IT’S ALL SUNSHINE

BELLY FULL WITH A BREAKFAST BURRITO AND CINNAMON BUN, BUZZING FROM A DOUBLE ESPRESSO, I HELP OUR BOAT OPERATOR STRAP BIKES TO THE INFLATABLE FOR A 20-MINUTE OCEAN CRUISE TO THE TRAILHEAD AT SARAH POINT. AS WE NUDGE OUT OF LUND HARBOR, BRIGHT MORNING SUN GLISTENS OFF THE STRAIT OF GEORGIA SEPARATING VANCOUVER ISLAND FROM MAINLAND BRITISH COLUMBIA. BEFORE TWISTING THE THROTTLE, JAN SURVEYS OUR GANG OF FOUR MOUNTAIN BIKERS THEN SAYS MISCHIEVOUSLY, “EAGLE IS NOT GOING TO BE HAPPY WITH YOU.”

Trans-Sending. The Sunshine Coast Trail is a 120-mile point-to-point route linking large sections of old-growth forest hugging remote coastline.

INSPIRATION

I’m excited, the way a kid is on Christmas morning. Our present—new trail with a mystery around every corner. But I’m apprehensive about this quest for the El Dorado of singletrack. The Sunshine Coast Trail (SCT) is a newly completed, 120-mile point-to-point route running from the summertime yachters’ paradise of Sarah Point by Desolation Sound, down to the lonely southern ferry terminal of Saltery Bay on the Sunshine Coast. I’m apprehensive because I’ve drawn inspiration for this journey from a pitifully tiny sample of trail taken the previous summer. I hiked a 2-mile section of the SCT next to the plunging pools of Appleton Creek with my wife and two daughters. While Zola and Sabine tried to capture a toad in a side pool, I visualized—the way only a mountain-biking-obsessed person can—traveling this narrow piece of technical singletrack on two wheels. I’m a sucker for wiggly lines on a topo map. They wiggle their