A North Saanich-based man is using Campbell River as a jumping-off point for his new adventure, a multi-day electric mountainboard trip to the Mile Zero monument in Victoria.
"It's a been a plan for quite a while to come down the Island on an electric mountain board," said Bradley Smith.
His adventure will push the boundaries of endurance riding, terrain exploration, and backcountry travel over 400 kilometres. Smith will be navigating a mix of gravel routes, forest backroads and remote wilderness zones on an electric mountainboard. He will begin his trip on June 27.
It's not Smith's first time navigating Canada's terrain on a motorized board either.
"About a year ago, I just did a Guinness World Record trip across Western Canada from Saskatoon back to B.C., and I got a good feel for how long-distance on an electric mountainboard would be."
Smith was born and raised on Salt Spring Island but moved away at a young age to the Kootenays and Rockies area. In his early 20s, he moved back to the Island, settling in the Saanich Peninsula, where he fell in love with electric skateboarding and mountainboarding.
"I just got hooked. It was the thing I was most interested in at the time and with skateboarding and snowboarding, as soon as I saw somebody fly by on a motorized skateboard, I was like 'How do I get one of those, and how do I get it off the trail in the backcountry?' " Smith said. "So here I am."
Smith says he may tweak his plan a little bit and might make a detour to Arrowsmith and ride in the backcountry if he gets to Parksville ahead of schedule. He will then head to Nanaimo to explore the Trans Canada Trail and ride it to Victoria.
He's not sure where to start in Campbell River, but said that he chose Campbell River due to some technical issues.
"I was initially going to start in Holberg, but because of some technical difficulties like the batteries I had used previously a year ago, they were good to go, but just about a month ago, they lost about half the batteries that I was going to use due to wear and tear, or they were just not functioning properly, so that split my distance right in half right away."
Campbell River was the midway point, and Smith says he always loved Campbell River. In the past, he took a skateboarding trip down Vancouver Island, starting in Campbell River as well.
