Pull your bike out of the shed, dust it off, and lube up the chain.

It was a strange winter. The conditions on the resort have been decent, but with little to no snow in the valley, the bike trails are primed and ready. Unfortunately, a snowboard cross mishap has me on the disabled list for a few more weeks, but I'm confident Ill be ready for the start of the season.

The nice think about the Okanagan is you can come up to the hill rip a few groomers and then shred your favourite trial in the afternoon. You got a love this place!

Even with lots of winter fun still to be had we are gearing up for summer. The brochures and posters in their final stages before heading to the printers, I'm planning a road trip to visit most bike shops in Western Canada, and it won't be long before Cam Forbes sets up the rental and repair shop. Silver Star will be running the Double Diamond repair shop this summer, catering to all your repair needs. This thanks in large part to Cam's many years as a bike tech.

The mountain bike community is in luck this year. We have a full returning trails crew, an almost full returning patrol team. We are adding one more guy to that crew along with six volunteers this summer. With all that fresh meat and a wealth of experience on the trails, it's bound to turn out some great riding!

The crew is exited to be back and looking forward to building a few new thing on the mountain this year. The rumoured blue trail that did not get build last year is on the top of the list. If the melt comes fast we should see it early in the season. It is going from Hub One to the village, snaking its way through some of the deep gully's on the front side. It may very well turn into my top pick to get me back to the Saloon.

There will be a bunch of re-routes happening in the park as well this year. They'll be similar to what we did with Rock Star and Pipe Dream. There are curtain sections of trail that could flow better and lessen the need for maintenance from those pesky brake bumps. Watch from some of those to happen on Super Star and other trails through out the season. In addition, Double Dog will get a new pump track. Steve and Jay did such a good job last year I think we will sick them on that task again and I know they are looking to improve on last year (good luck boys, last years was pretty dam fun)!

There is a new hiking trail in the works as well. The nice thing is the aspect of the proposed trail should be the first to melt. The plan is to have it done while the rest of the park is still under snow. It will be a mellow grad to the top of the mountain with some of the best views of the village!

All in all it is starting to shape up to be a good summer season on Silver Star. The vibe is good and people are looking to an early spring. I know that we are planning a couple road trips before the park opens because once it does we can't seem to peel ourselves away from here.

See you out there.

Later!

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

I would like to personally thank every rider who came out this season to ride the Silver Star Bike Park! You have all made the 2009 season a successful one!

I haven't seen the final numbers from the bonus weekend, but from the size of the lift lines Sunday, it's shaping up to be one of the busiest days of the season!

This has a little bit of a trade off. Yes, I had to wait an extra 10 minutes to rip my next lap, but we proved that the mountain biking community still wants to ride their bikes into September – even after the kids go back to school. With turnouts like last weekend we will be able to continue pushing the SSM Bike Park.

We will continue to build new trails, put in the extra effort into maintenance – if that is possible – purchase more materials for new features, and with any luck (cue the subtle hint to management), lengthen the riding season at Silver Star next year.

We have some big plans for the park next season, but you'll have to check back next spring as I keep you updated on the progress of the changes for 2010. Until that time I hope to see a bunch of you in Kal Park for an XC spin or ripping shuttle runs down Spanky's.

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park Director

It never fails, Labour Day weekend at the Silver Star Bike Park is always awesome!  Mother Nature has come through for us again.  A huge rainfall today has soaked the trails and now the forecast looks good for the weekend.

The trail crew will be making the best of the moisture and taking one last kick at the can to buff the park and get things dialed, setting us all up for a great finish to an even greater season!

Enjoy the trails this weekend and then rest those hands up for the last two days of the season…Sept 12th & 13th.

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park Director

We may be getting close to the end of the season but Trail Crew is still going hard. This week we re-built a bunch of berms on Super Star. Some of those berms that have fallen down over the years. The catch this time is we made them even better. A little higher, a bunch steeper and continued them longer — to hold you right until the end of the turn. I railed them yesterday and they have never felt that good.

On top of that we added a bunch of shale to a low spot on upper Super Star that always gets roughed up from boggy condition. Now the trail is elevated and will get nice and hard, allowing you to keep your speed into the next jump. The best part is this also get rid of all the brake bumps and holes, smoothing out the trial.

Lower World Cup got a little love this week as well. It was getting a bit rough in there so we took the water can in there and did a bunch of patch work. If you ride WC you will be sure to notice it.

Get up here this weekend and take advantage of the Giant demos in the village. New bikes, redesigned for 2010. Makes a sweet rider even better.

Have fun this weekend and remember we are open that extra weekend in September. We're closed after Labour Day, but open for Sept. 12 and 13. So come out and get your legs ready for the longer season!

See you out there.

Later!

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

For many years I have enjoyed the Collective series. From its very first movie until this year's Seasons, I have watched these movies over and over. For the record, the original Collective is still my fav. I'm not sure if it's the sound track, the cinematography, the riders in their films, or how they edit it, but I do know they make me want to ride my bike.

The Collective is no longer but Ant Hill Films has been born. This new production company consists of almost the whole crew from that original film that made them famous. Silver Star had the privilege of having this crew filming the Silver Star Bike park last week. Their new movie, coming out in the spring of 2010 will be called Follow Me. This is exactly what Kurt Sorge, Brandon Semenuk and Geoff Golevich did. They chased each other around our park and Ant Hill captured their experience.

Working with these guys was amazing, and awe inspiring to watch these top pros rip our park. Trail Crew did a little extra buffing on the sections that they were filming. Lucky thing for all of us, they filmed a lot of the park. From high speeders down World Cup and Flow to big air on Pipe Dream and Rock Star. Mix in a little of Super Star and Shazam and you can be assured they got a ton of footage.

Look for this movie in the spring and see all your favourite Silver Star trails to be in a feature full length mountain bike movie.

Now I am going to go see if I can do that line Brandon was doing on Rock Star.

See you out there.

Later!

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

Well, we asked for it! We got so much rain at the end of the week we almost floated away! I went to check the rain gauge Friday morning and it was over flowing at 25 millimetres over night. It continued to rain most of Saturday as well. Lucky for the park it was dry, because it did very little damage to the trails, the dust just soaked it up. This means we are going to get too buffing most of the park! The crew will be moving faster through out the trail network fixing up all those spots that were hit hard form the dry weather.

It was great riding today! The rain does wonders! We did a TB buff on Pipe Dream Saturday morning and what a difference! I could not pull myself off it. The problem with that trail is it is all encompassing. If you ride it hard the way it was meant to be ridden you are a very tired boy at the bottom! Two or three of those at top speed and it's almost time to hit the Saloon.

Patrol has helped out this weekend. With all this moisture not wanting to go to waste they have been out there doing a little buffing on Trail Crews days off. They hit the table top jump on the new upper section of Rock Star and tomorrow they plan to hit a couple of the bigger bomb holes on Double Dog. Those guys rule this year! They have been such a great help to trail crew. Coming out in the morning to help us push down the trails a little further and now buffing on our days off. Thanks!

Management has extended a lot of the early season offers. The Monday ladies day, bring a friend, get a free lift ticket has been pushed over. As well as the stay two days, get the third free. This is great news as the park is in some of the best conditions in a month. Get up here and take advantage of some of these great offers!

See you out there.

Later!

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

The rain will come! The park is getting dry and dusty there is no doubt about that. We did get a few millimetres of rain this week and did it make a difference! That is the really nice thing about the Silver Star dirt is it does not take much rain to get the trails nice and tacky again. It just does not last unless we get enough to penetrate the ground. The forecast is for some pretty significant rain this week so with any luck it will be amazing this weekend. Just remember to adjust your riding in these dry conditions! You do not have the same traction as when the berms are nice and tacky. That little layer of dust can sneak up on you and take out you front tire.

We built another new section of trail this week on Rock Star. The nice thing about digging in is you do find moist dirt only a few inches down. It has been getting good reviews so far but after riding it myself Wednesday night I see there can be a little tweaking to make it even better. It does flow way better than the old section and with a quick little modification in the morning it is going to Rock!

We continued to hit a few of the holes that are starting to form out there. It is a little slow process with having to haul water around so be patient and enjoy the spots we do hit and watch for more to fixed every day!

See you out there.

Later!

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

The Bike Park is holding up! Over the past few years when we get long periods of dry, hot weather the Park starts to decay. The lucky thing for you is the trail crew members ride lots! We hate bomb holes as much as any one else. We do our best to combat those holes, but in all reality, it's an uphill battle.

The Crew here at Silver Star have been hard at work over the years making all those spots go away! Some places we have used brick work, others we use trusty old carpet and some locations we have simple re-routed the trail so there is no need to brake. In the end if you can rail through the section with out touching your brakes it will hold up and need very little maintenance. So I guess we are doing our job!

There are less and less of those areas in the Silver Star Bike Park every year. This is way every one raves about our maintenance program. We are just trying to make a maintenance free park. Don't get me wrong, there will always be a trail crew member out there buffing something but it is nice not having to go back to the same spot day in and day out!

Today we final finished the new Challenger sections. To date this has been the most all inclusive trail The Crew has ever built. It's really hard to build a good Green trail. You can't have too much grade but you don't want to pedal. You don't want the corners to be too tight but you can't make it a straight shot. All-in-all the trail looks great and I think riders are going to like it. With the rain coming this week we will have it open for the weekend.

The other thing about the rain — we can start doing full buff jobs top to bottom again with greater ease. Watch for sections of trail being closed through out the week and early next. Have patience when your favorite section of trail is closed for a short period of time. It simply means we are making it better for you. And don't fret, we are moving form one trail to another. The goal is not to have any one sections closed for the whole day. Just make sure you are there when we drop the "closed due to maintenance sign" because there is nothing like ripping a freshly buffed trail.

See you out there.

Later!

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

What a weekend! AIRprentice went off with out a hitch, and man can those boys ride! The pro's out there better watch out because the young riders coming up are good!!! I know who won but I can't let it out of the bag. You are going to have to go to www.nsmb.com for all the details and check out some of the great photo's that were taken in the Silver Star Bike Park this weekend.

The NSMB team could not have hit it any better! Trail crew got a bunch of buffing in before they arrived and good old Mother Nature came through for us. We had blue skies and warm temperature during the days and rain all three nights. Just enough to knock down the dust and make the trails nice and tacky! I want to thank Cam McRae and his guys for putting on a great event and give a big shout out to all the riders! They all came to Silver Star and put on a great show! You all have a tremendous amount of talent and will go far in this industry if you continue riding like you were this weekend. Thanks again!

For those of you that did come up for AIRprentice you probably noticed a couple updates on Super Star? The new berms Trail Crew did on upper Super Star are a hit! I was watching Matt Hunter rail through them this weekend cheering! And the full buff on Rock Star did not go unnoticed, especially the run into the upper over pass! Now we just need it to keep raining a little ever night to keep it that smooth!

On the plate this week for Trail Crew is some re-working on Flow and finishing of the new exit on Challenger. I will keep you abreast of other changes later in the week but if you are riding I am sure you will see their work and let your friendly trail crew know you appreciate all their hard work! See you on the trails!

Later

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

It is going to be a nice weekend on Silver Star! Trail Crew did trail inspection yesterday and the Park is running really good! With the dry weather the dust is coming up in the open areas but for the most part the trails are quite tacky.

This week we did a little re-route on World Cup coming into the Village. We took that sharp hair pin out of the trail and looped it around so you are not hard on the brakes. It is a little soft at the moment but everyone seems to be happier with the change. Along with this change on WC we did some buffing and changing out of some carpet. I love it when World Cup is running smooth and fast!

We put some more time into lower Shazam this week. Along with a bunch more buffing we hauled in a truck load of rock and shale to armour large sections of the trail. With this warm dry weather it should hold up nicely! Yesterday riding it I would have to say it was in the best shape ever.

One of the Red Bull features on Double Dog got a little modifications as well. The upper TTF had the jump pulled off the line. It was always hard to carry your speed over that jump and through the wall. Now you can high mark the wall and come off in the sweet spot like never before.

A lot of the wet spots along the trails from last week are getting shale pulled into them. Watch for those low spots to continue to come up and get hard and fast. This will be an ongoing theme this year and you will see it already starting to transform those muddy slow sections of trail!

Today we are going to be working on Upper Shazam and Upper Pipe Dream. Over the years a couple of the berms have started to slide down. We are going to be pushing them back up allowing them to hold you through those turns again. Our Ditch Witch is a great little machine and is allowing us to go into key spots like this and re-work them. Watch for those berms you feel are no longer holding you to come back to life!

Have a great weekend of riding and remember to bring your hydration pack because it is going to be a hot one this weekend and we all hate riding with dry mouth! Later

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

Well I don't know about anyone else but I just had the best weekend of the year Riding Silver Star Bike Park!!!

Not sure if it was the perfect amount of moisture, the tacky trails or, the buffing trail crew did over the week. I hope everyone else enjoyed their weekend as much as I did!

We will be working on lower Shazam again this week. Apologies for this section of trail being closed again, there are a couple of pesky springs that keep popping up in some of the berms, they are giving us some grief. If all goes well we should have it up and running soon. Sorry again for the inconvenience, I guess we are lucky not more places on the mountain are like this.

The new Blue trail I was telling you about is still in the works but, not wanting to neglect trail maintenance it may not come as soon as I had hoped. We will keep picking away at it and see what happens. Most importantly we will keep the rest of the park in great shape!

Have you heard of Ant Hill Production? This is the crew formally of The Collective series. They lost one member of the original team and are coming on stronger than ever this year. Darcy and Jonathan were on Silver Star Monday scouting for this seasons up coming film. I can't wait to see what the best riders in the world, being filmed by the best filmers in the industry, on one of the best Parks in the county is going to look like? It should be an amazing section in their new film. Look for it this spring! Read more at pinkbike.com

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

Well, we got the rain! Full props to all you riders that came out on Monday and rode through the storm. It was a wet one up here but it sure is going to make for a nice weekend! Can the trails get any better?

I have a question: where do the stutter bumps go when it rains? This is something I think we need to take to Myth Busters! The Bike Park is in great shape - don't get me wrong - but after a good couple of days of rain the trails turn into pavement. With the moisture, the trail crew hits as many runs as we can for maintenance, but for the most part we only need to hit the big spots - the rain takes care on the small stuff!

With that being said; Double Dog is getting rave reviews this week! Mike and Jay hit that sucker top-to-bottom and it's running like it's loamy again! At least, this is what I am being told as I have not had the pleasure yet myself.

The full crew did Super Star top-to-bottom as well. And it sounds like the new re-route at the bottom is running great already, I can't wait for that one! Steve and myself put in a little re-route on LTG to get around that pesky bog before Poncho Via (the multi Teeter Totter). It should flow better again and a better line onto the feature!

First thing Friday morning we are hitting upper Shazam and upper Rock Star for a little buffing as well. On top of all this maintenance we managed to get a couple new features in the skills area, in front of the rental shop, so make sure too check those out.

Enjoy the weekend it is going to be a good one!

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

The opening first two weeks have been a hit! Congratulations to all the riders that made it out to Silver Star. You're probably still bragging to all your friends on how good it was. Thanks for helping us spread the good word. It's turning out to be one of the best years ever - not just the best opening.

Our opening week was nice and tacky, then it warmed up last week, making everything really fast. Now the rains have arrived and will help to put down the dust. We couldn't have asked for better weather!

Going forward, watch for some changes on the blue/green trails. The black diamond riders got all the love early season and now it's the intermediate riders' turn. There is a fresh re-route on the lower portion of Super Star that will continue the flow of the trail and take out some of the straight shots. It also gave us a chance to put in an Easy Way Around for all you riders that want to avoid the woodwork, hip and step up on the finish of that trail. It will now put you onto the finish of Challenger. The great part about the changes is that Challenger is getting a new finish as well. We are taking it form the open run of winter's Whiskey Jack run and putting it into the last tree island at the bottom. Watch for that next week some time. Along with that change to Challenger there are a couple more blue braids in the works for this great progressive trail.

We are also starting a whole new trail! Can't say much at this time but it should be fun for all and give another option back to the village. That's coming this the summer!

For all you fans out there remember NSMB AIRprentice is coming to Silver Stat Bike Park this July. The boys were up her scouting the lines this week. It is going to be a great event with some of the newest up-and-comers in the sport. Book in mid-week and get on your third day free and you get to see all these guys training before the event.

Enjoy the riding and I'll see you on Pipe Dream after I warm up on Super Star!

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

It is upon us! The Bike Park at Silver Star opens June 25 and I must say, I'm jacked!

The snow is off the trails, they're tacky, buffed, and just waiting for the Comet Express Six-Pack to start turning.

The Trail Crew are busy putting the finishing touches on all the new sections of trail, including new sections on Rock Star and Double Dog. Once that's done, they're re-walking all the trails to make sure the heavy rain last weekend didn't leave any puddles to get your toes wet. As with every opening there may be the odd muddy spot, but for the most part, it's going to be an amazing weekend!

Blowing the snow off the trails a couple weeks ago gave them time to dry out and allow us to make sure they're in pristine condition. I had the fortunate task of laying my tires into a couple of the new sections of trail and I can say that once they harden up, they're going to be a hit! All it's going to take is one day of people in the park and a couple times down to figure out the line and life will be good!

The berm-to-berm transfers on the new sections of Rock Star worked out marvelously. Same for the rhythm of Pipe Dream — it kills. The new pump-track on Double Dog will have you dizzy with excitement.

I will still be buffing the trails Thursday and Friday, so for all you lucky riders that are skipping work, I won't see you in until Saturday. That is, unless you holler a friendly hello as you go racing past!

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park Director

End of another hard week, and the Silver Star Bike Park is almost ready to go! There’s a couple of keys spots at the very top of the mountain where the snow is hanging on and we have been busy giving it a little help finding the door. With only 6 days to go until the lift starts rolling we are throwing everything at it. A snow blower is back breaking work but it moves the snow way into the trees. For the deeper sections the Mini Excavator is helping us out. With the recent warm temperatures it’s amazing how there can be any snow left on the mountain!?! Never fear, 97% of the trails are tacky and ready for my tires. One more week of warm weather and the whole mountain will be begging for it!

The crew has everything cleared and ready from the top. Allowing us to focus on the changes to Pipe Dream, Rock Star and Double Dog. The new step up on Pipe Dream is going to be the new trick booter for Silver Star! The hang time you get before putting it into the tranny should allow you to dial in that no footer you’ve been working on! Along with a new rhythm section of mini step ups and step downs this new piece of trail should have us all giggling!

Jason Martin has the Ditch Witch dialled this year! Steve Darby and him are re-working the section of Double Dog that had the pump track last year. As most of you know it did not really work out as planned, so we pulled out all the stops and are making it bigger, faster and with more flow. I am really excited to see what the boys come up with!

All in all I think this could be the best Park opening yet! Having a returning crew and all of them loving their jobs has made the preparations for opening quite enjoyable. We all knew what jobs had to be done and we did them with time to spare. That allowed us a little bit of extra time to give a bit of extra love to the trails.

Speaking of love, remember girls Silver Star is looking after you this year. Mondays in July are 2-for-1 lift tickets for ladies! We know what that means boys, ya that's right…more girls ripping up the mountain!

See you on trails soon!

Later,

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

June 10 2009

Well here we go again! We are only a couple of weeks away from the Park being open and we’re shoveling snow! I guess that means it was a great winter season? I know I had a lot of good pow turns in the spring! It is however coming back to bite us in the butt. But don't fret mountain bikers, Silver Star is on it! We are bringing in the mini excavator and shoveling other sections by hand. The nice thing about the Okanagan is it only takes a couple of days for the trails to get nice and tacky after the snow is off.

It is really hard being on trail crew this time of year! When we are walking the runs buffing them to perfection with all the nice moist OK dirt, you constantly hear from one of the crew "I really wish the lift was running. I want to ride this right now!" or "This is my favorite berm! I wish we could ride it today!" It’s true the early season riding up here is so good! The heat has not zapped out the moisture and every turn looks manicured. Maybe it is just that we have missed the park all winter because our park is one of the most manicured parks out there all summer long.

The network is coming along quite nicely! Most of the lower mountain has been walked and buffed. Mid mountain is getting the Royal treatment and the upper North aspect trails are having the snow removed. Along with all this trail maintenance we are starting to re-work those sections of Pipe Dream and Rock Star this week! Watch for some photos of us working on that coming down the pipe next week!

If you have not planned your trip to Silver Star yet this year check out the website for some of the great deals management has put together! If you can swing it mid-week there is a 3rd night free! If you can pull this off you are bound to get enough riding in each day to make your hands hurt! With the extra carriers on the lift this year, putting an extra 240 more riders an hour to the top and riding mid week, I don't think you would have to stop until the Saloon called you in for a beer!

I will keep Tim out there snapping great shots and I will update you on the progress leading up to opening day! If you are like any of us working trail crew we can't wait until June 25!

Later,

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park director

What a long, strange trip its been. Well it is official, Silver Star Bike Park kicks a%@!! After driving all around Western Canada and visiting more than 90 shops, the consensus is everyone loves riding Silver Star Bike Park!

The bike industry is going strong - all the shops I visited are having a great year. Despite all the doom and gloom the media is portraying about the economy, the mountain bike industry is not being affected. Sales are strong and there is a real appetite to devour the trails throughout B.C. So enjoy the spring and keep in mind there is less than two weeks to get your early bird season pass and qualify to win a GoPro HERO Wide helmet cam

Cameron Sorensen
Bike Park Director