My Time At SGC
Photo: summergravitycamps.com
SGC (summer gravity camp) is a camp for teens up at the mtb mecca of Whistler bike park. A couple of years ago, I had the chance to ride with people across the country, improve my skills, and hit some of the best trails in the world, all at SGC.
On the first day of camp, coaches get a feel for every camper’s skill level by watching them ride a pump track at the top of the mountain. From there, we were sorted into different groups based on ability that were around ten riders each. Although your group likely determines what trails you’ll ride, everyone took the first day to warm up on trails like Crank It Up and Ninja Cougar.
Throughout the week, we would focus on different skills, with some days being centered around drops (like the rock on A-Line), some on tech (my east coast experience paid off here), and others on jumps (my biggest area for improvement).
We tackled all sorts of terrain riding in big groups, or “trains.” While this really helped my skills on wide open and fast jump trails, it proved to be very challenging on tighter, more technical terrain.
At the end of each day (3:00 pm), we were given several options. There’s a lot of freedom at SGC so we could either be done riding for the day, head to the local skatepark or dirt jumps, ride the airdome (a sick indoor training center with a foam pit), or, if you had special permission like I did, do some solo park laps.
One issue I had with the camp was that in such big groups, there wasn’t time to ride a lot of your bucket list trails. To solve this, I took some solo laps at the end of each day, hitting gnarlier trails like Schleyer, In Deep, Detroit Rock City, and Joyride that I’d never hit in a big group.
Unfortunately, this strategy proved to be fatal as while bombing down Joyride (double black tech trail) solo, I flew off the side of one of the bridges which really messed up my back. At the hospital they told me to take the next day off and sometimes when I lean over I can still feel this injury.
The last day of camp was a great way to end things off. My group had the pleasure to ride with slopestyle legend Ryan Howard, or R-Dog. Although we did ride some tech, the majority of the day was spent doing party laps down A-Line in the pouring rain which made for some sketchy fun!
Once the pandemic is finally over and the border opens, I can’t wait to get back to SGC since it was one of the best riding experiences I’ve ever had!