Pancho's Revenge

Wow – what an extended long weekend of riding! The Mice, Holy Pail and the grand opening of Pancho’s Revenge!

Those of you who have not ridden the Holy Pail in Westbank – need to do so ASAP! What a great trail; a perfect combination of masterfully laid out, subtly ascending singletrack, mixed with the flowiest descent in the valley!

To cap the weekend, ‘Frank the Builder’ introduced about 20 friends to his masterpiece of vertical drop: Pancho’s Revenge. I have mapped this new trail (with thumbs-up from Frank) and presented it here for your pleasure; CODE4 is represented as a magenta line, KD is in red, Pancho’s is dark red, Carmi Rec’ trails are orange and the road in is grey.
Those who know The Bog area will find it smack dab between CODE4 and KnuckleDuster.

For the rest of you; follow the C4/KD top entrance until you hit the upper Carmi trail network (onto the Peat Bog Loop). At that point, you will be on a two-track directly opposite a wooden drop-off / stunt. Veer off the C4/KD trail and go to the left for 120m, where you will see an opening in the forest on your right; this is Pancho’s trailhead.

A word of warning for mere mortals; wear armor, wear a full-face helmet and study everything before you try it. I would rate this trail as a solid black-diamond in difficulty; Frank calls it a black/blue – but Franks rating system is fairly extreme… Intermediate riders will find Pancho’s to be a double-black diamond. The crazy riders that you see in the bike videos would rate this as moderately easy. I would call it one of the most challenging trail in the South Okanagan.

Frank spent the better part of two years building this new trail - with the specific intention of handing it to us; the community of riders. I suggest that all of us should respect him by doing everything that we can to maintain the surface of this route. If something breaks, let him know (via PACA if necessary) or if you have the skill, repair it to the same or better condition. Don't add to it unnecessarily and, well, just be cool with the gig.

Thanks to Freedom for the use of their bike trailer, a paid shuttle and driver. Kudos to Frank and the Cannery for the refreshments and munchies. Enjoy the trail, treat it with respect (or it’ll kick your butt) and use your head; riding within your skill level without the heroics. It broke Kyle's wrist today; scraped my face up a bit, slammed our favorite Japanese friend down sumo-style and caused several others to kiss the bark once or twice...

We did several laps of the trail today, but I was so wired on adrenaline each time, that I neglected to take many pictures; will rectify that in the future.

Andrew D.

It doesn't look so impressive here... I swear it was cooler in 'real life' :-) (Holy Pail)



Lookin' for a ladder to save my butt (Holy Pail)



Pancho's Revenge - Just inside the trailhead (Frank's chainsaw handiwork)



AndyMan - Most of us were sportin' a little blood after Pancho's...

I'm sorry I didn't get to see more of pancho's revenge, but what i did see was awesome. kudos to frank for an awesome and challenging trail. In case there was any doubt my arm is in fact broken, in 2 places, a chip off the end of the ulna and a clean break and displacement on the end of the radius. The crew at the Penticton hospital were really great and took very good care of me.

A really big thanks to Andrew, Andy, and Dino for taking such good care of me and helping get me and my bike out of the trail. I owe you guys a beer. I hope it didn't put a damper on the ride.

Looking forward to trying again next year!

Kyle

P.S. I'll be working on a wipeout reel using the footage I've accumulated this year and this crash will definitely be in there. I'll try to remember to post a link here when I get it on youtube so you can see what not to do on the 3 amigos.

Kyle,
Hope you recover quickly.I was only happy to assist you and get to practice some first aid.
The rest of the ride was most excellent and challenging.Andy and I drew some minor blood as well.Look forward to riding the trail with you when your back in avtion.
We may have to rename the trail to "Kyles' revenge." Or, "Kyle and Vances' revenge."
We had a fellow rider dislocate his finger on our ride last night.Hope your feeling better today Larry!
Dino