Ninja Cougar, Karate Monkey, Samurai Pizza Cat, Ho Chi Minh, Heart of Darkness, Family Cross  

Notes:

This is the run I rode the most at Whistler.  A mix of flow and tech, for what was mostly a fast and aggressive ride.

The run starts from B-Line with a handful of corners to warm up on before popping up onto Ninja Cougar for a short traverse across a ski run and a road to an adjacent pocket of trees via a section of North Shore ladder work.

Ninja Cougar has quite a lot of tight loose berms separated by fast traverses with heavy braking.  It has a few challenging rough sections, lots of braking bumps and at the time of riding had lots of bomb holes leading into berms.  While some of these holes were repaired during our time in Whistler the trail was too rough and too lose for me to really push hard.  This video is my PR run.

Ninja Cougar runs into Karate Monkey which is a rough trail but not as steep as Ninja Cougar meaning longer straight stretches.  It also has some ladder bridges with narrow trees and a fairly sketchy shoot that was super slippery on account of the dust covered cobblestones, deep talc at the bottom and a tricky turn midway down.  I suspect we rode it in some of the toughest conditions.

Samurai Pizza Cat is the shortest trail but contains the most technical sections.  The video doesn't do this trail justice.  Lots of bomb holes and dug out roots and rocks meant holding momentum and minimising the front brake was the safest option.  For the most part the video shows the trail as flat but listen carefully to my suspension banging the whole way down.   This is definitely my smoothest run down the rocky shoot into the roots, it looks like I unweighted really well.  I had my heart in my mouth every time I came down there.

Ho Chi Minh starts with one of those horrible open sections that is full of corrugations before entering into the woods for a minute of some of the most amazing super flowy slalom riding you'll find.  Ho Chi Minh is one of those trails that when you're on you'll be flying and when you're off you're game you'll be panic braking and riding like a muppet.

"One stage you feel incredible and the next you ride like a bloody squid." Jared Graves - On Track S4E5

Sadly Ho Chi Minh is over way too quickly shooting you out into the open trail merge that will suck the life out of you.  You can literally feel the number of runs you'll get done in the day dropping by the second as the corrugated trails from here down drain your energy reserves.  (Someone described watching your power-bar reduce in a 90's video game)

We found the most efficient and also most fun way down was to take the top of Heart of Darkness and then head across to Family Cross (as seen in the video).

The top section of Heart of Darkness was quite loose but for the most part we could get off the brakes, the bottom section of Heart of Darkness (not shown) is a big flow trail with massive table tops however it was in DIABOLICAL condition when we were there so only did it once or twice.

From the top of Heart of Darkness we headed back across the open section to Family Cross, a flow-jumps track cut that through the Crankworx Slopestyle course.  It was by far and away the most enjoyable way to finish a run down the Fitz Zone.

Comparing this run to other trails

Pork Barrel and Double Dissolution, Stromlo - very similar to these trails in many respects, in fact if you put the Double Dis berms into Pork Barrel you'd have Ninja Cougar.

Tihi-O-Tawa, G-Rock, Boulderdash, Rotorua Redwoods - some similarities to Ninja Cougar, Karate Monkey and Samurai Pizza Cat for the roots and fast entries into tight berms. 

Corners (Old Corners), Rotorua Redwoods - Ho Chi Minh is very similar to some of the lower slalom sections of the old Corners trail.

Challenge and Challenge Roadside, Rotorua Redwoods - Family Cross is very reminiscent of the Challenge area (and not surprisingly the bottom section of the Kosciuszko Flow Trail, Thredbo)

Blog articles that mention this trail

• 6/9/2018 - Silver Mountain Bike Park - is there a better descent in the world?

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