Some races you do for the finishline. The Back Forty, you do for the story.

Every June, roughly 200 riders line up in Whistler, British Columbia, for one of the toughest one-day races in mountain biking: 28 kilometers, three brutal timed stages, and enough climbing and descending to make your legs question your life choices. This year, one of those riders was our own Tyler Thunell, a Backcountry Gearhead who traded his usual job of geeking out on gear for surviving it. The rig in question? A 2026 Santa Cruz Tallboy he’d spent weeks dialing in specifically for the day. What follows is the race, the rider, and the bike that got him to the finish line still upright, still smiling, and—by his own admission—ten meters from throwing up.

The Race: Welcome To The Back Forty 

The Back Forty didn’t invent suffering in the Sea to Sky corridor, but it did inherit it. When Pemberton’s legendary NIMBY 50 ran its final edition in 2019, Whistler local Quinn Lanzon (a longtime board member at the Whistler Off-Road Cycling Association) decided the region’s tradition of “brutal, technical racing that also happens to be a great time” needed a home. The Back Forty has run every year since 2021, with 2026 marking its sixth edition.


The Back Forty brings together three timed stages totaling 28 km, 1,461 m of climbing, and 1,471 m of descent, stitched together across Whistler’s Cheakamus, Westside, and Alpine trail networks. Unlike a standard mass-start XC race, the Back Forty gives riders untimed transfers between stages. In other words, a built-in chance to eat, drink, and mentally regroup before the next gut-punch climb. It’s less a single brutal effort and more three separate brutal efforts. 

The Stage Breakdown for 2026:


• Stage 1: Checking Out Cheakamus: 11.2 km, 486 m climb, 496 m descent. Long, and—per WORCA race director, Kat Pohran—“not super tech.”
• Stage 2: The West Side Wallop: 8.0 km, 505 m climb, 352 m descent. Shorter, mostly uphill, “surprisingly fun.” 
• Stage 3: Alpine Epic: 7.1 km, 402 m climb, 561 m descent. Mostly downhill, except for a mid-stage climb Pohran flatly calls “savage.” 


That last climb has a name among veterans: Twenty-Seven Switchbacks, an old-school, punishingly steep grind up the Rainbow-Sproatt Flank that shows up right when your legs have nothing left to give. It’s infamous enough that riders talk about it the way you’d talk about a bad weather system—with respect, and a little dread. 


This isn’t a race for the faint of heart, and 2026’s field proved it: Enduro World Cup racer Jesse Melamed and eventual winner Max McCulloch battled to a 66-second margin at the front of the Open Male field (Max finished in 1:49:26.50 to Jesse’s 1:50:32.30), while Andrea Burley swept the women’s open field, winning all three stages and finishing the whole thing in 2:26:51.10.  


Tyler wasn’t chasing that podium—he’ll tell you as much himself—but he lined up on the exact same start list, on the exact same course, as the fastest riders in the sport. That’s the beauty of the Back Forty: the format doesn’t care who you are. It asks the same questions of everyone.

Tyler Thunell has been racing bikes and talking gear long enough to have opinions worth listening to, and by his own account, he’s a bit of a Tallboy specialist. In fact, the bike he rode in Whistler was his fifth. 


“It’s Whistler, so the level of technicality and terrain is close to unmatched,” he said of why he signed up. “But aside from that, the Back Forty truly has it all. Brutal climbs, rowdy descents, and a unique format with timed stages with moments to recover and fuel up.” 


That confidence came with some real prep behind it. Tyler and the crew pre-rode Stages 1 and 2 for two days before race day, turning what should’ve been easy 15-mile scouting laps into much longer days of hiking sections repeatedly to capture footage. By the time Tyler actually pedaled over the start line, he was already running on fumes, nursing a recurring neck injury, and doing the pre-race math every racer knows too well: nutrition, tire pressure, and the sudden panic of did I forget my sunglasses? 


“Start lines are always a jittery and nervous moment for me,” he admitted, “even knowing I wasn’t going to push 110%. Plus, I REALLY wanted to ride the bike park the next day.” Priorities. 


Once the racing started, his own strategy shifted fast from “race mode” to something more survival-minded: get to the finish without blowing up. Twenty-Seven Switchbacks lived up to its reputation.  


“I will never forget that hellish climb,” he said, and the final approach to the finish line offered no mercy either, dumping riders out of a rooted, twisting descent onto a finishing pitch too steep to carry any speed through. 
 

“I didn’t puke that day,” he said, “but I sure thought I was going to after that last 10m.” 


Ask him for his favorite moment, though, and it’s not a trail feature at all; it’s what came after.  


“My favorite part was the lake plunge post-race. It just seemed like the best way to relax and cool down, grab food and a drink, and know that the grit was over. It seemed like everyone ended up at the lake at some point, and it was lovely.” 


That’s the Back Forty in miniature: full-send suffering followed immediately by full-send community. 

The Kit: Brought To You By BGA, Of Course

Racing all day in June Whistler heat means the right layers matter as much as the right lines. Tyler’s bag for race day included Backcountry’s own Slickrock 11in Bike Short (his go-to short for any ride, thanks to pockets that stay out of the way while pedaling, an integrated belt, and enough ventilation to matter on a 30°C day), paired with the Backcountry Tahoe Sun Short-Sleeve Crew. He’d also packed a black jersey and a pair of Slickrock Pants for cooler conditions, but as the heat built across three days on the mountain, he made the smarter call and switched to shorts and white on race morning, proof that even a Gearhead’s kit plan is a living document. 

Rounding things out were a pair of Leatt MTB 4.0 Lite gloves (the kind of lightweight, ventilated glove built for exactly the all-day bar feel a race like this demands) and a set of Leatt sunglasses to keep glare in check on Whistler’s exposed alpine sections. It’s the same brand loyalty Tyler talked up when describing his broader protective setup: he’s a self-described “huge Leatt fan,” from the ProClip shoes he raced in to the ReaFlex Ultralite elbow and knee pads he called “killer for a little more protection without impeding movement.” 

If Tyler is a Tallboy connoisseur, the 2026 Tallboy V6 is the bike that finally made him stop tinkering—mostly. 
“This particular Tallboy is my fifth,” he said, “so I would consider myself a bit of a Tallboy connoisseur. My Tallboy V5 before this was overforked, 140mm in the front instead of 130mm, with more aggressive trail tires, so the V6 felt like the perfect evolution of what I needed.” 

The V6’s new 140mm/130mm front/rear travel and switch to a 4-bar suspension design had Tyler skeptical going in. His V5 ran a 120mm-rear VPP layout, and more travel usually means a heavier-pedaling bike. But it didn’t play out that way.  


“It felt lively, snappy, ready to push every mm of travel, and extremely capable,” he said. On the climbs, that skepticism turned into a selling point: “The proximity of the climb switch over the previous version is a huge win. I do tend to lock out the rear shock when climbing, but even when I did not, my tires felt glued to the ground, and I did not feel like pedal bob led to losing power on the ups.” 


He made a handful of deliberate changes for race day. The biggest was a 250mm RockShox Reverb AXS dropper post, a size that wouldn’t fit his old V5 because of its seat tube bend but does fit the V6’s XL frame.  


“I am still so pumped that [dropper post] can fit in the XL frame,” he said. “It really made the descents feel like the V6 was a much, much bigger bike.” He also swapped the stock front Maxxis Dissector for a Maxxis DHR2, less for outright performance than familiarity, as it’s what he already runs on his V5. He also dropped both his shock and fork pressure (roughly 10 psi and 6 psi lower, respectively, than he’d run on other 130mm bikes), a setup he could only dial in thanks to two days of pre-riding the course. And lastly, his cranks came down from a stock 170mm to 165mm for ground clearance and comfort. “I do feel like I had less pedal strikes by doing so,” he said. 


The payoff showed up exactly where it mattered.  


“The descents are where the V6 really punches above its weight class for me,” Tyler said. “It’s the kind of bike that makes you 10% better, fueled by confidence and control, just by throwing your leg over it. I was most impressed by how the suspension performed under braking. So many bikes do great wide open but lack with the variable of a race like the Back Forty—twisty and rooty, rocky and fast, technical and loose. There wasn’t anything you could throw at [this V6] that would make it stop performing.” 


His only real surprise came from the course itself, not the bike: “Just how long the climbs kept going, and how ready the bike was to keep going. There were times where my only thought was, ‘How on earth am I still on the same climb?’”  
And his one piece of advice to future self: don’t forget the tire plugs. “I certainly thought more than once, ‘If I flat, I am not getting to my plug very quickly.’ Oh, and masterlinks — don’t forget to have one.” 

Zero mechanicals, zero flats, and a bike he called “the closest to a quiver killer I have ever ridden.” For a race that chews through equipment and confidence in equal measure, that’s about as strong an endorsement as a bike can earn. 

The Takeaway

Races like the Back Forty exist to test the people and gear that show up to their start lines. This year, the answer came back loud and clear. A Backcountry Gearhead, riding gear he picked and dialed in himself, finished a race that regularly breaks people who are trying much less hard to survive it. 


That’s not an accident. It’s the whole point of having Gearheads on staff — people who don’t just sell bikes and bike apparel; they race them, break them in on brutal Whistler singletrack, and come back with real answers about what withstands the biggest challenges. Whether your next objective is a XC marathon of your own or a weekend loop closer to home, our Gearheads are ready to help you dial in the details. 


As for Tyler, he’s already looking ahead: a White Rim–in-a-day attempt once the Southern Utah heat breaks, a week in Sun Valley, Idaho, and, inevitably, a return trip to Whistler.  


“I can’t wait for next year,” he said. Neither can we. 

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