Category: Vixen Road Trips

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Hot On Her Heels Enduro, Squamish BC

When Kat and Sara were promoting the Hot on your Heels enduro in Squamish, what I initially imagined was a bunch of hardcore women flying down challenging coastal trails. Not bacon, half naked men, and tutus…

Left to right: Kat Ray, Jenna Wilkie, Sara McCartney, Michelle Hayden

Kat, Sara, Michelle, and I made the long drive out to Squamish, BC at the beginning of August for this incredible event. Being a newbie to the HOYH, I knew we’d be dressing up (as foxes, of course), but I didn’t really have a clue what we were in for overall. We went a week ahead of the race in order to ride all the trails and adequately scare ourselves (so many fun things to fall off of!). It was a difficult course, but rewarding. All of us managed to get a lesson or two in trailside bike repair at some point. Thanks to Mud, Sweat & Gears we had all the tools we needed to keep our bikes going!

Race day started with us showing up to a big, crazy costume party in the middle of the woods. The music was pumping and stoke levels high as we danced/waited to be sent out on course. We all successfully conquered the first, hardest stage, “2 Stroke Smoke” (some with fewer bike/gravity issues than others), and soon found ourselves at a random tiki hut party in the middle of nowhere with more music, food, and scantily clad men providing drinks and entertainment.

Somehow we pulled ourselves away from the fun to continue on to the other stages/stations. The “Republic of Bacon” station was by far the Vixen’s favorite. Need we say more? This is where we got to try “bike limbo”. The volunteers at this enduro were amazing and obviously having a great time, which made for a super fun event. Their crazy antics were entertaining and helped us (mostly) to forget our race jitters. It helped that they were in their underwear. You’re supposed to imagine people in their underwear when you’re nervous, right? Well, they saved us that step!

All the costumes were creative – the women who decided to race in their swimsuits were especially fearless. It was a great experience to ride this course as a team, and to witness camaraderie along the way. We met so many other amazing, supportive girls and guys, which is what it is all about! We’ll be back. Stay tuned for next year’s costumes.

Author: Jenna Wilkie | Photographer: Kevin Ray

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Whistler Bike Park – Opening Weekend

Jonesing for gravity and an unfed desire to hit the dirt, three of our Vixen’s (Andrea, Steph & Jen) made their way to Whistler to celebrate #Whistmas in true mbt style. Our friend Gerald was the co-pilot on our West Jet flight to Vancouver. Did you know that when you book with a West Jet credit card, your first bag (aka bike bag- under 100lbs) flies for $50 each way? #amazing

We love staying at the Aspens on Black Comb. The condos are cozy and pretty affordable (we paid $170/night for a two bedroom with pull-out sofa), there is a bike wash and cage to keep the bikes safe… sadly there is no AC, but that helps keep the price down, right?

With some disappointment, on Friday morning we realized the weather man was right. It wasn’t just raining, it was absolutely pouring. We were stoked that the bike park likely wasn’t going to be as busy as normal opening weekends… but we were pretty sad about travelling so far for slip n’ slide conditions. But, if we were to describe the experience we would say it was some good ol’ sloppy fun. Still, we were absolutely stoked about being in Whistler, our bikes were totally covered in mud, but all of us gals had an ear-to-ear grin just to be back in the park. Along the way we met up fellow Edmontonian @Bethbikes from the @Loamranger youtube channel to shred some mucky laps.

Left to right: Beth Kelly (Loam Ranger), Steph Grundke & Jen Sieben

As the weekend went on, the weather got better and better and the trails were finally running fast and it was nothing but hero dirt under our our tires. We have never seen the Whistler flow trails so smooth and tacky, ever! But the line-ups for the chair were insane on both Saturday and Sunday- they wrapped all the way through the corral, out the entrance and nearly all the way to the Whistler guest services area. The silver lining was that it’s early season, so were grateful that our bodies got a chance to recover between laps… and we got to scope out some pros and their fancy shredding machines and new gear. We saw: Mark Wallace, Henry Fitzgerald, Bas VanSteenbergen, Yoann Barelli, Finn Illes, Duncan Riffel (he was sporting some clipless Vans mtb shoes!?!), Ethan Shandro, Magnus Manson, Kirk McDowall, Remi Gauvin, Jesse Melamed and the talented Miranda Miller, Micayla Gatto (with a film crew) and Vera Verbeek were out representing our favorite gender- the pro ladies! It was amazing to catch a glimpse of them out on the trails riding fast.

We were stoked to be able to sport our new Vixen race team jerseys in the park! @Sombrio did an amazing job helping us get them designed and shipped and we were over the moon stoked to be able to show them off while we shralped the trails and enjoyed our apres beers on the GLC patio. #luxuryofdirt

Now bike accessories are the best! We spent some time tuning up our suspension with the #Shockwiz. Suspension set up is sometimes black magic and when you live in Edmonton and need to travel at least 5 hours to hit a bike park, you will take any help you can get to dial it in. Jen spent sometime with the little gadget attached to her #fox40 to tweak her ride and the reports / suggestions it generated were pretty neat after just a couple laps. It gives extra confidence knowing it is dialed in just right.

Panic disassembly of the bikes so that we got out of Whistler in time to catch our flight.

And just like that, as soon as the weekend began, it was over and we had to pack up the bikes in the hotel parkade and make our way back down to the Vancouver airport to catch our flight back to Edmonton, but it was a ton of fun while it lasted.

We ride #fastasfox with help from our local bike shop Mud, Sweat and Gears as well as our partners Sombrio Cartel, Integral Physiotherapy & Sports Clinic, Fox MTB, Ride Concepts, Raceface and Bike Lane Brew YEG.