Canada (BC/AB) ride/hire tips: Whistler, Sun Peaks, Jasper, Banff, Revelstoke

If you want to keep it easy and only have half day and no bike I’d recommend just hitting up Whistler.

Take out a nice Yeti SB150 from Arbutus right by the lift and leave the family to have brunch / enjoy the fun fair at the bottom while you hit trails. If you need they will also provide a guide for 1:1 for half a day if you want to do jumps and have someone guide you / tow you in. Blue Velvet is an awesome blue for enjoying where everything is rollable but also jumpable if needed. Plenty of people around to help if you fall if you stick to the popular runs. To be fair depending on your skill even A-Line is semi rollable. Pemberton nearby also has great trails but if you’re not confident in skills / riding alone it may be better to stick to the plinked park for safety. Can quickly get in over your head.

Sun Peaks is awesome but not as much for family to do in immediate vicinity without a car.

Jasper / Banff better off enjoying with family than riding. So much to see and do.

Revelstoke is quite a detour if your only going for the riding and not as accessible if you’re not into Gnar as Whistler / Sun Peaks.

If you’re not used to long descents / downhill even half a day may hit you with arm pump. Hot springs are awesome after this, there is one in Whistler too.

Final piece of advice for Whistler. Buy your lift pass before you pick up your rental bike or queuing will eat into your time.

Enjoy.

We were supposed to be going again this year but probably aren’t now due to a few reasons. Was looking at car hire prices and it was quite expensive as well which was another point against, but it’s a great country for a holiday.

Revelstoke is great!

The distances between places are big and the driving is really slow!!! Thus travel times can be slower than you’d experience over here

We did some quieter xc trails and we were largely alone even though there were cars in the parking areas. Check whether you need bear spray if you’re heading off into the wilds alone.

Didn’t really like Banff as a place, bit too touristy, preferred Canmore ( we drove from Calgary so it was Banff or Canmore for a first stop), ymmv

Secret 3rd question?

I've only ridden in Whistler, Hired a bike from Evolution, (a SC V10) lovely folks very helpful, top notch bike (covered in Chris King, Burgtec, XTR, Saints etc) not massively more expensive than the shops in the centre of town. Echo the comments about buying a lift pass ahead of time. Also do yourself a favour and do Top of the World trail. It's a great trail all the way from the top to the bottom, loads of fun, no harder than a good Welsh trail, but with views to die for. Trails difficulty, I'd put the Whistler trails as one down from our, so our blue their green, our red, their blue, our black their red and our double/hard black their black. I wouldn't worry about solo riding, at Whistler there's loads of folks about, and like a lot of places operate a fast lane for solo riders for the lift, some of the more hidden difficult trails (Goats Gully for instance) are a bit less travelled, but I didn't feel it was reckless to ride them on  my own.

Great thanks all, this is just the sort of info I'm after.
Just to be clear, the tour is all booked already. We know the overall itinerary and where /when we are staying. I'm just trying to weave some riding over the top of it

Given timelines, I'd be tempted to negotiate a full day in WBP and sack off the idea of riding anywhere else. Or if logistics work out, combine it with heading down to Squamish and do a quick 'Alice Lake' lap where you can get in all the quintessential 'BC' riding done in a couple of hours. It's only a 45 minute drive down from Whistler (traffic / Crankworx dependent....) and you can park right next to the trails.
It's not that the other areas aren't as good as around here, it's but that BC / Alberta are just so damned huge and plenty of non-biking stuff to see and do that I don't know how feasible it'll be to get in a quick morning ride anywhere. The other bike parks that I can think of are all significantly out of town and not much else to do nearby.
I've lived here since 2007 and only taken my bike on a couple of lone or GF related trips. When road tripping I tend to just like driving, sight seeing and chilling at a camp site. A bike road trip with buddies is a little different though.
Yeah not much riding around Harrison Hot Springs. You could hire a 4x4 and head into the hills and shoot things so you could fit in with the locals though 😉
I don't think you'd really need a guide in Whistler Bike Park. You could just ride the lower Blue trails all day, have a blast and not feel cheated because there might have been a gnarly trail that you have missed. If the lift line ups are stupid, I'd be tempted to do laps of Garbanzo though, and the trails up there need a little more research / respect.

I’ve heard Canada Blue thereabouts equals UK black – does that sound about right?

trail grading is green, blue, black, double black which is marked red on maps.

how difficult the trails actually are changes by location. for example, there are 2 hills by me. on one all the jumps are gaps even if the trail is blue. this is to stop people rolling and degrading the jumps.

however one hill over all the blue trails don’t have jumps and jumps on a black trail are rollable, however the drops are not. most scary sections or features have ride arounds.

from how you describe your riding, i don’t think blues or blacks would trouble you.

essentially the more gnarly an area’s reputation, the harder the trails will be for a given grade.

as mentioned above, stick to the bike park if you are only in whistler for a couple of days. i’d add, riding in the garbanzo zone or descending to creek side will cut the time you spend waiting in lift queues. the main lift in the village is busy and occasionally chaotic.

for your stay in Harrison Hot Springs, i think the closest riding would be in Chilliwack community forest. i’ve no idea where you’d rent a bike, though.

talking of rental, i’d get it arranged in advance and perhaps follow up with a call or an email before you arrive. double bookings/mistakes do happen on occasion. local shops would also be where i’d ask about local guides, or if they are necessary. in some places a shuttle service may be more beneficial than a guide as a lot of the riding is laps rather than epics.

hope that helps. have a good trip.

Thanks again all.

Are there any Sun Peaks riding tips?

We have a hectic few days before that, and a long drive the day after, so a chill out day by the pool is being proposed....which may open up a nice riding window for me.

Sun Peaks easy if staying in town. Just watch the Remy Metailler Sun Peaks YouTube clip and copy. More alpine style the Whistler if you’re used to that kind of thing. Lake nearby for paddle boarding / kayaking if that is your thing too.

i’ve not been to sun peaks, but like whistler i suspect there’d be a reasonable amount of folk about if you’re concerned about riding alone.

BCPOV (i think) on youtube has some good videos for checking out locations. likewise, dale stone. they are more informative than shredits.

re whistler, i’d second a top of the world lap, then miss fire or mudguard towards creek side. 1500+ vertical meters of janky fun.

edit: if you want your brakes british way round, mention this when booking your rental bike

edit: if you want your brakes british way round, mention this when booking your rental bike

Thanks - I meant to ask about that also! Maybe I'll call that missing question 3 🙃

If you have a full days riding in Sun Peaks, you could probably ride most of the trails - it's nowhere near as big as Whistler but, it's also a LOT quieter so you can get many more laps in.

It's been years since I rode Sun Peaks but I do remember some really steep stuff (I like steep stuff!).

If you get some riding time in Revelstoke, I'd recommend Frisby Ridge if you wanted some alpine xc type stuff. It's a very popular, technically easy trail and, as and out-and-back, easy to follow. Great views if the weather is clear and enough riders so you don't feel too vulnerable if you are by yourself. (Horseflies can be a bastard at the wrong time of year though!)
FWIW, I've ridden solo extensively in BC...I do carry bear spray in some places I think might be quieter though.

Oh, get the Trailforks app for all trail beta in BC!

Just a point from up there /\. We stayed in Canmore, not Banff. Far preferred it. My friends live in Calgary and that's where they stay too.

+1 for frisby ridge

I agree than Canmore is much nicer than Banff as somewhere to stay and explore. I would give jasper a miss. We were very disappointed with it and it’s along way out of the way of anywhere else. If you are going up the ice field parkway instead of going to lake Louise go to moraine lake instead. It’s at the same place near as makes no difference from a planning point of view but it is just as spectacular and has about 1% of the people there so feels much more wild and better for it. If you are good at family negotiation skills there is a nice xc traIl from moraine lake back down to lake Louise. It virtually parallels the road and will only take an hour if you can persuade the better half to drive the kids down the hill and you ride. It’s called moraine lake highland trail on Trailforks. We did it as an out and back

Frisby ridge in Revelstoke is awesome, also the Revelstoke bike park has a 15km blue decent that is one of my favourite trails, you get the gondola to the top then climb another 600m elevation to start it

...the Revelstoke bike park has a 15km blue decent that is one of my favourite trails, you get the gondola to the top then climb another 600m elevation to start it

I've never ridden that trail (5620), but videos I've seen suggest it's a cruisey blue and it looked incredibly dull. Yup, definitely not my cup of tea when there's so much other better stuff around (though I see from Trailforks they added some more techy trails since 5620 opened up their bike park).

The distances between places are big and the driving is really slow!!!

On the other hand, it's easy, way less fatiguing than UK driving and it's beautiful. Don't be put off by hours in the car, it's part of the (an!) experience.

 

Messed up the quotes there. Imagine it the other way round.

^ Yeah the last road trip I did I drove around 6000Km in a week but it didn't feel like a chore at all. Up to the southern tip of the Yukon, into Alberta and back to Squamish.

Just to add to a comment above, the Creekside Gondola isn't running this year due to it being upgraded.

Another vote for Frisby , if you've got the time and legs Seven Summits is epic .
I rode Kill Me Thrill Me solo , it very nearly lived up to its name 🙄 pretty dumbass move 🙄
Bike Park favourites were B Line Samurai Pizza Cat Ho Chi Min Heart Of Darkness all cruisy blues 😎

Just to add to a comment above, the Creekside Gondola isn’t running this year due to it being upgraded.

that is a shame.

Just my views from when I was over there 4 yrs ago.

Whistler is a big, noisy, expensive place, but I guess it depends what you are looking for. That was our first stop after having been as far from civilisation as you can get on Vancouver Island.

Again Banff, not a nice place I would by pass

Pemberton would be my choice over Whistler.

I liked Revelstoke and Jasper. Revelstoke you can do a heli trip up a local peak for about $150. Family - the alpine coaster it’s pretty good! We stayed by the lake mosquitoes and horse flies were terrible

The bear thing played on my mind as I was solo. On Vancouver island I was stalked by one out running so it freaked me out for the rest of the trip.

I ended up riding in Jasper, I enjoyed the ride, but couldn’t stop thinking about bears !

Only having 1 day in each area will be tiring and not enable you to see much. We did a guided walk on the Columbia glacier. Was a proper winter guide, her knowledge of the whole area was brilliant

There's not a lot of riding in Banff National park especially compared to the excellent hiking. It's really restricted.

Canmore has the Nordic center. It's as close to a UK trail center as you'll get in Canada. Mostly XC blue with the odd shorter black option. It's good for a few hours; there's bike hire and a cafe on site as well. Reasonably well signposted. For a short leg stretch it's pretty good but it's not typical AB/BC riding by any stretch. It'd be a let down if you've had a couple of days in Whistler etc....

It's not the bears that should worry you but the Moose (said only half in jest).

In Revelstoke Frisby is fantastic but OMG the bugs... It's also challenging to get to depending on your rental (it's up a forest road). Mount MacPherson is more XC and easier access.

In terms of viewing the Rockies then the Yoho valley is my go to (living in Calgary). If you have the legs do the iceline traverse (it's a regular trail, no glaciers) up behind the hostel. Much better than the crowds at Louise. Lake O'Hara is even better but almost impossible to get to....