This Bike Trail has changed my Life Forever.

I am forever grateful for this piece of granite right behind me. And that's how you stop. And I try to stay fairly centered on the bike when I'm about to brake. What's up YouTube? Welcome back to the channel. For today's video I'm going to be riding my Propen Spin Drift, which means things are about to get pretty spicy. We're going to check out the trail you've seen before, but the features we're going to be riding are going to be pretty epic. Lots of tips coming your way, hopefully some great riding. Let's go. Okay, top of Guranga, every mountain biker has seen that iconic rock slab at the bottom, but there is actually a very the famous rock slab of Guranga. Actually the first time I ever came here was 2013 with my buddy Sylvain. We actually secured a place in Whistler and on the way we came to ride in Squamish. That was also my first time riding in Squamish. I had basically no experience with rock slabs. This is one of the first trails we've done and I couldn't even believe that people would be riding the line. And at the time there was only one line and that was the easy double black line. But here we are, 10 years later or so, I actually have done a video in 2019 I believe, with the four ways to ride on Guranga. At the time I thought that was a lot, but fast forward a few years and now there is eight or ten ways to ride on this rock. And in this video I'm going to detail everything. Not only I'm going to show you how I ride them, I'm also going to give you tips and pointers to make you progress on your bike if you come here, but also anywhere in the world. Some of the tips are completely universal and I'm sure that's going to make you a better rider. So let's go on to that video. Okay, this is our first line of the day. It is the most basic one but by no means it's easy. Keep in mind this is a double black diamond feature. There is a lot of things that are challenging. You can't come up with too much speed, the rock is quite janky at the start, so all those cracks want to put your front wheel out of line and it is difficult to stay stable and composed. But after that you got a steeper rock stop that's actually smooth. And as I often talk about in my videos, you want to use that compression to your advantage to slow down. And you have to be able to come basically to a stop before the next feature because often people carry too much speed, jump into that little spoon at the bottom and then get kicked a little bit weird and end up crashing on the fire road. And you don't want to do that because I've seen people doing that and it wasn't very pretty. So before actually even coming here, you want to make sure that you master rock slabs in squamish. In and out or dirks are a great way to progress with your skills. Some riders are very talented but they have just never ridden a slab. So if you come to squamish for the first time, definitely work on your slab. I often talk about it, I have plenty of videos about braking, but on a slab your front brake is your best friend. It does 95% of the work. So I'm going to demonstrate it right now. I'm going to go extremely slow and stop before the next feature and then I'll go with a little bit more speed so I can also build some of my confidence for the rest of the day. Let's do it. Stable, center, let's roll, hard on the brakes, very hard on the brakes. And that's how you stop. I don't know if you could tell on the video but I try to stay composed and I try to stay fairly centered on the bike when I'm about to brake. If my weight is too far forward because I use so much front brake, my front wheel actually might skip. So I want to really push all my weight and that's why I use that compression right here to be the most efficient. On top you slow down, right there you're actually able to stop. And as always I dig my heel onto the ground, make myself really heavy and I make sure that the bike doesn't try to come off the ground. I keep pushing on it, activate my core so I'm really strong and I can really press on those brakes. By the way, Ace Dominion A4 purple edition. I have a link in description as well as a discount code. And one of the reasons why you want to come so slow here is because if you pick up a lot of speed, jump into that spoon and you don't have some serious bike handling, it's not gonna end well. So now let me ride it fast to show you how it looks like. Okay, first line of the day. Nice! Big shout out to whoever cut the root right below the big one you see there because that made the run out incredibly more safe than it was. The last time I've actually ridden on Guranga, I did some night picture with Margus Riga for Outbound Lightning. I am so stoked on how they turned out. It was kind of a dream of mine to get a picture on the drop you'll see later at night. And it was very dry and it was incredibly sketchy so thank you so much. Okay, line number two. I believe Kevin Landry or Matt Bolton first rode it years ago. So we've got that first line, second line. You actually hop onto that rock where I am and then you have to drop. Difficulty obviously there's some exposure left and right so you have to be precise. It's not straight which makes things even more tricky. And then you've got to drop. It's not very big but that means that it multiplies your speed onto the main slab by a lot. So you need to be really good with your braking. Let's do it. Line number two on and off the rock. Nice! Smooth! And I don't know if you can tell on the video but I actually jumped from that rock slab right there to the next one. It is faster, smoother. Only issue though, you carry so much speed the compression at the bottom is gnarly and you can see how rutted it is here because everyone's going there. But me, I try to ride on the left-hand side because it's actually smoother. There's a better transition which is gonna make a smaller impact and more control. Line number three. Things are definitely getting spicier. So you come in, you hop onto that rock. You only have one bike and a half to get set up and then you have to roll down basically a vertical rock slab which is always wet by the way because the water drains from here all the way down. And for me the biggest thing is that instead of having to brake heavily on a super nice dry rock slab, you have to brake onto some super slippery black dirt. So your technique has to be really good. You want to be heavy on the brakes but not too much either otherwise you might lose the front end before the next section. So let's do it. Nice! I actually hop my rear wheel a little bit onto the steepest part of the rock slab so I don't get kicked forward. Line number four. I believe it's either Johan Barelli or myself who opened that five, six years ago. And similar to this one, steep rock slab but this time you start on a very flat surface which is great but lots of exposure left and right. I'm gonna come track stand here, look ahead to pick up my line and once I'm composed I'm gonna roll in very slowly here and right there there's that little kick and it might cause to have your rear wheel lifting. So what I do is that I'm gonna anticipate that and I'm gonna actually pull my rear wheel up this so I get onto the steeper part of the slab in control. And it's a technique that I use a lot anytime there is a steep transition on a slab or even something that's not necessarily a slab. You can use that basically anywhere when you go from steep to very steep. Braking at the bottom, similar to the line number three except that I'm gonna carry more speed, more momentum, so it's gonna be even harder. Let's do it. I'm gonna track stand here, I see my line and I roll. Nice! That bike is an absolute machine. This is definitely a freeride bike but you can pedal it like an enduro. It's quite literally the perfect setup for me. This year I partnered with Trailforks. It is a database of trail maps. I've been using the app for quite a few years now whether I'm at home or I'm traveling to new locations, even new countries. I use it for mountain biking but not only when I dirt bike or I hike. It's a super useful tool and it's not only for trail users, it's also for trail builders but also associations. You can record your ride and upload it straight to Strava if you enabled it and also you can check out in what shapes are the trails. Is it closed for maintenance? Is there any tree down? You can also report stuff. It's been super useful. I highly recommend you having the app on your phone when you go mountain biking. Let's keep riding. Line number five. It's actually a good evolution from number four but funny enough I found it very recently. Not sure why, I've never seen it before but same start. You track stand. It's a little bit steeper. It's slightly shorter because you land into a ledge so you're gonna have a huge compression that you have to manage. A little bit of time to break and then a second rock slab right after. So there's a lot more going on. You basically have to react super fast once your bike is gonna hit and it really feels like free falling. It's about eight feet tall but it sounds like you are actually dropping so it's a huge impact. Making sure that your suspension are set up properly is gonna be very important here especially as we move to the gnarlier feature. So with me I actually always bring a little shock pump and that's really good peace of mind if I'm gonna do a feature that's really challenging to know that on the fly I can just adjust the bike and make sure that I've got all the tools to succeed. So let's ride it. Line number five. I'm gonna track stand. I can see the line. It's pretty obvious and once I'm stable I'm gonna drop in. Nice and that brings us to our line number six. So now we are getting to the heart of the video. Definitely my favorite part of Guranga because I am forever grateful for this piece of granite right behind me as well as obviously the trail builders that put the trail together but this to me is what freeride means. It's brilliant evolution of regular trail riding and back in the day from 2013 all the way to 2017 I used to do those Whistler bike park videos where I was finding new ways to ride well-known trails. I got a little bit bored of it and as trail bikes got better and better I started to bring that same approach to trails outside of the Whistler bike park and this is really the first trail that I've done that on and yeah it's really gave me a second birth for my mountain bike career. I've ridden that in the day, in the night. I've got some incredible footage from it and I love it. It's really close from my house and I get to come here and keep riding it over and over and I never get bored of it because that's for me a way to keep my skills and my confidence sharp. It's really important that I do stuff that's challenging over and over so my mountain biking keeps on progressing and it's something I encourage you to do at home is get a feature that scares you and do it over and over and over because that's how you get better. We're gonna start by riding down it then I'll jump it but first we need to tackle the features that's just above that's no joke as well so let's go have a look. Okay number six down Granger. So this time I'm just gonna roll that first feature instead of doing a nose manual. So on the brakes, heels down, I'm gonna lift my rear wheel here. Wow I actually lost the front wheel. Nice. So I lost the grip when I went to lift my rear wheel and I pressed on my front brake. Obviously tire is like covered of dirt so it slides more but it's because I haven't been proactive. I haven't pre-loaded the bike to lift my rear wheel. I kind of rely just more on the on the front brake so here we go. This is how not to use your front brake. Okay so I always do a run-in by feet and then I go do a run-in on the bike and then I commit to jumping but this feature and probably why so few people have actually jumped it is because it's not your simple drop. You actually have to hip and it's completely blind. You have to be extremely precise. The landing is very short. It's very high consequences. There is so much going on but what I do is coming up from the rock slab on top I try to really control my speed as early as possible so I can come in into a very neutral and very stable position a couple of meters before the actual drop. I'm dragging my brakes and I actually go awkwardly slow. That's also one of the reasons why this drop is difficult is because you go so slow and I need two visual points. One on the granite which is that mark I've done and one away from the drop which is that dead tree. Once I'm lining up with that I'm gonna wait to be in the air before I actually turn the bike to line up with the landing and the reason I'm gonna be able to do that is because once the bike take off I'm gonna spot the landing so I'm gonna look over my shoulder look at the landing and once I see the landing I'm gonna kind of push my right hand a bit further. I'm gonna move my hip to the inside a little bit so I can move the bike around and then I'm gonna be able to line up perfectly with the rock slab. Let me get my run in and then I'll do it and for the little story the first time I ever did that drop instead of riding on the right hand side of this rock I actually went slowly over it that way I didn't have to hip as much but now that I've done it it's definitely cooler to hip into it makes better content and yeah it's just more fun harder. Okay way number seven to ride on Guranga. I'm gonna try to nose manual that top feature. Nice! I felt good! Yeah it's so tricky because when you nose manual it's off camber and there is a lot of exposure. Okay for the funny story the line I just rode I was told that kids around Squamish were referring to that line as the Remy line and funny enough it started to travel and people all around the world started to call some unique or creative way to ride on a trail the Remy line and thank you for all the messages but now we're here and this is not the Remy line this is the Nate's line. So my buddy Nate Speeds found this line I think in August of this year coming here going onto that rock and off the rock onto the slab and I absolutely love it it's really free ride to me he didn't build anything that's like as natural as you can go and it's awesome it's creative and that inspired me that's why I'm here to ride it and I was actually never considering doing that but I was looking at going on top of this rock right here and doing a bigger drop which would be epic but the truth is it's not doable unless you're gonna build a landing so anyway props to you Nate for finding that I'm gonna do a run-in and then I'll hit it. Spicy one actually getting on top of the rock is harder than the drop itself and the big problem is that your point of non-return is not here it's further back so once you're committed to go up you have to go down and I love it let's do it. Okay way number eight down Guranga the Nate's line. That was a fun one cheers Nate. As of now there is two more lines to go down Guranga but before I tell you about it let's check out my gear this is Norona they are my clothing partner for this year and hopefully many more years so those are the Shiboton pants I've got the Shiboton shirt flex gloves and the product has been incredible if you own some Norona gear atom you know what I'm talking about this is like super casual looking but it breathes really well you can move perfectly in it yeah I love the style they've been an incredible company to deal with okay let's go back to our line so this line I've actually redone it a long time before the drop I just forgot about it so that's gonna be line number nine I'm gonna come into that off camber slab right there and put my wheels into the crack so you have to really look ahead you kind of want your pedals to not be leveled you want some more weight on your outside foot because you are dealing with an off camber approach and you definitely don't want to lose control here and then you're gonna almost air into the pocket just a little bit like if you are doing some snowboarding or skateboarding and you drop into a ramp it's kind of a similar idea let me demonstrate okay line number nine nice actually it was pretty spicy to make the corner at the bottom and go up on that rock I used to go straight to the regular line which is significantly easier there's one line left as far as I know you let me know in the comment below if I forgot one but I don't think so Seth Sherlock rode from there on the side all the way to the ledge let me show you I've got some fizzy gravita tensor shoes with the Vibram sole the grip is unreal so he rode all the way down there puff of the ledge all the way down to the slab same slab I land on when I do the next line and I've done it in the past but right now it's really wet and slippery it's a heavy impact with super hard braking and I just don't feel like taking the risk today I think I've done enough stuff instead I'm gonna go back up and I'm gonna do a top to bottom on the lower section all the way to where the trail ends by using night slime it's gonna be really cool let's do it top to bottom to finish the day all the way to the end of Guranga okay smooth that was fun thanks for watching don't leave the screen yet I got something to tell you well that's it thank you so much for watching that video I hope you enjoyed it big shout out to Trailforks for supporting the channel and those were the 10 ways I found to ride down Guranga but guess what as we left we noticed someone started to build a new landing for 11th way that I actually looked at a while back I look forward to see the line finished and I'm always excited when I see new riders coming with new creative way to ride down some trails like this as always if you want to support the channel pretty simple just subscribe leave us a like a comment it goes a really long way and if you want to save some money and support me at the same time you can use some of the code in the description as well as those links thank you so see you next week