Earth and air

>> For green riders to the black-diamond tough, a renovated Ski Bromont has rides for everyone

BEWARE DEATH COOKIES: Hammering at Ski Bromont

by MATTHEW WOODLEY

Someone had to do it. Bicycles, mountains and gravity had all been invented, but had yet to be formally put together. As legend has it, that next step was undertaken in the late 1970s by a few pals in Marin County, California. They took what were referred to as “ballooner” tires, put them on a conventional frame with thumb-shift-operated derailleurs and drum brakes controlled by motorbike-style handles, and hit the hills.

Fast forward through late-’70s (pioneering longhairs in jeans and open shirts barrel down mountains, often hurt themselves), the ’80s (spandex invented, “mountain bike” becomes household term), the ’90s (front, then rear suspension comes into play), to the present. The riders of today who take their hobby at all seriously will have dropped at least a grand on a dual-suspension, tricked-out shock machine, and they whip around in motocross gear.

As for the sport’s local evolution, the Eastern Townships resort of Bromont figures prominently. When mountain biking took off as a summer job for ski resorts in the early ’80s, they were already set to go. “When we first opened mountain bike trails back then, we already had all these snowmobile trails from the ’60s,” explains Ski Bromont president Charles Désourdy, noting that bikes cause too much erosion to be used on the ski trails themselves. “We just had to clean them up, so it was pretty easy for us to open a lot of trails at the same time. We had a jump start over the competition and now we’ve got over 100 kilometres of trails, so we’re way ahead.”

Seen by many as one of the top hills in North America, Bromont has hosted mountain biking’s World Cup, the Canadian Nationals and the Coupe du Québec. Athletes from across the country—and, occasionally, the world—go there to train. According to Désourdy, it also draws 25,000 to 30,000 visitors each season. But he also points out that the numbers hit a plateau almost a decade ago, a trend the hill has hoped to buck with $200,000 in improvements undertaken over the last year.

Big easy

Bromont’s new big draw is la Grande Douce (The Big Easy), a 20-kilometre trail groomed for almost any kind of bicycle. The swooping, gradual slope is accessible by chairlift and geared to lure families—the younger set in particular. A one-day pass to Bromont’s waterpark now includes access to the network’s only green trail. “Once you get to be 14–15 years old, you don’t feel like staying in a water park all day—older teens will be able to go up on the mountain instead of in the pool,” Désourdy says. “Everybody knows how to ride a bicycle, and it’s much more fun going down. You don’t have to work as hard, and the scenery is incredible—all the views you have up top there. So we’ll have picnic tables everywhere and hopefully we’ll get families hooked. We’re looking for new customers, not just people from somewhere else.”

For those who’d rather skip the slow ride and hammer a mach session [see glossary], Bromont has made other improvements. “We’ve added one more lift, opened a whole new hillside and widened some of our blue trails and even a few of our black-diamond trails,” says Désourdy. “This makes it easier for people with less experience to ride the harder stuff.”

Along with downhill, Bromont boasts a number of cross-country trails for the vertically challenged—or, in the eyes of Vermont-based, well-travelled rider Scott Eagle, people who want a break from the nail-biting nature of a steep descent.

“Downhills are the scariest at first—the best to start out is on a mellower singletrack through the woods,” he says. “It lets you get to places and views that you couldn’t get to on a day hike and lets you take in a lot more scenery. If you’re a beginner, that’s the best place to start. But for any level, on any good trail, you can switch into autopilot and everything starts to flow smoothly, no matter how technical. And with big hills, you really have endless variety.”

UPPING THE AIR INDEX: Bromont rider

Soil samples

Among the variety at Bromont is a bike park halfway down the slope where riders can pull in and up their air index on the series of jumps and a 12-foot wall. “Our customers really appreciate it,” Désourdy says. “Some riders take the jumps, then walk their bikes back up to the top of the park over and over—instead of continuing to the bottom and taking a chairlift back up.”

Eagle is still feeling the pains of a broken hand he suffered when he augered off a jump last season, but insists that injuries that bad are rare, and a surprise death cookie in a vegetable tunnel is as likely a cause of a soil sample as big air off a wall. “You always walk away with bumps and bruises,” he says. “With more burly bikes, it’s becoming more popular to go off big drops—10–12 feet—and try trickier stunts, but for the most part people like to go fast, get a workout and stay relatively safe. You don’t have to get too risky to have a good time, and bikes these days give you a lot of control.”

Eagle, who rides a Cannondale Prophet 1000, says that while techno-fads can get out of hand, new bike technology has changed the way people ride and smoothed out the learning curve. “I remember when I was on a rigid frame and fork with a little flexy stem that had maybe a half-inch squish to it—I almost wish it would stop,” he says. “At the same time, the fancier bikes do make it more fun, give you more confidence and allow you to do stuff that you wouldn’t otherwise consider.”

For people interested in a day on the slopes but who don’t have a mountain bike, Bromont has more than pretty views. “We have a fleet of bikes that you can rent out for the day, or just a couple hours,” says Désourdy. “Helmets too.”

And, for the uninitiated, Eagle says there’s no better way to spend a summer day than in the woods on a mountain bike: “Oh man. That feeling you get from the right trail—something with climbs and big downhills and lots of swooshy, roller-coastery terrain. On a good ride, you feel like you could go forever. It’s totally trance-like and at the same time you feel so healthy.”

Glossary of terms

Air: Space between the tires and the ground. Said to be “caught” or “gotten.”
Auger: To involuntarily take samples of the local geology, usually with one’s face, during a crash.
Death cookies: Fist-sized rocks that knock your bike in every direction but the one you want to proceed in.
Hammer: To ride fast and hard.
Mach session: To descend a fire road with friends at great speed.
Singletrack: trail just wide enough for one person or bike—the MTBer’s holy grail.
Soil sample: See “auger.”
Tea party: When a whole group of riders stops and chats, and nobody seems to want to ride on.
Technical: A section of trail that is difficult to ride because of rocks, tree roots and steep drops.
Techno-fad: A screwy or unique technology that a dominant company tries to foist upon the innocent cycling public. Past techno-fads include Biopace chainrings, and overly complex “thumb-thumb” or “push-push” shifters.
Tricked out: When a bike has the latest and hottest components.
Vegetable tunnel: A singletrack that is heavily overgrown with foliage, so a rider must duck and bend to get through it.