This year, TransRockies is celebrating its 20th anniversary of organizing mountain bike stages in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. To mark the occasion, we’re following Singletrack 6 from Fernie, B.C. to Canmore, Alberta. We’re not just riding, though. We’ve pulled out a classic steel Rocky Mountain Blizzard from way back when TransRockies first started hosting races to take on this six-day XC stage race.
A brief pre-amble
The original plan for this story was to race the Jamis Dakar SX that I had in high school. It was by no means a top-end bike. It was the first real bike I had (thank you Hardcore Bikes in Edmonton) and served me well as I dove deeper and deeper into the world of mountain biking. Before heading to Fernie for Stage 1, I asked friends at Broad Street Cycles in Victoria to give the Jamis a once-over to make sure it was, you know, safe. Or as safe as riding a 2001 bike in 2023 can be. A crack in the aluminum headtube meant that it was decidedly not. Stuck without a bike at the last minute, Matt at Fort Street Cycles stepped up to loan me this beautiful Rocky Mountain Blizzard on very short notice.
Why mention this? If you’re going to pull your retro ride out of the garage, maybe ask your local shop to give it a once-over.
2000 Rocky Mountain Blizzard
The Rocky Mountain Blizzard I’ve ended up racing is decidedly an upgrade over the Jamis. It has a beautiful, built-in-Canada steel frame with Rocky Mountain’s iconic maple-leaf fade that I lusted over as a youth. This 2000(ish) Blizzard dates to that brief era when brands often offered frames with tabs for both disc brakes and vee brakes, as retro-grouch mountain bikers decided whether the extra weight of disc brakes were really worth it (spoiler: they are). The Marzocchi Z1 forks are a bit newer, from 2002, but also have mounts for both brake options. Rocky even added fender mounts, just in case.
Rocky Mountain Blizzard from around 2000, with maple leaf fade.
Panaracer Dart tires were iconic in their time. The tread’s brought back, in white, by Fairweather as the Dirt Lander.
Rolf Dolomite rims use a 22-spoke count and are a disc-only rim.
A 1x drivetrain, but not the modern version.
9-speed Shimano XT rear mech gives a painfully-narrow 11-34 range, when not used with the original 3x group of chainrings.
Marzocchi was one of the most popular suspension…
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