Mountain biking versus snowboarding
What do I do in my spare time? (Except for DIY, grumble grumble). I think most of the readers of this blog know me, so they’ll know I am into mountain biking and snowboarding. My particular favourite is snowboarding; my wife’s is mountain biking (though we’re averaging out gradually).
We have some friends – Dave and Ruth – who are really into snowboarding. Last winter they somehow managed to spend around six weeks snowboarding (yes, they have proper jobs too). These guys are moving to Vancouver, at the foot of the mountains in the city’s north shore.
They’re obviously moving there primarily to increase their snowboarding opportunities.
But – this is the weird bit – they are not interested in mountain biking. Anyone who knows anything about mountain biking will know that “northshore” is now, effectively, a globally known noun. That noun represents raised wooden cycleways, made famous by those over marshy bits in the tracks down the mountains of the north shore of Vancouver. They will be five minutes’ cycle away from some of the very best downhill mountain biking territory in the whole world. Whistler, just up the road, is a world-renowed mountain bike resort in the summer too. Why would they ignore the mountain biking? Mad.
I think it’s almost inevitable that Dave, at least, will succumb and get a mountain bike, but right now he is vehement in his belief that mountain biking is “rubbish” and doesn’t give you the “floaty feeling” that powder snowboarding does. Well, perhaps not, but there’s something really satisfying about nailing the correct line down some tricky singletrack on a bike, which I think is probably as good.
Right now Dave and Ruth are in the middle of their journey from London to Vancouver… via New Zealand. Their exploits are here.