I’ve had some serious fun on the bike during the past few weeks. I’ve been riding the Fromme fire road up to Grouse a lot, sometimes hitting a trail or two on the way back and sometimes just ripping as fast as I possibly can over the loose gravel and bumps. I love this ride. It’s such a glorious slog on the way up, and so much fun whichever way you come down. The light there is never the same twice.

B and I went back to Alice Lake for another enormously fun day, which also highlighted just how much progress my downhill riding has made this summer. I was able to clean almost all of the rooty, technical stretch through the trees that I’d walked significant parts of last time, and pick up speed and confidence on almost every trail. This remains one of my very favourite places to ride.

Last weekend I decided to head over to Seymour and see if I could find some trails that would be challenging without too high a probability that I would kill myself. My route took me out along Richard Juryn, Bridal Path and (I think) Bottle Top, which was perfect. I still had to walk sections and periodically scared myself witless when I took on something I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it down, but I had such a blast that I ended up doing the whole circuit over again before blasting back through the easy, loamy trails in the Seymour Demo Forest.

I’d left the car at Inter River Park, and under the influence of trail adrenalin I decided it would be fun to try the dirt jumps while I was there. To my surprise they were easy – far easier than some of the very technical trails – and a whole ton of fun.

It’s been a good dirt season. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be riding once the snow flies, but I’ve enjoyed my time on the bike this summer more than any other year. And it’s all thanks to the trails.