WORCA - Whistler Off Road Cycling Association

Thanks to for generously donating prizes, you have a chance to win a Rocky Mountain Altitude C50 29 Bike 2026 (Retail Value: $6,999)!

Support WORCA’s trail development and advocacy work in Whistler by purchasing a raffle ticket: worca-2026-comor.rafflenexus.com/a/2

You could be the lucky winner! 🍀

⚒️ TRAIL CREW UPDATE ⚒️

Nap Time!
Crankworx snuck up on us early this year and it was a whirlwind! I lost track of the days of the week and simply followed my activity to-do list until it was over. Lucky for us, BC day closed-out the festival for a much needed long weekend. Trails Director Ben and I seized the short smoke free window to test out the “now open for the season” offerings in the Sproatt alpine. The bugs kept our pace brisk, as we navigated minimal snow up Happy Hour to the best viewpoint in town. Trailside snacks are ripe at about 1400m, alpine flowers are out and so are the friendly rangers. Despite what the thermometer says, make sure to pack a light jacket if you’re planning to lounge up there. The summit breeze was a little more than refreshing. Back at work, (on the LOTS blue exit bypass) we armoured up the “springs” uncovered by last week’s rain. It’s always more fun to spend the day filling a hole rather than digging it! The forecast is looking to raise the wildfire risk and smoke ratings so we’ll be switching to lighter duties in the afternoons. In perfect timing, Cutting Edge Signs handed me a large box full of fresh signage plates...

See you on the trails!
Dan Raymond
WORCA Lead Trail Builder

worca.com/news/august7/26

This week we are riding a crowd favourite: Microclimate! Big apres at Buffalo Bills (minors welcome). See you on Thursday ❤️.

Thursday, August 13 2026: Ride starts @ 6:30pm
Apres hosted by Buffalo Bills, Whistler
Prizing by Gibbons Whistler

Course: Microclimate
Toonie First Aid: 236-967-5083
worca.com/events-calendar/toonie-ride-august-13-2026

⚒️ TRAIL CREW UPDATE ⚒️

Wild Weather Swings
The clouds let us “have it” so to speak this week! Timed perfectly with Crankworx and a bunch of volunteer digging activities, for a few hours everyday, it felt more like October than July. Up on Lord of the Squirrels, that moisture let the crew know about future mud issues… Meanwhile, lower in the valley, I got to host the first WORCA “ride/dig camp”. Coach Lucas guided the group of 11-14 year old campers to various locations around the valley where I’d set up some digging projects. We started the week in Cheakamus: removing excess duff and improving the last berm on AM/PM. The next day, I tried to hide behind my computer but the campers braved the monsoon. I met them at Hot Dog Pass. They were already soaked! After a snack under the WORCA tent, we needed to warm up, “let’s build a jump!” I exclaimed. That got everyone moving: collecting rocks, de-duffing the line and filling the wheelbarrow. It was raining so hard but no one seemed to notice. We harvested some great orange dirt by widening the only piece of this trail too narrow for my friend Sam’s adaptive bike to pass. “There’s too much dirt left!” said Catherine, when Jack declared that the jump was ready to test. That was easy to fix: we supersized a berm as the sun started to tease between showers.

I just had time to change my socks before joining the trail crew on a course flagging mission for Crankworx’s E-Enduro. We manage the race course marking for WORCA maintained trails that are used in large events to ensure the racers STAY ON THE TRAIL! It’s an opportunity to make some minor improvements to sightlines and choke the trail where necessary. It also gives us a great “baseline” assessment of the trail right before the event. And, of course, we return after the race to repair any impact caused by the race.

The Summer festival also featured our annual Trailforks sponsored trail day. “Big Rock Rob” saw the forecast and rolled into town just for this event! Marmot Mayhem was ready for another session of hefty benching, boulder stacking and tread capping. Trailforks founder Trevor May and his crew brought the same energy that helped complete the Rock Rabbit extension last summer. The WORCA dirt campers also joined in on the fun and they were rewarded with first tracks down the newest metres of trail. Coast Mountain Brewing helped us celebrate the dig session and midpoint of our trailwork season before everyone dispersed to watch the Adaptive-mtb AirDH, concerts, art shows, fundraisers or whatever else Crankworx could offer on a Wednesday!

See you on the trails!
Dan Raymond
WORCA Lead Trail Builder

⚒️ VOLUNTEER TRAIL DAY RECAP⚒️

Blow off your office meetings, move your work shift, and cancel all your appointments - it’s a WORCA x trail day on a Wednesday morning in the middle of Crankworx! We had a huge group of volunteers showing how dedicated they were to building new trails for our network. The WORCA teen trailbuilding / biking dirt camp kids showed up too, and with all that youthful enthusiasm (and young muscles fuelled by sugary candy) we made terrific progress! The recent rains had nicely compacted the mineral soil on the tread of the previous work, and made for some good digging on the newest section.

It’s hard to believe how far up Marmot Mayhem we’re building, after only a handful of trail days so far. It’ll still be a long time before this trail lights up in Trailforks and starts earning 5-star reviews, but every strike of the matlock and each bucket of dirt brings us closer to the finish line. One measure of progress has been removal of all the garbage from the old squat - this week we were down to just a few asphalt shingles and an old aerobie.

Bring your frisbee to the park, because with the hot days of summer upon us it’s time to take a break from trail days until September. We’ll be back on September 13, and will have a couple more trail days on Sunday mornings this fall.

‼️ Oh! And don’t forget: WORCA members can receive 30% off their 1st year subscription to and 15% off on renewal in subsequent years. Plus: feel good knowing $5 for your purchase goes directly to supporting our work on the trails— at no additional cost to you: worca.com/membershipperks ‼️

IMPORTANT: To take part in all WORCA events, you need to have a current WORCA membership, and to register in advance. For more info & to register: worca.com/trail-nights

Thanks for giving back to the trails!
Ben Hryciw
Trails Director

This week we‘ve got a shooting surprise lined up thanks to the Sea to Sky Nordics Club. And did we mention we have 300 après spots available? Let’s make it a big one. 🚲

Thursday, August 6 2026: Ride starts @ 6:30pm
Apres hosted by
Prizing by
Course by

Course: Wedge
Toonie First Aid: 236-967-5083
worca.com/events-calendar/toonie-ride-august-6-2026

The countdown is on... only 4 days until the 50/50 raffle draw‼️

A huge thank you to , & the Ride to Resilience team for inviting WORCA to be part of their film screening and creating an opportunity to raise funds for our local trail network.

The winner will be drawn at the Ride to Resilience film screening on Saturday, August 1, but you don’t need to be there to win.

Purchase your raffle tickets on-site or through the link below 🔗. We’ll see you at the show!

worca-2026-50-50.rafflenexus.com/a/2

⚒️ TRAIL CREW UPDATE ⚒️

Trail day!
The trail crew are happy to welcome WORCA members to our annual Trailforks sponsored digging event on Wednesday July 29. The weather looks to be cooperating: This weekend’s rain will make the soil primed for benching and shaping the Marmot Mayhem! Meet us behind Forecast Coffee in Function Junction at 9am. Coast Mountain Brewing is providing their best potent potables to help beat the heat!

Blue Squirrel?
12 years ago, when we started to build Lord of the Squirrels, we were aiming for it to be “one of the easier trails in town”, comparable to the Zappa trails and Cut Yer Bars. Back then, trail ratings were mostly subjective: trails would “magically” appear, then were rated in comparison to other trails in the difficulty ladder of a particular network. To put it simply: the gnarliest singletrack trails would get double black, the easiest unpaved ones would be rated blue. Everything else got rated black. This made the ratings heavily skewed to the mountain biking culture of an area… you may have experienced this when travelling to another town to ride: the ratings often seem “wrong”. Professionally building an Rec Sites and Trails BC approved trail (like in the case of LOTS), involves following the standards laid out in the widely acclaimed “Whistler Trail Standards”, published in 2003 by (WORCA member) Andrew DeBoer. That document presents more objective rating factors like width of tread/bridges, average/maximum incline and guidelines about obstacle height. And so, with great enthusiasm, we set off to build an epic blue trail. Upon opening in Fall 2016, locals could ride the smooth tread UP to the lake before shredding back down (Mystic was still unfinished). Some folks even thought we made it too easy. Pretty subjective analysis, but LOTS also met the measurable standards: average and maximum grades for intermediate rating (less than 10% and 35%). Once On the Rocks connected the alpine network a literal bike frenzy occurred: over 10000 sets of tires per season hammered the smooth tread, exposing roots and bedrock. “I’m not sure it’s still easier than the Zappas” said ex-trails director Tim Andrews, to which I rebutted: “ But it’s still nowhere near the likes of (black rated) Billy Epic, Out There or Business Time”. Debates about rider fatigue, alpine exposure and comparisons to home network ratings have raged (mostly online) since the trail opened but the measurables did meet the mark... until now. RSTBC has updated the Provincial trail rating standards with some new measurable factors such as exposure (fall height), segment lengths for grades and jump feature measurements. They have also adjusted most of the incline grades (steepness): the maximum grade for a blue rated trail went from 35% (unspecified segment length) to 25% for no more than 5 metre segments. That last line closes any rating debate: The last ridge of Lord of the Squirrels was at the old maximum. Several other blue trails in town have also been affected by the shifted standard. The WORCA trails committee has reviewed and debated priority/action for these. In some cases we simply changed the sign to Black Diamond (Mid-Danimal, A Cut Above, Upper LOTS). In other cases, network wants/needs guided us to redesign/re-route/renovate to retain the original rating: Deliniator, Dessert Platter, 99’er and now lower LOTS. So, we’re making a ride-around which will provide a more relaxed finish to Lord Of The Squirrels. It ain’t easy digging but the black flies are sure happy to have us!

See you on the trails!
Dan Raymond
WORCA Lead Trail Builder

‼️ A few spots left in our summer Dirt Camps‼️ Come join us for a supportive & fun time on two wheels. Small group sizes means plenty of personalized guidance in our ego-free coaching environment.

Availability for each age group:

Teen Camp (aged 13-15)
August 10-13

Youth camp (aged 10-13)
August 24-27

Child camp (aged 6-10)
August 17-20

worca.com/dirt-camps
Email [email protected] with any questions!