MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Summer 2018

By the summer of 1997, the sport of mountain biking had quickly crept up the Sea to Sky Corridor and collided with the adventurous culture of Whistler. Excited by the speed and stoke of gravity- fuelled descents, Chris found himself thick in the midst of a rapidly growing scene. By the time the Whistler Mountain Bike Park opened in 1999, Chris was riding more than ever before, and that’s when a chance meeting with an old friend named Paddy Kaye changed everything, for all of us. “I was chilling on the porch in [Whistler] Creekside and I saw a guy that looked like Chris biking up the road,” Paddy recalls. “I yelled “Wint-OOORRR” – and sure enough it was him.” Long-time ski buddies from their Ontario racing days (Chris even pushed Paddy to do his first backflip), the two athletes hadn’t seen each other in years. Shortly after reconnecting they moved in together, rode bikes, shed blood, and traded ideas over post-ride beers. Whether they knew it or not, their friendship and shared sense of adventure was about to revolutionize trail building and plant the seeds that rocked an entire industry. “Those were wild times,” Chris says, “just exploring the valley’s gnarliest trails on hardtails with cantilever V-brakes and 50 millimetres of front suspension – lots of blood was drawn.” Mountain bikes of the era had a lot of ground to cover before they’d become the trusty steeds of today, and so did the trails. Paddy had flagged the first trail in the Whistler Mountain Bike Park and his aptitude for dirt geometry was becoming better known each year. Chris’s passion for adventure and a family history of cycling fit right in and the two friends formed Joyride Bike Parks with the idea of creating a modern slopestyle mountain bike event. “We were able to raise money hosting movie premieres for the Kranked movies and a bunch of ski film companies,” Chris says. “We put everything we made into developing the first Joyride event on Whistler Mountain in 2001.” Video of the event shows many differences from the multimillion- dollar, globally-broadcast huckfest we recognize as Joyride today, but there is a very familiar sense of stoke. The event was a hit and secured them future work. After three more years of putting on events, Paddy shifted Joyride’s focus solely to trail building, while Chris did what he does best, he pushed further, pairing his family experience with cycling and travel with a passion for introducing people to adventure. Chris started Big Mountain Bike Adventures, a global mountain bike touring company that continues to lead the way in mountain bike exploration by bringing clients to exotic locations in the Himalaya, Iceland, Bali, Switzerland and more. 98 MLCM SUMMER 2018 Their friendship and shared sense of adventure was about to revolutionize trail building and plant the seeds that rocked an entire industry. Seen here ripping the ski hill, Chris starred in the 1999 Whistler ski film Parental Advisory , where he skied in one of the first segments ever filmed in the now infamous Bella Coola zone. ERIC BERGER