Jeremy Grasby gets a little nostalgic whenever he rides past the yellow gate and enters the labyrinth of singletrack that is the Cumberland network. It’s short-sleeves weather. Trillium flowers are blossoming in the forests of Vancouver Island while the western toads croak their horny approval of spring’s arrival. There’s even a puff of dust in the air as Grasby rails a tight right-hander on Bear Buns, a local classic.

The trailhead parking lot was already halffull on a mid-week morning when he spun past half an hour earlier. It’s a testament to the fact that Cumberland singletrack—120 miles of it and counting, virtually all built on private forest land—is among the most used networks in North America according to online trail mapping resources.

What a journey it’s been.

Cumberland is one of three communities— Courtenay and Comox are the others—that comprise the Comox Valley, even though it’s not really a valley. Some might say it’s the coolest of the three, but it hasn’t always been that way.

“There are so many memories in these hills—a bridge here that I built with my girls, a berm there, a rock that we moved,” Grasby said, who has lived in Cumberland since 2002.

A solo female on an e-bike is paused at Syke’s Bridge, studying her smartphone intensely.

“You all good? You know where you’re going?” Grasby asks, the consummate trail ambassador.

“I think so,” she replies.

His embassy services only go so far. Especially on the first warm day of the season when an electric springtime buzz fills the air. The dirt is tacky and the snowline has receded almost to the top of the network. He doesn’t stop to inquire further. She’ll figure it out.