New Trail: 90s Jank

After years of administrative work and months of digging, we're delighted to announce that Hartland's newest black diamond descent trail is open for business! Lovingly named 90s Jank — for reasons that will be apparent to everyone that rides it — it's a brand-new take on Hartland's classic tech trails. It begins at the top of Dave's Line and ends just up from the bottom of Walk Up, providing riders with nearly a kilometer of sustained descent. The trail builder describes it as a "technical flow rollercoaster," and it features an exhilarating mix of loamy singletrack, rock rolls, side hits, and a surprisingly forgiving skinny.

Speaking of trail builders: the credit for the work on this trail goes to SIMBS's own Trails Director, Andrew Mickelson, who has been working on the project since September. The work involved in building a brand-new trail down the side of a mountain is difficult to overstate, so we all owe a major thank-you to Andrew next time we see him out on the trails.

Of course, it's also important to note the administrative groundwork that has enabled this addition to Hartland's trails. For years, SIMBS has been without a formal agreement with the landowners (the Capital Regional District) to enable the development and improvement of the mountain biking zone in Mount Work; with an agreement now signed and in place, projects like this — as well as the brand-new climbing trails and trail redesigns that you may have noticed! — are finally possible. 90s Jank was proposed and approved as part of SIMBS' 2020 trail plan, which was enabled by the license agreement. With annual trail plans now a reality, you can look forward to more exciting developments in Hartland soon.

For a full ridealong of the new trail and all of its features, be sure to check out the video from our very own Mountain Bike Matt. There's a full preview of the trail taken just days ago, so you can see what all the hype is about!