Like it was awesome. So I loved it.

Host - Josh Anderson 19:46

I didn't think we were gonna spend so much time talking about how you carried your your how you how you how you jerry-rigged your uh box to get it through the I was very proud of it because it worked really well.

Host - Dane Higgins 19:55

Yeah, and you know, that box was free for me because I'm unpacking bikes all the time. Yep. And so then I had my bike boxed and packed and ready to go. Then uh we got to the airport, that was pretty decent to get it through there. They took the bikes, uh, they weighed them, uh, but honestly, they didn't care as much as I thought they would. And uh we got them all on the plane. We flow full flew into Vancouver. Yep. And then in Vancouver we hired this shuttle service, yep, and they were roughly $150 round trip.

Host - Josh Anderson 20:29

Canadian or American? American. So we should we should try to just talk through in America in American dollars through this package.

Host - Dane Higgins 20:36

Yep. Um, so about a hundred and fifty round trip um from the airport to your hotel. You and your bike. Yeah, you and your bike. Yeah. So it's cheaper if it's just you and luggage, but the bikes cost extra. Um so that was one cost, so 150 round trip.

Host - Josh Anderson 20:52

Like what kind of vehicle was it?

Host - Dane Higgins 20:53

You felt like the first one was a big motor coach, like 36 people or maybe more.

Host - Josh Anderson 20:58

So your bike was inside in the back.

Host - Dane Higgins 21:00

Yeah, they have like a little area in the back to block off for that. And um, the drivers were amazing. In fact, I feel crappy. I did not have cash to give them a tip. Well, on the karma. On the way back, it was the same driver, so I could tip them. So you made sure you had cash and you so I I did feel bad going there because I just didn't wasn't carrying it.

Host - Josh Anderson 21:18

But you doubled it up on the way back, so you made good on it.

Host - Dane Higgins 21:20

So we get to the lodge and then uh we take the bikes and take them downstairs to the room. They've got a big old outside the room in the parking garage, they've got a big old table where you can work on your bike. They didn't have a bike stand.

Host - Josh Anderson 21:33

I think they should really I was gonna ask you that did they have tools or a bike standard?

Host - Dane Higgins 21:36

No, tool tools I think is maybe risky, but a bike stand bolted to the wall would have been pretty pro. Yeah. And so we all built our bikes that night when we got there, and then we tooled around the uh village on the bikes just for something to do, and saw a bear. So uh brown bear or black bear? Uh the black bears. So yeah, they're all over the mountain and they'll come down in the village and And we were just cruising around and there he was right there. So it was it was pretty crazy. So yeah.

Whistler Village Food And Vibe

Host - Josh Anderson 22:05

All right. So um tell me more about the village. Like what's it like? Um like uh what kind of you you mentioned that there was a couple grocery stores, you mentioned that there was a pharmacy and an emergency room, um like good lots of good restaurants. Tons, tons. What about like live music, anything like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 22:22

So um so the the same night that we got there, um we were tooling around, they had a music festival. So in at the I'm gonna get my I at one end, the uh end opposite of where the lifts are of the village is the Olympic village where they had the Olympics and they have the big Olympic rings and they have a big stage and a big grass area. Okay, and they were having a uh outdoor concert going on while we were there. So that was cool. Um so you can hang out there. The village is Did you have to like buy tickets to it, or was it just like totally like free? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Um parking kind of sucks in Whistler, it's all you have to pay for it.

Host - Josh Anderson 23:03

Okay. So again, another another benefit of just taking the shuttle.

Host - Dane Higgins 23:07

Shuttle, yeah, and you can walk everywhere, and then if you have your bike, you can bike. But if you you need to bring locks if you're gonna leave it somewhere or something. Um so yeah, the first night we checked out the whole village, checked out that that live venue. It was really there was it's packed with people, yeah, you know, families, all kinds of stuff. So it was really cool. And then uh um the rest of the village, it's built like almost every big building is a hotel or lodge of some sort. Uh-huh. And then the lower level is all shops. So as you're walking down the middle of the village, it's kind of one big long walkway. Yeah. Um, and a couple bridges that go over streets that go underneath, and there's shops lining the whole thing. So you can get souvenirs, you can get ice cream. There was one place, I can't remember what it was called, something cow, uh, where you can get some really amazing ice cream. Uh, there was we we went to the spaghetti factory. Okay. One in fact, I I will tell you, um, you know, on a budget, spaghetti factory was clutch. Like it had the best food for the money, let's put it that way. So but most of the places that you go have like patios, so you're looking on the the the walkway where everybody's at. It's really kind of uh a cool vibe and atmosphere. We were there um Saturday night. We had dinner at this one place, I can't remember what it was called, uh the beacon, I think it was, and we kept seeing brides coming through, brides and bridesmaids. And so we see these bridesmaids come through, and we're like, oh, check that out. That's a bridesmaid thing. Five minutes later, there's another one. Five minutes later, another one. I swear we saw like nine different wedding parties, wedding parties coming through, going to party. Uh by the way, there's bars and clubs uh also in the city. All throughout the village. And uh and so we asked the waiter, I go, What is going on? And they're like, Yeah, Whistler is super popular for getting married, you know.

Host - Josh Anderson 25:02

So people I never would have thought that. I mean, I mean it's it makes sense to me.

Host - Dane Higgins 25:06

I don't know if it does to me.

Host - Josh Anderson 25:07

Like I mean, isn't it rad? Isn't it like really beautiful? And then you got the everything you're explaining means it'd be easy to bring people in. There's lots of lodging opportunities, there's stuff for everyone to do. It's really very beautiful part of the country, it's kind of out of the way. Um gets you out of the city. Yeah, it sounds like a great I'm sure the wedding photos would be fantastic with the views and stuff like that. So yeah, man.

Host - Dane Higgins 25:29

So okay. I can see it.

Host - Josh Anderson 25:30

I can see it. Um one interesting thing that I looked up was that the actually the altitude at the base is like 2,200 feet. Yeah, it's which by the way is like a thousand feet lower than us we are right now. So you don't have as bad of like some of the places I ride, you know, you're sit you're starting at the base at like six, seven, eight, nine thousand feet. You you're like out of wind before you even get on the lift.

Host - Dane Higgins 25:51

Yeah, I feel like that when we go to Angel Fire, like you're out of breath as soon as you walk up the stairs in the lock. Right. No shit.

Host - Josh Anderson 25:57

You have to walk up slow, right? Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 25:58

Yeah, no, we didn't have that problem at all. If anything, we had an advantage because we were used to thinner air.

Host - Josh Anderson 26:03

So yeah, one of the resorts we stay at uh in the wintertime in uh in Utah is Brian Head, and I think like the place we stay is over 10,000 feet, like the base is over 10,000 feet. So like you're like I have a hard time sleeping.

Host - Dane Higgins 26:15

Durango is like that for us, and like you're bonking like crazy. So yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 26:19

So so a little bit lower altitude.

Host - Dane Higgins 26:21

Yeah, it's crazy. The highway you take in is called the uh sea to sky highway, and you're you go along an inlet and you get to see this bay and this beautiful, like all these little um little villages along the water and boats out out in the bay and the ocean, and then as you get farther in towards Whistler, it kind of narrows down and then turns into a river. And so then you're following a river into Whistler, which is really cool. It's you go by Squamish, is right outside Whistler. So you get to go through these famous places. If you're eagle-eyed, there's and you're watching out of the the transfer bus, you get to see waterfalls along the way. It's it's really cool. So it's a beautiful drive.

Host - Josh Anderson 27:02

So one of the questions I was gonna ask you is if you guys used the grocery stores to cook so you could save some money, but it sounds like you guys ate out a lot.

Host - Dane Higgins 27:10

What we did was we knew that getting up and going to breakfast every morning would be a pain. So first night we went to the grocery store and got breakfast. So we got eggs and things to make coffee, so that our breakfast is not like a bake expense. And it was really nice. We had like some sort of breakfast burrito or egg thing every day with coffee and and what have you. So it was it was a nice, good breakfast, cheap, didn't cost much, and we didn't have to be dressed and then come back and get ready, suited up to go ride.

Host - Josh Anderson 27:41

Yep, yep, yep.

Host - Dane Higgins 27:42

So it was nice.

Host - Josh Anderson 27:43

So you guys just went out to dinner basically.

Host - Dane Higgins 27:44

Then yeah, lunch, lunch was um there's lots of places that you can stop for lunch.

Host - Josh Anderson 27:49

Yeah. Are there places on the mountain where you can stop too, or do you have to come down to the bottom?

Host - Dane Higgins 27:53

We didn't go well, so the bottom is right where the village is, so that's easy. We didn't really explore anything for food on the mountain. On the mountain. I think at the very top, near Top of the World, there's there was a there was a restaurant because we went out and took pictures on the balcony and stuff. Yeah. And so way up there you can, but we weren't really interested in that. Uh the uh one of the places we went to a place that did pokey one day, we did uh these pies, savory pies, another day, and then we did um there was a pizza place. Uh so all really cool, kind of diff different. And uh the crazy thing is um I think the lifts are ten o'clock till eight o'clock, if I remember correctly. And uh if I think that's right, it's either nine or ten to eight o'clock, I think. And so it's a long day. And the light, because you're so north, uh the days are longer, much longer this time of year. So it's not even getting dark till like nine thirty, you know. Yeah, yeah, right.

Host - Josh Anderson 28:54

You're uh at a higher Yeah, it was kind of weird.

Host - Dane Higgins 28:57

If you're stopping riding around seven or eight, uh you're um then getting maybe cleaned up and going and having dinner at like nine, and you're not and you're walking around the village looking for stuff to do around ten o'clock at night, you know, like it was a weird time shift.

Host - Josh Anderson 29:13

So online it's it says that it the the hours of the lift vary by zone. Maybe that makes sense to you. Um most zones are open from ten to five. No, and some zones can close as early as four and go all the way to eight.

Host - Dane Higgins 29:27

Okay, so the the Fitzsimmons uh lift is the one, the main one. That you guys were. That was definitely till eight. Yeah. So ten to eight. That's uh that's a it's a long day.

Host - Josh Anderson 29:36

That's a yeah, it's a ten hour day.

Host - Dane Higgins 29:38

Yeah, exactly. That's a lot of riding. Yeah. So what's cool about that is you don't feel pressured to get lap after lap after lap. You can take breaks. You can we took an hour lunch, you know, and just kind of tooled around. Yeah. You didn't feel like your lift ticket. You got you had to get your money's worth. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 29:54

And like we do have Angel Fire, like don't stop, don't stop.

Host - Dane Higgins 29:56

Yeah, yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 29:57

Oh, you're stopping for lunch, you're a pussy.

Host - Dane Higgins 29:58

Yeah, right. Yeah, wait, wait until the yeah, wait till the lifts close or the or the weather.

Host - Josh Anderson 30:03

Yes. Uh that was another question I had. Like, are they pr did you guys have any weather delays where you're there, or are they prone to weather delays? Do you know?

Host - Dane Higgins 30:09

So I've last year we were there like in June, end of June, and it was very dry, dusty, uh, no issues.

Host - Josh Anderson 30:16

Okay.

Host - Dane Higgins 30:17

But they didn't have the whole mountain open. Uh just 'cause they didn't have snow melt yet. Yeah. And so the upper lift, upper mountain wasn't uh open. And so you there's plenty to do on the Fitzsimmons uh um chair, uh, which it does the whole you know lower mountain. There's tons of stuff to do. Right. But uh when we went this time in July, we had the upper mountain open and we also explored Creekside, which was amazing. So Creekside is kind of like a very well-kept secret, it shouldn't be, but it is. Uh it's got some really cool trails, lots of flow, great for families. Um, not maybe as bro dude as the others the other side of the mountain, um, but really fun. I I really enjoyed it. There's some blue flow lines that are just super fun.

Host - Josh Anderson 31:04

And then before we dive deep into the bike park itself, sure. I want to just like one or two more questions. Um if you ha uh wanted like when you brought your family last year, or if someone wants to bring folks with them up to Whistler and they don't mountain bike, yeah. Are there other things to do for the family? Like what what what are the other things that you saw or that you

What Non Riders Can Do

Host - Josh Anderson 31:25

know about?

Host - Dane Higgins 31:25

My wife doesn't ride and she loves Whistler, so she gets to explore like the whole village there. She's not a shopper, as like you know, she likes to just go buy stuff, but she likes to go check out shops and like see the culture and things like that. And then there's uh museums all around there. There's lots of um like uh gardens and places you can just hang out and chill out. You know, uh I took some pictures of some water features and stuff around there.

Host - Josh Anderson 31:51

Can they do scenic rides up the list?

Host - Dane Higgins 31:53

Yeah, and in fact, uh in June last year, uh my wife took the kids up to the very top, top of the world, and they had a snow maze. So you could hike up the hill and go in this maze that was snow, like snow. Still snow. Yeah, still snow. And you can't see over it, like it's a maze. Like like think corn maze, you know, that's snow. But snow. And so they did that. Um, they actually went uh kayaking one day.

Host - Josh Anderson 32:17

Okay. Uh there's there's lots of hiking trails.

Host - Dane Higgins 32:19

There's hiking, there's zip lining, uh, there's cross country trails.

Host - Josh Anderson 32:23

Where did they go kayaking?

Host - Dane Higgins 32:23

Is there a lake near that? Yeah, there's a lake. Um, I think there's a few. Okay, so fishing is probably an option in there too. Yeah, I don't think it's Crystal Lake. I can't remember what the lake's called. I remember going to look for it on the bike and getting lost. So and worrying there's a grizzly around any corner. So um, but uh but yeah, there's one lake that you can see when you're on the lift, and I think there may be more right around there. I'm I'm not an expert on that because honestly, I was more worried about the the bike park, you know. Um but my wife was finding all the cool stuff around there. There's Jeep tours, you can rent ATVs, there's all kinds of stuff. Uh waterfalls. Uh we we did, you know, 20 years ago when we got married, our honeymoon was half in Whistler, half on a cruise in the Alaskan uh inside passage cruise. And I remember on that honeymoon, my hands were so worn out I couldn't ride. And so we spent a day doing uh waterfall hikes, which was amazing. So you would just go on these guided hikes and they would take you to these waterfalls, and they were just beautiful.

Host - Josh Anderson 33:28

So um I'm sure that there are a subset of our listen I I can't partake in this, but I'm sure there's a subset of our listeners that are really interested in the answer to this question.

Host - Dane Higgins 33:37

Okay.

Arm Pump Fixes And CBD Stop

Host - Josh Anderson 33:38

Is cannabis legal in Canada? I actually know what it is. I just looked it up. It is it's been legal recreational since 2018. Okay. Um but did you see any places to purchase cannabis in the village?

Host - Dane Higgins 33:49

You want to hear my story? Go for it. Okay. So uh second day, first run down the mountain. Um, so one of the drawbacks to going in July is the trails are gonna be a little more beat up. And one of the things that happens, especially on these high-speed jump trails. Breaking bumps, especially if it's not the big lines that the pros do, it's the kind of you the learner uh trails that are more blue and things like that, you're gonna get braking bumps. And man, my arms and hands were just hamburger after the first day. And so first run of the second day, my hands are are almost giving up to where I'm gonna let go of the bars, which is dangerous. Lobster claw. Yeah, and it was really bad. And I told the guys, I go, I'm I'm out, I'm gonna take some time off. So one run, I got out there and I was like, I can't do this, I can't hold on to the bars. And so I went back to the room and took a nap and just kind of let my hands I'm rather than runing every day. Uh, I figured if I took a long break, maybe tried later that afternoon, or took the day off and then had the third day to ride. Yeah, rather than and crush yourself too days. So uh when we met for lunch, we happened to eat lunch right next to a dispensary. And so I was like, you know what, man? I I I don't partake uh, but I'll use it sometimes to sleep. Yeah. And I know I've had it, I know how it it calms you know pains down. So I'm like, maybe they know, and I'm I'm sure that there's been plenty of mountain bikers that have walked in there with the same exact arm pump, yeah. Help me. Yeah, I got I was by the way, um, when I went back to the to the lodge to uh take a nap, I was watching YouTube videos. I was trying to glean any kind of little nugget of info to try and get my hands because I I race downhill. I it's not like this is new to me, but man, I was just riding so hard and so fast through these brake bumps that it was just like killing. It's like it's like having your hands open and having a jackhammer just pound them, you know. It was just crazy.

Host - Josh Anderson 35:55

Were you riding with buttercups?

Host - Dane Higgins 35:57

No, no, I was riding my DVO, and I gotta tell you, the DVO did great. But um, I've had this issue at at Angel Fire 2 on the second day, yeah, near the end of the day, um, when you're doing like faster flow lines where the the uh braking bumps are going into uh bermed corners, and I love to hit berm corners as fast as possible, so I don't slow down, but a lot of people do, and those braking bumps get deep. I mean it's it's like potholes and they're huge. So so it's like going into a huge rock garden at 40 miles an hour, you know. So but anyway, um uh at lunch I went to the dispensary and I told the guy what I was going through, and I said, I don't really like to feel high, so I'd prefer something, but if you've got something that that I don't care if I get high if it fixes this problem and I can ride, you know. And he's like, No, man, I got something, I got CBD, it's no THC, and so he sold me this stuff. And honestly, I I adjusted my brake levers up a little bit so my palms were Was it like a lotion or something? No, it was a gummy. Okay. Because I I don't know, I don't believe in lotions, those are witch doctor stuff. Um, but if you eat it, it's gotta get into the bottle, right?

Host - Josh Anderson 37:10

Just for the record, it's not you can absorb things through your skin. That's not true. Scientifically proven. Silly.

Host - Dane Higgins 37:17

Um so yeah, plus I like the gummies. Um, but I had a gummy and I rode the rest of the day, so it really helped. So I did adjust my brake levers. Um, I'm I'm one that I like my my tendons in my arms to not to be bent. And so that typically has my brake levers pointed down on a trail ride. When you're standing when you're standing up. Well, even sitting, you know, it's it's it's my angles are. But um one of the suggestions was to bring those more flat so that I have more palm uh holding me up and not the crux of my thumb. Okay. Uh, because I was having it to where it was bull pulling my thumbs backwards and kind of hyperextending my thumbs. I can still feel it as we're talking right now. I'm kind of pushing on my thumb and it still hurts. Uh and it's almost like your thumbs are the only thing keeping you on the bar. Yeah. And so by rotating it up, your thumbs go down and you're using more palm to hold you on the bar. So it's it's I I don't know how to explain it, but man, it it helped.

Host - Josh Anderson 38:17

So do you know when I first started riding uh at bike parks and I was taking lessons from homegrown, I would ride without with my thumbs above the bar. Oh god, dude. And I had to tra and and yeah, my coach was like, Wow, I've never seen one do that before. And so I had to train myself to hold to ride a bike like everyone else does.

Host - Dane Higgins 38:37

Yeah, and and so you know, the old so you know, there's a lot of debate on how to have your hands and where to put them. Jackson Goldstone has got real flat levers. Yeah, you know, and um, so some people believe in that. Some people are more about the tendon thing like me. Um I think that it's pretty sound if you're heading downhill and you're using your hands to support you because you're literally gonna fall, you know, off the bike, that that would is a good thing. When I was racing in Duro a couple years ago, I actually injured my thumb doing that, crashing, and it ripped the bar out of my hand. Uh and hyper extended your thumb. Hyper extended my thumb. Took me off the bike for almost six months because it's tendons are way harder to fix than.

Host - Josh Anderson 39:20

So that's interesting. So do you think so? You think by raising your bar, your your brake angle so that they're more parallel with the ground versus pointed down, that actually helps you hold on easier, support your weight easier, ease the pressure on your thumb, and reduce the arm pump.

Host - Dane Higgins 39:37

Yeah, I'm not sure a hundred percent on the arm pump, but if you're not grabbing so tight because your thumbs are getting weak from holding you up, that's gonna help that's gonna take a little bit of your arm pump away. Okay. So and so this technique was, you know, honestly, to get my palms to take most of the weight of my body onto the bar because I'm on a steep terrain and I'm pushing down. So imagine you're pushing something down like a floor pump. Yeah. And it imagine if you were to turn your hands and point your finger straight to the ground and only push the floor pump with your crux pump.

Host - Josh Anderson 40:11

That's effectively what you were doing at the bike.

Host - Dane Higgins 40:13

And so we don't do that. We put our hands on top and we push with the whole hand. Yeah. And so it helped me do that. And I'm I gotta tell you, on the trail bike, I don't think I could ride like that because it's a real goofy position on your wrists, but in downhilling, it worked. It worked pretty good.

Host - Josh Anderson 40:29

So that's interesting. I might experiment with that.

Host - Dane Higgins 40:32

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 40:32

All right, let's dive into the bike park

Tickets, Rentals, And A Fork Mystery

Host - Josh Anderson 40:34

a little bit. First of all, lift ticket prices, uh, 75 bucks a ticket.

Host - Dane Higgins 40:39

Can that's yes, yeah. I was it was about uh it was about 90 or 100, um, but that was Canadian. Yeah, and so I never converted it, I just paid it. But yeah, so if that's what the conversion is.

Host - Josh Anderson 40:51

Yeah, I think it's roughly 75 bucks US. And then um I also looked up the rental bike prices, uh-huh, which were I think there's like lots and lots of options there. It sounds like there's like all over the place. But the one that links from Whistler's um website was like $150 for a downhill bike and and the full like kit. Okay. So like, you know, protection helmet, uh, you know, chest pad, yeah, elbow pad, knee pads, yep. Um, $150 a day.

Host - Dane Higgins 41:18

I I would love to work in one of those shops for like uh a couple weekends just to get an idea of what they go through and what they do.

Host - Josh Anderson 41:27

Don't you know that it's gonna suck balls? So pretty much.

Host - Dane Higgins 41:31

I I I won't name shops, but we had a problem. Um Mike, who we went with, uh his fork, so he was putting his bike in a box with the fork still attached. I put mine in a box and I would take the fork off. And it's uh how Pivot ships their bikes, so the boxes are much smaller, and I wanted to make sure that I was.

Host - Josh Anderson 41:53

But you you could yeah, you weren't gonna pay extra.

Host - Dane Higgins 41:55

Yeah, I didn't want to pay extra. I didn't want the bike to be oversized or overweight or anything. So in order to get m his bike in the box, he had to deflate the fork uh and to get the bike low enough to sit in the box. Um the first day he was having problems where the bike wasn't holding air.

Host - Josh Anderson 42:14

So like he was like, the fork wasn't holding air.

Host - Dane Higgins 42:16

Yeah, yeah. Sorry, the fork wasn't holding air. So it's funny. Uh just just to give you an idea of what a dick I am. Uh so we're on the first first or second run, and Mike's like, Man, my fork, you know, uh, I aired it up when we built it, then it seemed low when we rode around the village that night, and then this is the next day, we're now on the lifts, and the first run, he's like, dude, my fork is bottoming out. And I'm like, I serviced this fork about four months ago, maybe five. Yep. And I helped him set it up, and it's a DVO. Um, I think it's an Onyx or a Diamond, I can't remember. Diamond, and it's got OTT. And so we got it running really smooth, and I'm just like, well, you know, uh, yeah, I don't know uh what it is. Uh he goes, like it's I go, it looks like you're really low in travel, like your air's not there. He's like, I put air in it, and I'm like, man, I don't know. I don't I don't know what it is. And then I just let go of my brakes and went down the trail.

Host - Josh Anderson 43:17

This is the suspension guru. By the way, for the record, Mike also works at a bike shop and is very skilled mechanic himself.

Host - Dane Higgins 43:24

But but he's telling me about his fork that I have rebuilt, and he's like, This is their problem, and I'm like, Yeah, that kind of sucks. Sucks to be you later see at the bottom. There's lots of bike shops down there. Yeah, I gotta get back on the lift so I can do another run. But truthfully, I told Mike this too. I go, the whole time I'm riding, because there's nothing I can do there. You know, um you're like diagnosing what I'm saying. I was I was like thinking about which fork he had, because at first I mixed his up with the new diamonds, which have doesn't have OTT. Doesn't have OTT. And they have two different air chambers. I'm also imagining where does the air go if it's leaking? And what happens, because I know that, because if a fork leaks its main air chamber into the lowers, what will usually happen is the seal will pop up and out of the fork. Okay. It's a really obvious thing. And you're like, holy shit, what happened? And it's usually an air leak into the fork.

Host - Josh Anderson 44:18

From the upper to the lower chamber.

Host - Dane Higgins 44:20

Exactly. And so I'm like, well, that's not happening. It would have happened. He's coming down all these descents. Right. You know? And then I'm like, okay, well on that fork, there's only two other seals. There's the Schrader core to the air valve, you know, on top. And then there's an O-ring that the top cap seals. I'm like, that's it. So he wrote it for six months. It's probably not that. It's probably the Schrader valve. I'm like, so we get down, we were coming down, we had transferred chairlifts, and we were going to Creekside. And so we get down to Creekside, and I'm like, let's find a shop and just replace the Schrader core and see if that fixes it. Yes. And and so again, I was a dick because I was like, I see ya, but I was thinking about it the whole run. He didn't know that the whole ride down, he's probably like, that motherfucker. Damn it. So um, but as soon as we got to the bottom, I'm like, it's only two things that it could be. And it's gotta be one of these. So then we went to like three different bike shops while we were in the village. Half of them didn't know what a Schrader valve was. Like it blew my mind, you know. And for our listeners who may not know what a Schrader valve is, if you don't work in a bike shop, that's okay. Yeah. If you work in a bike shop, you should know what a Schrader valve is. Um, the valve that comes out of your suspension, you know, that you put your pump on when you change the little valve, that is called a Schrader valve. It's the same valve that's in your car.

Host - Josh Anderson 45:47

In your car, in your wheels of your car.

Host - Dane Higgins 45:49

And and if you have the old school Schrader valves for bicycle for bicycle tubes, um, all the bikes have presta. The new ones all have presta. Exactly. And that's not the same core. I could not believe that three different bike shops did not know what a Schrader. I mean, these people gave me the blankest look. Like, what? You know, what what what are you talking about? What is that? And I'm like, and I'm looking at rows and rows of all these rentals and bikes and stuff, and it it just kind of chimed into my head, like, you know, these guys know how to fill out a liability form and set your very little sag and send you out the door.

Host - Josh Anderson 46:24

You know that thing you're using to set the sag? That's the Schrader valve.

Host - Dane Higgins 46:27

Yeah, exactly.

Host - Josh Anderson 46:28

Were you looking for a core? Is that what you're looking for? Just to see if the core was leaking.

Host - Dane Higgins 46:31

Yeah, because uh, you know, we I had him squirt a little water on there and he didn't say he saw any air bubbles. Yeah, you know, but it's kind of hard with just water because it doesn't foam, and so you can have you you may it may be leaking and you may not see it. Um semen works really good. Yeah, is that really? It's whatever. Not tried that. So seems weird, but okay. Bike shop secret. Not no, no, no, nobody's doing that in the bike shop, hopefully. Not the guru bike shop, anyways. So I'm sure it's been done sometime. So we finally got to uh this place called Coastal Bikes, I think is what it is.

Host - Josh Anderson 47:10

Somebody just spit their drink out in that comment, I guarantee it.

Host - Dane Higgins 47:15

Um so we get to this Coastal Bikes cool shop. Um, I admittedly, one of the people didn't quite know what we were talking about, but then the other guy did, and he was like super helpful. He found one for us because I was like, I'll buy a Schrader tube, you know, if you guys take the Valcore out, like I don't care. We put the core in and it fixed the fork.

Host - Josh Anderson 47:35

So it was the core.

Host - Dane Higgins 47:36

Yeah, and so we don't have a clue how it happened. He said that he just depressed it, but there's rubber in there and it can just wear out. I've seen it.

Host - Josh Anderson 47:44

Over time, especially in the dry desert, because there's a little rubber in that.

Host - Dane Higgins 47:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so uh, so yeah, it's that fixed his fork, so his bike was fine for the rest of the butt but yeah, I just I remember just kind of being like, okay, see ya. Just thinking it's probably he's not gonna react well to that.

Host - Josh Anderson 48:02

So god, that's hilarious. All right. Um so uh 75 bucks, $75 lift tickets, 150 to do rental bikes, uh, maybe even better deals than that, tons of options there. So you can either travel with your bike or not. Um uh hundred trails.

Host - Dane Higgins 48:19

Oh, so traveling with your bike or not. So here was our logic. Um 50 bucks each way. So 100 bucks total plus our effort to get it in a box, so we didn't pay a shop to do it. So for me, for anyone listening that's thinking about doing this, I would just do the basic math. If we we here charge a hundred bucks to box a bike. So if you're not capable of boxing your own bike, uh, I would say rent. Because if you're there for three days and it's three hundred bucks to rent a bike, and for me it was fifty there, fifty back, and then if you paid twice to have it box, that's at three hundred bucks. Yeah. So that's the math that I would do.

Host - Josh Anderson 49:00

Just why would you it's also an opportunity if you want to try out some different bikes, yeah. Right? Or if you don't have a downhill bike and you want to ride a downhill bike at Whistler, because not a lot of people own downhill bikes.

Host - Dane Higgins 49:10

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 49:11

I mean, it could be a cool opportunity to try something fresh.

Host - Dane Higgins 49:14

Now, the first time I went to Whistler, I was racing, and I was gonna be damned if I was gonna ride some rental bike. Yeah. So I shipped my um my downhill bike to a bike shop in Seattle, and then I built it myself. I didn't care, you know, what the rental would cost. I wasn't doing a saved money. I wanted to ride Whistler on my race bike so I could do the best because I could kill it, yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 49:37

Did you kill it?

Host - Dane Higgins 49:38

So yeah, oh yeah, big time. And my hands, same thing. So yeah, the mountain didn't change much.

Host - Josh Anderson 49:44

So all right, so this blew me away. Uh-huh. 100 total trails.

Host - Dane Higgins 49:49

Yeah.

Trail Ratings And Whistler Reality Check

Host - Josh Anderson 49:50

Eight greens, 34 blues, 25 blacks, 28 double blacks, and five pro lines. Yeah. Um, and then if you split it up between what they call free ride and technical, what I would call flow and technical. Okay. Um, 32 flow, 68 technical.

Host - Dane Higgins 50:10

Okay. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 50:11

Does that feel like that?

Host - Dane Higgins 50:12

I the first time I went there because I only did the lower part of the mountain, I would have said it's more jump lines and flow.

Host - Josh Anderson 50:18

Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 50:18

The technical stuff you have to go look for, and it's a little harder to find. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 50:23

So it's not as popular.

Host - Dane Higgins 50:24

Yeah. A flow line, there's a constant stream of people doing it.

Host - Josh Anderson 50:27

And the tech is like more natural trail.

Host - Dane Higgins 50:29

Very and I like that kind of terrain. So the first time I remember, I I only found a few um uh technical trails that I liked. I did do a couple other technical ones that I absolutely hated. And the irony is this this trip, we were going down uh some of these trails, and I would stop to look at a feature with the guys, look over into the woods, and you would see all these abandoned like skinnies skinnies and features. And I was telling them, I I swear when I was there 20 years ago, that I every trail I hit there was skinnies and and ramps and stuff, and I I can't ride them. I'm like deathly afraid. And they would have these trails that would take you, they would start off like on the ground, you would be riding a foot wide, yeah, a foot wide skinny, and then it would start to climb a little bit. Oh, that's okay, it's a foot wide, and then it would start to get narrow while you're five feet in the air. And I'm like, I can't get off now. Like, you know, what the hell? I gotta finish, and I'm not good at them. So I I I remember the 20 years ago like being freaked out about that stuff. I you you can't hardly find that stuff now. It's all very wide.

Host - Josh Anderson 51:37

So not a lot of skinnies, not a lot of skinnies.

Host - Dane Higgins 51:40

There's a couple what we call fatties, yeah, which are like two or three feet wide, and then maybe get to a foot.

Host - Josh Anderson 51:45

Yeah, we call it gordas here. Gordos, yeah. Gordas. Well, it depends on what you're what you're into.

Host - Dane Higgins 51:50

I like stockies. They gotta be stocky is about a foot wide. Okay. You know, skinny is about like five inches wide. Okay, you know, and then uh yeah, the fatties are you know, two or three feet. Yeah. So um, but yeah, they it was interesting to kind of like look into the woods and see those abandoned features, you know.

Host - Josh Anderson 52:09

That's what I that's what used to screw.

Host - Dane Higgins 52:11

Yeah, I was like, that's where they went. That's why I wasn't seeing them.

Host - Josh Anderson 52:14

But uh, but uh okay, so big variety, yeah. Lots of greens, lots of blues, blacks, double blacks. So like at least from reading about it, it feels like they kind of have a lot of stuff for any level of rider.

Host - Dane Higgins 52:24

Yeah, you you can go all groups. I would say um Fitzsimmons Lower Mountain has got a lot of tech that's doable. Like I wrote a lot of that last year, probably almost every single trail, didn't really have any problems. There's one called Fade to Black that's got a big drop in it that I didn't want to do. Um, not big on drops. One, they scare the shit out of me if I'm not going at high speed, and two, um, my ankles and knees can't take it anymore. So um, so I was steering clear. This trip, um I was riding with three other talented riders, and so well, you were riding with two talented riders and Luke. No, Luke is a good rider. Luke is amazing. I'm just messing with Luke. I'm just messing with Luke. So uh in fact, uh they brought a kid, uh, and I say kid, he's 19. Yeah, uh so that's a man, by the way. Yeah, he he's a man, but I mean, compared to us, all of us, uh, and he just was like the first day he was at the back of the pack, and I'm like, ah, this kid can't ride. Then we let him out in front, and dude, he's skying everything, doing style, shrapping, shrapping. Okay, strapping the cords. Yeah, like that kid was like he's he's on fire, he knows how to ride. So it was fun to ride with those guys. Um, I rode like a a sissy, like I I genuinely was disappointed, physically disappointed. I still have a little PTSD from Angel Fire. And any it was a little moist weather wise. We had like overcast, so that was great. Moist. Moist. Moist. It was moist. It was moist. Like a like a the inside of a cake should be moist. Moist.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:57

Um, but uh that could have gone anywhere. When you said the inside, I was like, what is he gonna say? What is he gonna say? He kept it clean. Kudos.

Host - Dane Higgins 54:04

So uh any wood feature, yeah, I I would come up on and just freeze up. Like uh no joke, because I'm I'm visualizing Angel Fire and slipping off that wall and breaking my shoulder, and just like I just I'm I'm still not done with it. And so I've I was pretty pussy, sorry, uh pussed out on a lot of those features. So um this trip I did not ride as many double blacks. Double blacks, I I would say that Arizona, if we have double blacks, it's a whistler black, and then their double blacks are just off the chart.

Host - Josh Anderson 54:39

So that that's what was one of my questions is like how do you compare their color scale to other parks? And yeah, we've talked about this on our podcast before, comparing like Arizona trail ratings to other places, yeah. And said that like, you know, like like a black at a in Colorado is like a blue in Arizona.

Host - Dane Higgins 54:56

Yeah, yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 54:57

But like it you're what you're saying, I think, is that it steps up even further for Whistler.

Host - Dane Higgins 55:01

Yeah, Whistler's no joke, it's above what we are dealing with.

Host - Josh Anderson 55:04

So But are the greens okay for beginners?

Host - Dane Higgins 55:06

Are the blues okay for intermediate riders? So the blues I trusted a hundred percent. I could let go of the brakes and just blast. And I I would say that I could drop most of the guys on the blues because I had no fear that I was gonna come up on something that I was just like not ready for. Yeah, and uh so whether it was technical flow or whatever, I just could let go of the brakes and go. As soon as we got on black lines, I was like I had to pick my way through. Um, if I rode behind some of the guys, I could follow their lines, but I had a little PTSD, so I even then had a little trouble sometimes and had to talk myself into a couple lines. And then double blacks, I could do most of them, but they would throw in some big ass features that I couldn't even walk down on some of them. Like they were just crazy.

Host - Josh Anderson 55:52

Were you sliding down on your butt?

Host - Dane Higgins 55:53

Yeah, there's a couple, yeah. I literally would like drop the bike and kind of hold it with my toes as I slid down. Like, I'm not kidding. Like, that's how steep and nasty this stuff is. And and you would see other riders that could just go down it because they're used to the way that their tires would react to that moist um ground and and traction, and they had confidence. I didn't have any. We're so used to dry stuff. The rocks there, if they get the the dirt on top of them, get slick.

Host - Josh Anderson 56:22

Which is the kind of the opposite of here, is that you kind of aim for the rocks to get traction there, yeah, the rocks can actually be deceiving.

Host - Dane Higgins 56:28

Yeah, and then it changes. So if you're in the woods, it'll be a different type of uh like you you could tell the tire the rocks that were slippery because they were black, and so the all the tires were like leaving skid marks on them. Okay, like and then um but then you'd come into some of the technical whistler downhill and some of the other ones where you're actually riding rock uh slabs and they had traction. And so it was kind of weird how it would change, you know. So you couldn't always count on a rock. Oh no.

Host - Josh Anderson 56:57

So so at this point, you don't you like you come up to something and you're not quite your brain's not sure if you got traction or not, so you're automatically slowing down.

Host - Dane Higgins 57:04

Yeah, and and if you're already timid, if you let go of the brakes and just let the tire roll and you're not counting on that traction, you're just skipping over the top, you're gonna be fine. You know what I mean? Um, but what I was doing is is trying to be more controlled, and I was on my brakes too much, and so then if my front tire slipped at all, it freaked me out, and then I would break more, which would then it's like double. Freak you out even more, yeah. It would it's almost way better to ride that park as fast as possible, balls out, like you'll do better, yeah, honestly, than if you're trying to pick your way down.

Host - Josh Anderson 57:40

So I don't know if I should ever go. Okay, I've got a whole bunch of questions about the runs.

Long Runs, Creekside, And Lift Layout

Host - Josh Anderson 57:44

Okay. Run length. Are they were they long, short? Like how how long were the runs?

Host - Dane Higgins 57:48

July, June, June, the lower mountain is open, and they're fairly short. Okay. You know, five or ten minutes at the most. Um, once they open the upper mountain, you can get much longer ones. And then we did this one called Mos. Yeah, I can't remember what the heck it was. It's kind of like that. It's mos? I can't remember. Okay. Uh somebody's gonna correct me. I I should remember it was last week, and I loved it. Yeah, but when you go uh the gondola all the way up to the top of the world, uh-huh, the top of the world trail was closed, so we couldn't do it, but you could start this other one, and it's a blue flow. I swear it was like a 40-minute flow to the very bottom. It was a long run. It was a long ass run. You would be super tired, and it was awesome. It was so awesome. And it was a blue, um, but you could cook, and there was a good amount of jumps that you could hit. Yeah, and it would go through the forest, bay out in the wide open. It was like huge berms, like it everything.

Host - Josh Anderson 58:53

It had a you posted an action cam video while you were there, and I watched it. Yeah, and I got bored because it was so long, I was like, Jesus Christ, and it's like never ending.

Host - Dane Higgins 59:03

There's there's others that I took them where my camera would just die. Yeah, my camera's just like this is too long, I'm gonna stop.

Host - Josh Anderson 59:10

So like you've leached maximum, yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 59:13

Um, but yeah, so the flow trails are awesome. Um, family, there's definitely greens and blues that are totally flam family friendly. Uh, we one of our customers was up there, the Bodies, uh-huh, and it's a husband, wife, and son, and they travel around in a van and check out all these things, so they happen to be up there, and they like Creekside. So Creekside is kind of if you're looking at the mountain, and then you just kind of pivot the mountain like a few degrees, it's a little tiny whistler village on the side of the same mountain. Um but it has its own gondola that goes up. And the cool thing is you can ride up uh one of the Whistler side, the village, whistler um like Fitzsimmons. The main side. And then you can traverse over to Creekside, and then when you get to the bottom, there's a gondola that's included in your in your um lift ticket. Uh-huh. And so you can ride that back up to the top and and do more of the creekside trails, or there's a trail uh called freight train that you can run right back over.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:00:14

So you can traverse between the two.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:00:16

Yeah, which is really cool. So it gives you, you know, I mean, effectively you're getting three mountains because you're getting Creekside, Upper, and Lower. And uh yeah, it's it's so much riding. And Creekside, I would say, has a lot more uh well, Creekside was really family friendly because it wasn't so populated. So if you had like smaller kids that you were getting used to bike parks and you were on a blue flow line going down with some, you know, like 10-year-olds or something that may not go very fast, there wasn't this line of like just crazy, you know, groms that are hitting 20-foot gaps, you know, and like just sailing over everything doing mock speeds. It was a lot more tame terrain and less people. There was no lift lines at all.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:00:59

So that's that's another question I was gonna ask you. So I read that they have six lifts total. Is that feel right? I probably were they high speed lifts?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:01:06

Yeah, so Fitzsimmons is high speed. It can load, I think, four bikes and then one hook, so five, but you can get five or six people on the chair. Chair, okay. And then when you get up to the Garbanzo, it is built like sunrise, so it's got three bike racks that you roll onto, and you can get four people on the chair. Um, and then there's a gondola that goes from Whistler Village all the way up to Top of the World. Uh, and that one you can usually get only two bikes in the gondolas. Yeah. And you have to get the gondola that's designated for bikes. That was the hardest lift to hit because you not every gondola could take a bike. It was really 50-50 sightseeing versus spikes, so there wasn't as many. That was on the front side, and then on Creek side they had a gondola. That was cool because there was like uh they put wraps on some of the gondolas, so they were like advertising. That's cool, and we got to get in the shram one. So was there a Shimano one? No, damn it. Shimano sucks. Oh, no, no, that's not true. That's not true. That's the first time he's ever said that. That that is not true. I I cannot say that.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:02:15

Uh you just did, Dane.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:02:16

One one because it's not true uh at all. You know, I can cut that audio out and just like replay that like you can leave it because it's just me just feeding off a year constant like bashing a shram. So I it's not professional of me. Yeah, um, anyway, the uh so yeah, that was cool. That that gondola up creekside, it was at one point goes like straight up the mountain. It's really cool, like how steep they get. And yeah, and then when we did Upper Mountain, it was cool the first day. Uh, there was so many clouds, it takes you into the clouds. And so when we got off the lift at the top, we're in the clouds.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:02:47

So you rode down through the clouds? Through the clouds, like you can't really see I've snowboarded through the clouds, I've never ridden a bike through the clouds.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:02:53

You can see fine, right? You know, because you can see 20 feet in front of you, and that's all you need to see, but 30 feet was starting to get hard to see. So it was really cool and had that kind of like really uh, I don't know, like uh missy vibe. Yeah. So uh okay, what else?

Host - Josh Anderson 1:03:10

Uh okay, so what were the lift lines like? You were there on a weekend.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:03:14

Yeah, so uh again, creekside super almost nothing. Um we were there what two weeks before uh um crankworks. Okay. I think crankworks is next weekend. I could be wrong.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:03:26

It's coming up soon, yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:03:26

Yeah. Um, so uh I would say uh they at their peak they got to where we had to wait in line, but they have what's called a singles line. So what was cool is I was struggling with my PTSD and I just didn't want to hold those guys up while I kind of worked through my head games. Yeah. And so I started riding by myself and I got to ride in the singles.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:03:46

So you went up way faster than them?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:03:48

Way faster. Like it's so cool because you get in the singles line and you just meld in with whatever chairs. Yeah, I do that.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:03:54

We did it when we snowboarded.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:03:55

Yeah, and that that's a that's key. Um I saw some kids where they were riding together, and so what they would do is singles line and just wait for each other at the top, and it was still faster than waiting in the line. Yeah. So um, so but I would say there was nothing crazy. And then if you got tired of the lifts there and you wanted to do more, you go to Creekside, you wouldn't have to wait hardly at all. And then gondola, we only rode once, the big one that goes up to the top of the world, um, because we didn't honestly know it was open. Everybody kept saying the top of the world was closed.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:04:25

So you just figured the gondola was closed and the tails were closed.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:04:28

Yeah, but then we saw the gondola moving, and I even saw uh a YouTuber post that he was up there like two hours before I watched it. Yeah, and I'm like, wait, you know, how is it that he's up there? And what he was doing was going under this sign that on the uh one side had God, I wish I could remember that trail. I'm gonna look it up while we're while we're doing this. Um, but the sign had top of the world on it. He was going the trail that I was telling you about, the long blue. Yeah. Um, so but the sign said top of the world, and then this other one. Yeah. So it looked like he was doing top of the world, but it wasn't. Yeah. So what what were the trail conditions like? Really good. Um, it had been raining a little bit and it was kind of like drizzly, like not a heavy rain. Yeah. So we one day we put our rain jackets on, we had them with us, um, but it wasn't we didn't really need them. Like, you know, and and honestly, the mud was almost no mud. Like I just built my bike yesterday back from the box and I hadn't washed it after the trip, and there just wasn't

Lift Lines, Weather, And Trail Conditions

Host - Dane Higgins 1:05:32

much. There was definitely splatter from hitting little puddles, but but nothing major. Nothing major at all. So it was it was good.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:05:39

So what what was your favorite trail?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:05:41

Um man, that is so hard. Uh this one that I'm looking up the the name is one of them that I'm you know really, really from the gondola, blue flu trail. Let's see. Let's see how I gotta put in bike in the search. Sorry.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:06:04

Dead air. We're never supposed to have dead air and we're having it.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:06:07

Yeah, but people understand that you have to like Google stuff. You gotta Google shit. You gotta you gotta Google stuff. So and this will take forever, and I'm not gonna find it. Anyway, um so this one at the top was one of my favorites. Uh there was a section that Luke liked that was putting oh okay, so I'll tell you about something about the trails. You're really not starting a trail at the top and ending on the same trail. They that's very rare uh that they're all that long.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:06:33

One of the piecing together routes.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:06:36

Yeah, one of the more annoying things is that a a trail, you're like, I've never I haven't ridden this trail, so I'm gonna go ride that trail. It would be like super short and a transition from one trail to the other, and they would name that a trail, yeah, and it would be really short. And so and then two, you would come out into these groups where there'd be like three or four trails. So you would do one trail like Schleier and it would drop you into an open area, and then you could pick other trails. And so some of your time is spent trying to figure out constant choose your own adventure, yeah, and yeah, exactly. And and but at the same time, like you can miss hole sections of the park if you're constantly riding the same entry trail and you don't split to another one. So um, so A-line is a good example. A-line had some sections that was closed at one point and then opened again, so you'd pop in and out of A-line. A-line's one of their big jump lines, one of their famous ones. And I can tell you that I can we call it pop on top. And so that's where you basically jump and then I don't get much height and uh much distance, and I land on top, and then I actually pull up and I jump again off the top of the jump, yeah, and then land on the downside. That's how I like it.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:07:46

So every jump for you is two jumps.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:07:47

Yes, exactly. On A-line, the jumps are so big that I was doing that instead of hitting them. Now, last year when I went with my family, I was hitting the jumps at A-line. So that's how much my head has changed. Yeah, you know, like I last year I was feeling good. It was right before, by the way, if you remember Angel Fire, where I broke myself, I was feeling really good. And then I broke myself. So this time I was pop on top on the A-line. Um, Crank It Up is a small blue jump line, and I like that one because I can go in the first run, I may not clear them all. By the second run, I'm clearing them all. But that's the one that had the uh braking bumps that was killing my arms. So if I sat there and rode that all day, I would you'd be in trouble. I'd be one day into riding that that park. Um, the technical stuff, Schleier and I can't I can't even name all the names. And that's the other thing is like half the time I didn't know what trail I was on. You know, we just started at one and it just ended up flowing into others.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:08:47

And he was like, okay, we're at the bottom, let's go back. That was fun.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:08:49

Yeah. Dosmas. Maybe that's what it's called.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:08:53

Two more?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:08:54

Maybe. Or one more. That's what it is. Okay. Oh my god, that took forever. So UNOS.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:09:01

That's the one from the top.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:09:02

Yes, yeah. But we were riding it from uh the Garbanzo, which is the second lift you take. Yeah. So so lift-wise, when you're there, the Fitzsimmons lift is the main lift. When you buy your tickets, if you don't do them online, even when you do them online, you usually have to go in and get a card, an RFID card. Yep. And then uh that ticket office is at the base of Fitzsimmons. Uh Fitzsimmons list lift is the first one that you pretty much do if you're not going to do that that gondola that goes all the way to the top. Yep. And if you do Fitzsimmons, you can get off at Fitzsimmons and then traverse over and hit the gondola at a station and ride that up to the top. Okay. But right off of Fitzsimmons, when you get off at the top, is Garbanzo, which is a little bit smaller lift, and that's the one that goes up to the upper mountain.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:09:51

Okay.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:09:52

So you got these three sections. You've got the lower mountain, upper mountain, and then from upper, it goes up to top of the world. So that's something that was a little hard to wrap your head around because you're you you watch a video and you see a lot of the videos that you see on Whistler are on upper mountain in this area near the Oakley sign. In fact, the guys took pictures jumping. Uh, it's a cool area where the oakley sign is kind of hung from a tree. It's a uh but it's in a way that when you jump it and take the picture, it looks like you're jumping off the edge of the world. It's really cool. And the Oakley sign is hanging up right above you. It's it's pretty cool.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:10:28

Great marketing for Oakley.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:10:30

Very good. Uh but a lot of the videos uh Remy Mattier does and things like that, where there's a big hill that you climb, you basically roll up to the top, and there's different uh steep descents, you know, like rolls, rock rolls down to the bottom, and they're they're pretty severe, they're not as bad as you think, but the videos make them look way easier than they are because the holes are way bigger in person. Like, you know, you think it it on video it almost looks like it's smooth, and you just roll down there, and it's no big deal, don't be a sissy. But then you get there and it's like big, huge like gaps in between the rocks where you're like, holy crap, my whole wheel could fit in there, you know. So it's it's not as easy as it looks on TV.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:11:10

So all right, two two two final questions, and we'll wrap it up here. Okay. Um just to help me uh just to help me quantify or understand, yeah, put it in context I under that that I would understand. Um how much more awesome is it than Angel Fire?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:11:26

Oh man, that is tough because Angel Fire is pretty amazing. But Angel Fire has one lift. So it's three to four times as cool as Angel Fire just because they've got three to four as many places to get the mountain. Um now Big Bear has two lifts, uh, but they go to the same place. Yeah. So they don't really offer a ton of options, and Angel Fire blows I I like Big Bear, but Angel Fire blows it away. Yeah. Um I think Angel Fire is probably the best in the US. In the US.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:11:58

I haven't been to Trestle yet, have you? No. I've heard the Trestle.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:12:01

I saw their wood features, so I'm not going.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:12:02

I heard the Trestle rivals Angel Fire. Uh Ashley and Don just went up there, so that's on our that's uh they've been to I think that's Winter Park.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:12:10

Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would like to check that out. I don't think I've been to Winter Park. I'm pretty sure I haven't. Um I would say Whistler's bucket list. I think I could go to Angel Fire every year because of our proximity and it's much closer and much cheaper. Yeah. Um Whistler, you know, I probably I honestly uh so one thing before we close this, I'd like to kind of go over the numbers.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:12:35

Yeah, go over the numbers. Okay, well let me ask you one final question that I should have asked earlier. Okay. Just a stupid logistical question, but are there water fountains throughout the place of ability to fill up water throughout the day?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:12:46

Yeah, there's water fountains, there's I didn't really use them. I didn't have any water. Like it was from the desert, we don't we're so used to drinking. Yeah, and it was so moist. Moist. Moist. Moist.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:12:59

So

Total Cost Breakdown And Travel Pain

Host - Josh Anderson 1:13:00

all right, go over the numbers. What did the trip cost you?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:13:02

So uh ultimately around 570 for the airfare round trip. 575 US. Yeah, that's Phoenix to to um Vancouver. 150 round trip for the shuttle from Vancouver to Whistler, including a bike.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:13:15

And that's six or seven twenty-five.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:13:17

Yep, and then uh fifty bucks um each way for my bike. 825. So and then uh 300 uh if you split the the condo thing that we got, the two bedroom, we split it four ways, so it was three hundred bucks. Okay. Uh and so a roughly before lift tickets and food around twelve hundred bucks.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:13:41

1200 bucks, and you guys were three day there's three days, so that's another one. Well, so yeah, we were 225 bucks in lift tickets.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:13:49

How many days did you ride? We rode three. You rode three. Two travel days. Because that was the one thing that kind of sucked, is you it was hard to put together a travel day that was anything.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:14:00

That also that was anything but a travel day. Yeah, that's right. So you're you're burning two days getting there and getting back.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:14:05

The shuttle was frustrating because and I don't think it was the shuttle's fault, but g the airport was in a way that you had to kind of drive through downtown one of the downtowns of Vancouver. If you go to Vancouver, you'll see like there's multiple high-rise downtowns, you know. Uh one of them is the the shuttle truss has to go through it. Yeah, has to go through to get to the the uh Sea to Sky Highway. And that took like an hour through town.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:14:31

So you're going like five miles in a hour.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:14:33

Yeah, exactly. And then uh the rest of it was probably an hour, maybe an hour and a half. So it was like two to three hours, depending on traffic, that they would tell us. Yeah. And that was frustrating because if you're we got early, we got an early flight and we got in pretty early, but when you start putting all those things together, what time did you get to the village? Uh we got there at like five. So you can basically build your bikes, have dinner, go to bed. Which is exactly what we did. Yeah. Yeah. And so um, so yeah, that that the travel days kind of sucked. And then on the way back, um, I would say the travel day really sucked because when we got into uh Vancouver, we could not no uh we did have a layover in San Francisco.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:15:17

On the way back.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:15:17

Uh both ways. Oh, so you did have a layover. Yes, I'm sorry. We had a layover. Yeah, we did. I didn't realize it because on the way there, it was real quick. You know, it wasn't very very long. On the way back, uh Phoenix was getting a dust storm, a haboob. Yeah. And so we were good two hours late.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:15:35

But that doesn't change what I had mentioned earlier about the fact that there are, I mean, Dane, you booked a you booked a flight with a layover, but there there are 25 cities that have direct flights to direct flights. Yeah, I did look with Phoenix and verify Phoenix does have direct flights to Vancouver.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:15:49

I think Mike looked up that and doing Air Canada. Yeah, and I think it was like 300 bucks extra. So I think our judgment call was not so much the time. The time You're okay with the time. Yeah, if your travel day is a travel day, who cares if you have if you're saving 300 bucks. I mean, that paid for my lift tickets.

Reviews, Where To Listen, And Closing

Host - Dane Higgins 1:16:06

Yep.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:16:06

So uh to our listeners, we appreciate you all. Thank you very much. Yeah. Uh to help us, one of the great things you could do is go out into Apple or Spotify and give us a review. We'd really appreciate that. Uh we do have uh all of the our podcasts are launched on uh YouTube now, so if that's uh or YouTube music, if that's a place that you like to listen, you could uh listen on there. Uh like and subscribe, as all those guys like to say. Yeah, I'm trying to get better about doing this. We never do it. I appreciate because I think it's cool.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:16:34

Um I do use YouTube a lot, and so I love um when my feed comes up. Yeah, you know, it shows us and it shows us. I I love it. You know, I know we don't have any video on there.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:16:44

And we have like no listeners out there.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:16:46

There's like like dozens of listeners on there. You know what? It'd be yeah, I mean, I I don't know. It doesn't matter to me.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:16:52

Doesn't matter, just as long as you're listening.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:16:53

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:16:54

Uh would love some feedback always. Um you can email us at uh mountaincog at gmail.com. You can click that link that says uh send us uh some fan mail. Uh if you do and you want us to get back to you, you need to include uh your contact information. So anyone that's written us on the fan mail, like we don't know who you are. So like we have a hard time. So that's that's a feature that uh it's just our system the way we use it. So I don't know, email us uh at Mount Cog. You can hit us up at uh on Instagram uh at Mount Cog. I think we actually have a Facebook page, but no one uses Facebook anymore.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:17:25

So I use Facebook, thank you very much.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:17:28

Not that old. But uh primary Instagram is what I what I uh what I keep track of. Uh appreciate y'all. Um let us know what you think, what you want us to talk about, and uh, you got any final thoughts for our listeners here, brother.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:17:39

Uh I think that's it. And uh just go ride your bikes and have fun. Ride your bikes.