Canada's own Slickrock

On Thursday, Johanna (my lead instructor in BC) and I went for a drive up to Buckwallow Cycling centre, in the Muskoka region of Ontario. We're hosting an advanced mountain bike skills camp there this weekend, so we wanted to have a sneak preview of an area we'd heard so much about.

Buckwallow is in Canadian Shield country, with lots of pink and white granite breaking up the pine and spruce forest. You can practically hear the strains of a Tragically Hip song drifting over this quintessentially Canadian landscape. The area's rolling scenery was a favourite subject of The Group of Seven, one of Canada's most famous artist groups. Needless to say, we were pumped to ride.

We crossed the road from the parking lot and entered the first trail, a windy, twisty affair through tight trees. There were a few rock rollovers - a small taste of things to come.

We exited onto the road with an enthusastic high-five, excited about the possibilities that lay ahead. This was going to be a lot of fun. We came to the next trailhead; the sign innocently rated this next trail - The Weasel - a five out of five rating for difficulty. How hard could an Ontario trail be, we thought? Having two dozen seasons of BC riding under our collective belts, Johanna and I scoffed at the notion of an 'advanced' trail in Ontario. Our hubris would soon prove to be our undoing.

Immediately the trail came to a rollover, about 10 vertical feet down a steep rock face. We handled it with relative ease, but were both impressed. This was real challenge. More meandering through the forest, and then we came to another steep dropoff, this time on an off-camber rock face. We both got off our bikes to scope it out, and then rolled over, this time with a lot less ease. We both let out a hearty whoop - ! - and kept going. Over the course of the next 1/2 kilometre, the trail dished up a hefty dose of technical climbs - I mean technical - and steep descents on rock faces. Some of it was barely rideable, and we loved it.

The next few trails were smooth, fast affairs through the woods. Coming out of one of the trails, we met Mike McLaughlin, the brains and brawn behind Buckwallow. Mike is the full-time builder and owner of Buckwallow, and you can tell that he has a passion for trailbuilding.

We ran into local rider Carlos and spent the rest of the afternoon sampling every one of Buckwallow's amazing trails. One trail in particular - West D'Nile I think it was called - stood out. Over 80% of the riding on this trail is on rock: flowing masses of granite that look like they were poured onto the landscape with a ladle.

Buckwallow is Canada's definitive answer to Moab's famous Slickrock trail. It was an amazing afternoon of riding; I'll be back many times. If you live in Southern Ontario, I recommend you check it out this summer (take highway 11 past Gravenhurst and follow the signs for the KOA).

We'll be offering another skills camp at Buckwallow later this summer. To find out about dates and prices, sign up for our newsletter at right and we'll let you know via e-mail.

Keep ridin'

Mike