With Tin Can Hill in the headlines, one group that routinely puts the trails to good use is hoping to expand.
The Yellowknife Mountain Bike Club uses the trails for regular gatherings. At a recent Saturday excursion around the hill, board member Chris Bruckner told Cabin Radio how the club and various riders are trying to grow cycling in the city.
Bruckner’s pitch to residents is that joining the club offers “a fun time and community.”
He points to weekly group rides designed to include all ability levels and leave nobody behind, as well as Ecology North’s promotion of winter cycling and a fat bike race planned in mid-March.
“This is a fun time of year because once the trails become packed down, we get that fast and flowy mountain bike stuff,” said Bruckner, who moved to Yellowknife in 2022.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
“Tin Can is groomed by myself and a group of other people and we get some gnarly stuff on the trails like snow rolls, drops – you have to come out and see it.”
Bruckner was previously the president of Inuvik’s cycling club and says the bike community in the Beaufort Delta town is growing, too.
He has also set the Guinness World Record for the time taken to cycle across Canada, reportedly getting from Vancouver to Halifax in just over 13 days.
Maybe that’s why his favourite event in the territory is YK2HR, an endurance event by NWT standards in which cyclists start in Yellowknife then bike to Hay River, camp and head back over the space of three days.
“Rain, snow or shine,” he said, the territory’s riders are ready to welcome new cyclists and share their passion for the sport in the North.
“Our mandate is really just to expand the sport in our region and get people interested and passionate about bikes.”
